This post from a little over a week ago got me thinking. And then I did some more thinking and thinking. I asked “what’s needed most?” and came to the conclusion “make sure authored cinema continues to thrive, its practitioners can sustain careers, and the audiences for them continue to grow and connect”. And then I concluded “we need someone to be responsible for the health of the whole cinema ecosystem”. Definitely.
It seems the closest thing to an answer as to whom that is, may be our various film-support organizations. Was I mistaken that not much had changed with them over the last decade and an half despite disruptions like our industry had never seen before. I had to be missing something I felt.
So I dived into that big ‘ol pool of orgs and let it wash over me. I did a little comparison across what eventually became thirty-eight organizations. And I saw some things missing. I saw gaps and needs. I also found more existing work in some of those gaps than I initially expected. And then lo and behold, I ended up with a five-part series of posts for your enjoyment and information:
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Part One — What America’s Film Institutions Say Their Job Is
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Part Two — The Missing Middle: What Nobody Is Currently Responsible For
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Part Three — Who Builds What Next?
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Part Four — Building NonDē: From Good Intentions To Better Operations
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Part Five — Who Does What? Mapping America’s Cinema Support Ecosystem
I think it is a truly helpful collection, if I do say so myself. It’s a shame you can’t put it on your shelf and put another chip in the jar.
But let’s also get this clear from the start: this isn’t about anyone failing at their job. This is really about how we all free ourselves from antiquated mindsets. If cinema is to thrive again, our liberation is our primary mission.
Okay, now that we have that established, dig in!
Who Will Be Responsible for “Independent Cinema”?
America has built an extraordinary network of organizations to support what we once called “independent film.” We may even have an embarrassment of riches. They come in all shapes, sizes, directions, focuses, and communities. We’re pretty lucky, but we are sitting ducks if we don’t see where we are now and do something about it fast.
We have Sundance, Film Independent, The Gotham, SFFILM, the International Documentary Association, Austin Film Society, Firelight Media, Art House Convergence, Film at Lincoln Center, Tribeca, SXSW, BlackStar, CAAM, ARRAY, Women In Film, NALIP, Chicken & Egg Films, regional film societies, documentary organizations, grant givers, festivals, and nonprofit theaters. Just to name a few. Whew!
We’ve got plenty to work with. Hundreds of millions of dollars have flowed through these institutions over the decades, and thousands of filmmakers have attended their labs, received their grants, and screened at their festivals. From awards to markets, many have been lifted from the visibility these orgs provide.
I have benefited from many of them myself, worked at at least one of them, and believe deeply in much of what they do. I was particularly fortunate to come up when I did and be part of the early wave of such organizations’ growth and mission. But lately I’ve been pondering a question: What do America’s cinema support organizations actually believe they are responsible for NOW?
What They Say They Are Here To Do
One way to answer that is to read their mission statements. Put them next to one another and certain patterns become hard to miss. There are meaningful differences among the organizations, of course. Some concentrate on artists, some on particular communities. We have documentary focused orgs and some committed to education, exhibition, or preservation. You can slice, dice, and turn around twice and they still will have more to offer.
Sundance Institute talks about fostering new voices and championing independent stories. Film Independent wants “to champion creative independence in visual storytelling in all its forms, and to foster a culture of inclusion.” The Gotham “celebrates and nurtures independent film and media creators,” while also speaking of fostering a “vibrant and sustainable, independent creative community.” SFFILM wants independent voices welcomed, heard, and given resources to thrive. The Austin Film Society wants its community to “make, watch, and love film and creative media.” The International Documentary Association supports documentary filmmakers through grants, fiscal sponsorship, education, and advocacy. Firelight Media supports and advocates for documentary filmmakers of color and explicitly addresses creation, distribution, and impact.
Our cinema support institutions speak a common language. They want to discover, develop, support, champion, nurture, amplify, include, connect, educate, inspire, celebrate, and exhibit. Very good verbs, and using them, our orgs have helped build careers, communities, and culture.
What is much harder to find though — particularly as a central institutional responsibility — are commitments to own, earn, recoup, invest, compete, retain rights, share revenue, build enterprises, create markets, increase bargaining power, own the relationship with the audience, or finance the next film from the value generated by the previous one. There are meaningful exceptions, as we’ll eventually see, but the imbalance is hard to miss. When I drafted my Artists’ Bill Of Rights, I thought one such organization might comment, ask to meet, or even pick it up and run with it. Guess what? Nope. I thought it was a good starting point, but maybe I was wrong. Or is it that’s not what they care about>
What Happens After We Support the Artist?
Forty years ago, the problems our support institutions were built to address made sense. Filmmakers needed access, training, grants, places to develop unconventional work. We all needed festivals willing to show it, critics and programmers willing to recognize it, and introductions to financiers, sales agents, distributors, and producers. The support organizations also performed another enormously valuable function: they told everyone — philanthropists, academics, brands, the industry, and the general culture — that this filmmaker matters and this film deserves to exist. Hey! Pay attention! This is meaningful art!! Serious entertainment!!! Someone had to establish that back then.
That infrastructure helped create much of what we think of as American “independent cinema”. It blossomed in the era in which I got to make my movies, and I am truly grateful for it. But as you’ve lived first hand, the environment has since changed dramatically. Consolidation transformed media ownership. Streaming changed how films generate value while making much of that value vanish for the people who create them. Traditional specialty distribution contracted. DVD disappeared. Pay television changed. Foreign presales became less dependable, particularly for execution-dependent work. Marketing costs increased. The direct connection between filmmaker and audience increasingly became controlled by platforms.
Filmmakers can create cultural value, build an audience, and generate substantial downstream value without participating meaningfully in the economics they helped create — and that sucks. Meanwhile, our support institutions have largely continued doing what they were designed to do. Have their missions expanded enough as the problems changed?
A Supported Film Or Two, But MANY An Unsupported Cinemaker
Consider a fairly successful SC-independent-film journey. A filmmaker gets accepted into a lab, the screenplay improves, the project receives a grant, the movie gets made, and it premieres at an important festival. It gets good reviews, a distributor acquires it, the filmmaker does press, the film reaches an audience, and perhaps it wins an award. Everyone involved can reasonably call that a success.
Now take that one-in-a-hundred (thousand?) example and ask what happens afterward. Can the filmmaker afford to make the next movie? Do they own anything of enduring economic value from the first one? Do they know who watched it, and can they contact those people? Can they take their audience with them? Did revenue flow back to them? Can they see accurate performance data? Did the distributor recoup? Did the investors? Does the filmmaker understand why? Can that success become collateral, equity, audience leverage, or working capital for the next film? Can the filmmaker support a family, retire, or remain a filmmaker for thirty years?
Those questions appear far less frequently in the institutional architecture of independent cinema — or in the organizations’ mission statements.
Sustainability Means Far More Than Getting The Movie Made
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