New Ideas Popping On The Indie Scene, Pt 1
Making The Film Ecosystem Better One Step At A Time
There have been many benefits that have sprung out of the embers of The Strikes and Pandemics. Video-enabled group collaboration to advance collective action and solutions may well be just what the doctor orders. Be it various groups of producers teaming up to right the wrongs that have gone on too long. or mash ups of exhibitors, distributors, sales agents and producers to figure out where the friction is and how to steam out all wrinkles, good stuff is getting done.
Perhaps one of the most inspiring things for me is seeing new leadership emerge, brimming with ideas and can-do attitudes. Two folks who quickly impressed me mutliple times over is Lela Meadow-Conner and Barabara Twist, producers who wear multiple hats — and we are lucky they do for the distnct perspectives they provide. Most importantly they also gather no moss; they are firmly committed to getting things done.
As luck would have it they happen to have one ready to launch and I grabbed a few moments to discuss it with them, and frankly announce it to the world today.
Ted: So can you tell our readers who you are in a nutshell and why distribution of indie movies matters to you?
Lela: Our livelihoods literally depend on the distribution of independent films. We are both producers and two people steeped in the world of indie exhibition (namely regional art houses and film festivals.) We met in 2014 at the Art House Convergence through our mutual work in the exhibition field. (Learn more about our continued collaboration via this June’s Independent Film Exhibition Conference.)
Barbara began her career at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor before becoming Managing Director of Art House Convergence, leaving in 2017 so she could explore producing through the safe, yet expensive, lens of graduate school. Post pandemic, she joined Film Festival Alliance, where she is now the Executive Director. In addition, she spent 3.5 years in the fundraising trenches to open L.A.’s best new theater, Vidiots. Outside of her job, she spends her free time thinking about the indie film ecosystem and how we can make it better for everyone, not just the blessed few.
Barbara: Lela began her career as a co-founder of the Tallgrass Film Festival in Wichita, KS, and worked for several other regional festivals before becoming Executive Director of Film Festival Alliance. She now serves as Board Chair for the Art House Convergence. She’s the founder of mamafilm, which was born as a pop-up microcinema in a shipping container, and curates and produces stories through a maternal gaze. She’s also the co-founder of rePROFilm - a series that connects storytellers and advocates who celebrate bodily autonomy. Her producing credits include the feature documentary Chasing Chasing Amy (Tribeca, 2023), which has played at over 65 film festivals, in 13 countries around the world and…is seeking distribution.
Lela: In January 2020, we began working together at the Film Festival Alliance, bonded by our longstanding work in nurturing spaces for community-based cinemas and festivals. Three months later, we navigated our first enormous hurdle, and in the face of great isolation, we centered our leadership on coming together rather than falling apart. Cut to Sundance 2023, sick with COVID, laid up in our shared bed (shoutout to overpriced Airbnbs), our fever dreams led us to the utopian vision where independent films could be seen in theaters by the audiences who crave them - and everyone made money, from filmmakers to exhibitors…imagine that...
Ted: Well, the fact you already give each other bios is impressive. But I must confess, I find you both far more impressive by all you are doing. Let’s start with the most recent. What were the origins of this new project that you are announcing today? How was it generated?
Barbara: In late 2022, as audiences were slowly coming back to the movies, questions about available films to book began to pepper the industry Google Group for independent and art house theaters. The prevailing sentiment was that many independent distributors - who had relied on these theaters to support their pandemic releases by going virtual - were now booking art house titles in mainstream houses. Prior to the pandemic, the theaters and distributors had a more symbiotic relationship based on their mutual interest: the art house audience. Now, exhibitors were watching these same distributors take select films, which would have been an economic boon to art houses and which were highly desired by their audiences, and opening them for short awards-qualifying runs before going straight to a wide release or SVOD - skipping limited and specialty release windows entirely. Other titles were released on 600+ screens and only opened to art houses after grosses reached $1 million. (Without naming names, digging around at The Numbers can provide very specific data.)
Lela: Around the same time, I (and thousands of other filmmakers) received the ubiquitous ‘disappointing news’’ email for a film I’d produced (two films, two rejections, actually!) “Thank you for submitting, we had over 11,000 submissions…we only have room for less than .005% of them..” In fact, 4,061 of the submitted films to Sundance 2023 were feature-length films with 101 being selected for the program.
Ted: Ouch. I’ve gotten that letter too many times to count. So I take it you saw a pattern, yeah? A connection between the two?
Lela: Precisely! We wondered: “Why were art house and indie cinemas lacking for quality feature-length films at the same time that Sundance and other market festivals were receiving, and rejecting, a record number of submissions of feature-length films?”
Barbara: Many of these official selections went unsold or unreleased theatrically (a trend found at most market/industry festivals such as SXSW, Tribeca, and Toronto). Of the titles that did receive a distribution deal, many did not receive a meaningful theatrical release, leaving cinemas with even fewer titles to book from distributors.
Lela: We recognize independent distributors are facing increased costs and challenges as their output deals disappear and consistent revenue from decades past, like home entertainment sales have waned. We also recognize that a theatrical release requires an elevated marketing spend in order to achieve the industry’s only metric of success, box office dollars, though we personally feel butts-in-seats is a far more valuable and effective measurement of impact.
Ted: You mean admissions. Like they do in France and other countries. Report how many people show up.
Barbara: Exactly. We know a theatrical release is a notable driver for downstream revenue for a film, whether that’s a streaming sale, transactional/rental revenue, or even ancillary revenue like educational rights. The visibility and word-of-mouth that comes with a theatrical release raises the film’s profile and remains the best marketing tool throughout a film’s lifecycle.
Lela: I have this quote pulled and circled:
“In fact, according to MarketCast’s 2023 Streaming Tracker, theatrical releases drive eight times the social buzz than streaming-only release…Streaming releases that were in theaters first generated three times more social media buzz than direct-to-streaming releases.”
We know there is an audience hungry for theatrical movies because we are seeing returning film festival and art house audiences, and in particular, a rise in younger moviegoers. Data from last year’s National Cinema Day states that 38% of moviegoers fell between the ages of 13-34.
Ted: That’s really awesome. The Olds may still be shy, but the Youngs are picking up the slack!
Lela: In Chicago, Music Box Theater’s Managing Director Ryan Oestrich told us, “I saw what the younger demos were coming in for, asked our staff (median age 23) what titles they’d like to see, and then we mixed in more repertory and took some chances on first run films that spoke to that audience.” They continue to grow their younger audiences - 25% of them are under 30 and 59% are under 40 (that’s based on 2022 Art House Convergence Audience Survey data.)
Barbara: These audiences are smart, knowledgeable, and eager to see films on the big screen. According to Letterboxd (where half of the platform users are under 35), during the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, selections were watchlisted more than 400,000 times by more than 100,000 members, and as-yet undistributed titles like The Outrun and Ponyboi appear in thousands of lists. A market data report tells us that 78% of US moviegoers visit theaters due to positive word-of-mouth and recommendations.
Ted: That’s really what it is all about. We have to make people talk about movies again – not just post. It’s up to all of us to spread the word on what we love. Speaking of which, I need both of you to watch our latest film. Let’s talk about that later!
But seeing how theatrical works so well, why does it feel like everyone’s abandoned it for digital releases – which, frankly, from my point of view, lack soul. I am as lazy as anyone else and love my home, but I also love a big screen. Why are we giving up the big event?
Barbara: Yeah, that’s a good question. Knowing the audience's hunger for art house and indie titles and what we know about the impact of theatrical on overall revenue, why does opting for a digital release with a limited theatrical awards-qualifying run seem like a safer economic bet?
And not to avoid my own question but as a related aside, we noted a curious anecdote from Variety’s coverage on a panel last fall at the Woodstock Film Festival where Sundance’s Festival Director, Eugene Hernandez, spoke, alongside John Sloss and Bob Berney. Hernandez remarked “I was talking to a distributor the other night who told me that a sales agent came to him and basically said, ‘Hey, we’ve got like all these films that didn’t sell from the festivals this past year and we are literally going to give them to you for no guarantee up front so you can get them out into the theaters.’ And the distributor said, ‘I don’t want to to put the marketing money in, so we are not going do it.’”
Ted: You two have your quotes down!
Lela: We like to be prepared. The evidence is out there!
Ted: If distributors are unwilling, or unable to undertake the financial risks around handling more theatrical releases, why don’t filmmakers just take it upon themselves?
Lela: Funny you should ask. In fact, data collected by our friends Naomi McDougall Jones and Liz Manashil and published in Filmmaker Magazine in 2023 shows that “if your goal is to break even/make money, your best bet is self-distribution…In our estimation, this may be because the decision to self-distribute often is coupled with the building of a team to design the film’s release, which almost always results in a more specific, resourced and focused marketing effort than a distribution company will likely have time for in the current oversaturated marketplace.”
Ted: Whew. There you go again.
Barbara: But we see that as a band-aid. Producers shouldn’t have to become film distribution experts every time they complete a film; we need them focused on making quality feature films to feed our hungry audiences. Successful self-distribution requires producers to budget hundreds of thousands of dollars to the production from the start, which could be the tipping point between a film getting financed or withering on the vine. Plus, distribution and marketing costs are still not part of the equation for most independent film budgets (this is something we’ll address down the line), so if you didn’t budget initially for it, you’re already behind the starting line when you finally get to your film’s release and the necessity for self-distribution becomes evident.
Ted: And of course, once a filmmaker has done self-distribution once, they never want to do it again. But I have to admit I learned a lot doing it. I’ve done it three times now, and likely soon again.
Lela: And is there a one-size fits all solution these days? Every filmmaker we’ve spoken to just cautions that it’s So. Much. Work.
Ted: The really sad thing though is when a filmmaker does their own distribution, all the knowledge they gained isn’t usually passed on. The filmmaker holds it but it is not easy to share it and yet a great deal of those learnings will apply to other films and filmmakers.
Lela: 100% agreed. It’s a problem that needs to be solved. And it’s not the only one. Every year, we’re privy to the hundreds of amazing films that screen at festivals around the world to loyal independent film lovers, win jury and audience awards and are favorably reviewed by critics and on Letterboxd. Yet these titles, like those that premiered at a market festival and didn’t sell, rarely make their way to cinemas. Why not? They’re championed by festival programmers and audiences alike with a demonstrated market interest and awards validation. Are they destined for digital platforms only, only to die in the algorithm graveyard? Or worse, to linger on a hard drive for all of eternity?
Ted: You know I’m a theatrical die-hard, but what do you say about the articles that come out every other week about the state of theatrical? I believe there was one in Indiewire a few weeks ago saying that a new poll showed that most ‘adults would rather watch movies on streaming.’
Barbara: Oh, we saw it. Did you notice their survey size? “More than 1,000” people were polled. There were 828,546,098 movie tickets sold in 2023 domestically. I’m not denying there is a desire to watch at home, but the data has got to be more robust if we’re making trend predictions.
Lela: Despite the frequent, click-baity trade headlines about the demise of art house cinemas, and the lack of interest in ‘going to the movies’ anymore, we know that a thriving moviegoing culture is still possible - and actually happening right now. We came up in the worlds of regional cinemas and festivals where we saw firsthand the indelible role these community-based, mission-driven organizations play in their communities from economic impact to improved quality of life. We also recognize the power of curation and the craft of film programming, and how they uplift and nurture an audience’s thirst for meaningful, thought-provoking, and even world-changing movies.
Barbara: As undying champions for the theatrical movie-going experience, we’re not willing to settle for a future where the only movies on the big screen are $200+ million dollar blockbusters written by a committee and geared towards no one. We believe there is a way - many ways, in fact - to return to a functioning, resilient ecosystem that is vibrant and inclusive of all of us. The key elements are already there: movies, big screens, and audiences.
Ted: Here, here! I’d vote for that!
Barbara: It’s going to take many ideas, pilot programs, and experiments. Plus money and people willing to invest their time. But that type of creative innovation is what our field has always been great at. We work in independent filmmaking, of course we’re out-of-the-box thinkers. We’re producers, of course we can work with limited resources. And with our background in non-profits, of course we know how to exploit ourselves and our labor…
Ted: You are giving me hope for film! I wish I had spoken to you both sooner. It’s a whole wind of fresh air! Where have you been?
Lela: We’ve been in the trenches, doing our best to nurture communities of exhibitors and filmmakers, alike. Our roles as both curators and filmmakers has given us a really holistic view of the issues at hand. We’ve been observing, reading, having conversations. For us, it’s not about changing things from the top down, it’s about changing things from the bottom up.
Barbara: Independent film is at this super cool intersection of creativity and commerce, but that means that we need to leverage the economics to make the art work. In plain terms, we have to spend money to make money in order to keep this sector sustainable. And as we watch our field shrink due to consolidation and mergers, we fear losing that financial nimbleness that allows us to try, fail, and try again.
Ted: So, what can we as filmmakers, executives, and film lovers do about it? I suspect you two have been cooking up your own experiment…?
Lela: We’re starting The Popcorn List, a survey of independently produced feature films that do not currently have theatrical or digital distribution, recommended by festival programmers from across the U.S. Think The Black List but for highly enjoyed, produced indie films.
Ted: Love it!
Barbara: These films have delighted thousands of film festival attendees around the world. They’ve had festival programmers - from market festivals to genre and community-driven festivals - serve as their champions; they’ve won awards; and they have been highly reviewed. In short, they’ve been vetted by indie film tastemakers and they should be noticed.
In Part Two of this blog post, Lela and Barbara will unveil the list of 20 films that top this year’s The Popcorn List, derived from the simple query: “What is a film that you programmed at your 2023 festival that absolutely deserves theatrical distribution?” Stay tuned! And after that post, they’ll be coming soon to a theater near you…
Barbara and Lela would like to thank Dr. Alicia Kozma (Director, IU Cinema), Annalisa Shoemaker (Creative Producer & Theatrical Strategist), David Larkin (Strategy and Business Development, Letterboxd), and Ryan Oestrich (General Manager, Music Box Theater).
About the The Popcorn List’s Creators:
Lela Meadow-Conner
Lela Meadow-Conner is the founder of mamafilm - born as a pop-up microcinema in a shipping container, to curate and produce stories through a maternal gaze; and rePROFilm - a series that connects storytellers and advocates who celebrate bodily autonomy. She began her exhibition career more than 20 years ago, as co-founder of the Tallgrass Film Festival, served as the Executive Director of Film Festival Alliance, and is the current Board Chair of Art House Convergence, and a board member at Vidiots. Recent producing credits include Chasing Chasing Amy (Tribeca, 2023), and the 2023 Academy-qualifying/Vimeo Staff Pick narrative short Run Amok. Read more here >
Barbara Twist
Barbara is a film exhibition consultant and producer with a background in film festivals, art houses, post-production, and distribution. As a producer, her award-winning films have played at festivals including Austin Film Festival, Aspen ShortsFest, Palm Springs ShortFest and New Orleans Film Festival and have been nominated for the Student Academy Awards. She is currently the Executive Director of Film Festival Alliance. She is the former Director of Partnerships for Vidiots Foundation and the former Managing Director of the Art House Convergence. Read more here >
Anyone else out there launching good new ideas to improve the non-dependent film ecosystem? Let me know if you want to talk further on them. As Keri, points out, we really need to shine a light on them.
LOVE the idea of The Popcorn List! Can't wait to see it launch. Kudos!