Indie films might not be what they once were. But they’re not dead yet. And a big part of the state of independent film is still film festivals, despite the financial and content struggles facing places like Sundance.
“I’m optimistic about it. Nothing will ever beat that experience of having a film premiere at Sundance and that night, no one’s going to sleep because they’re racing to buy from each other. Plus the high altitude! That makes people probably overspend too, which is great,” Sev Ohanian, founder of Proximity Media, said on Tuesday at TheWrap’s “State of Indie Film” panel presented by City National Bank at TheGrill conference.
But the Sundance experience has changed, as Topic Studios vice president Jasmine Daghighian pointed out when moderator Sharon Waxman, TheWrap’s founder and editor in chief, asked about the challenging landscape.
“I think that Sundance putting their programming online has affected the way people feel about the movies because instead of having to be in Park City and see the movies immediately in the first weekend, you can go home and watch it on Tuesday,” Daghighian said. “That’s one tiny thing, but I think it has negatively impacted [the experience].” Not that Sundance is the only festival that can generate buzz. Daghighian said that Cannes — where Topic’s “Splitsville” premiered earlier this year to positive reviews — feels “like a better market in some ways, for awards-y movies,” because of the increase of international members of the Academy.
“I feel like there’s a sense of splashiness and prestige,” Daghighian said. She pointed to buyers like Neon, who “bought six movies at Cannes.”
Not that things are exceptionally cheery. Tommy Oliver, CEO of Confluential Films, brought up the Lily Gladstone film he produced, “Fancy Dance,” which took a year to sell after premiering at Sundance to positive reviews.
“It was a movie that nobody wanted to finance. And it was an amazing script, Native American director, co-writer, Native American lead. We came in. We did 90% of it. Everybody loved the movie and everybody talked about the importance of supporting Indigenous cinema and doing all these things, except for when it came to buy or put up any money,” Oliver said.
The biggest offer they got in the first 11 months the movie was up for sale was $40,000.
“$40,000 doesn’t cover the paper deliverables on the movie,” Oliver said. “We said no, because we knew what the movie was. And part of the issue was that the people hadn’t seen her in the way.” Gladstone had yet to make their Academy Award-nominated debut in Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
Oliver said that Gladstone spoke about the movie at a big event, which was attended by Scorsese and DiCaprio and other studio bigwigs, ostensibly to promote “Killers of the Flower Moon” but she used the platform to call out the fact that no one would buy “Fancy Dance.”
“They sat in their power in that moment,” Oliver said. “We never would have done that deal with Apple had it not been for Lily, taking them to task.”
