---

The 2021 Film Festival Circuit: A Chaotic Collage

by Jeffrey Winter

I am just going to say what every professional involved in the film festival business already knows but may have been heretofore afraid to utter in public. The first six months of the 2021 Film Festival Circuit are going to be WAY weirder—and even more chaotic—and ultimately, probably even more difficult, than the first half of 2020.

Just think about that for a second: by comparison, 2020 was the normal year.

Consider: 2020 started normally, with the traditional launchpads of Sundance and the Berlinale and smaller showcases like Rotterdam, Palm Springs International, True/False etc. happening undisturbed…which resulted in a bevy of buzzed-about films, a relatively normal acquisitions pool, a business climate most of us were used to, and gave us something to work with. When the Pandemic crashed our parties…hard…in early March, everything just stopped, ceased to exist, and, really, there wasn’t anything we could do about that. Then the engines of innovation kicked quickly in to place, and around early May, we had moved into the new phase, the emergence of the “virtual festivals,” where we sought to replicate everything we had done in the old world…just online. By the end of the first half of 2020, we had even started to enjoy the relative freedom of drive-in screenings and created a new nostalgic norm we’ve been calling “hybrid” ever since.

But here at the top of 2021, they are even cancelling the drive-ins now…that’s how bad the Pandemic is right now (in many places). By comparison to 2020, what we have staring us in the face for 2021 looks like chaotic re-invention, essentially as if all the chips have been thrown in the air and we are waiting to see where they land.

A number of festivals have thrown in the towel and just Canceled, with many more not yet ready to re-occupy their traditional Spring dates because they only just finished their postponed 2020 festivals a couple of months ago in Fall! Nearly all festivals have significantly changed dates, most are virtual or hybrid, most are shorter in duration, nearly all have fewer films, and a large percentage are spread out across MONTHS of time and more closely resemble screening series or “off-calendar” bookings than traditional festivals. Many are now in the VOD-like “virtual cinema” business, directly competing with VOD release windows. Even the product needs are different, there’s less competition for premieres at certain festivals (no choice given the expansion of streaming platforms snatching up films), and there’s a lot of gnashing of teeth about what sells in a virtual environment versus a physical one (whether films should be more or less experimental to compete, whether to rev share or offer flat fees, etc.).

To snapshot the wide variety of changes afoot—just consider the following few festivals who relayed new information to me just today:

PLEASE NOTE: all of this is tentative only…things are changing daily these days and no festival should be expected to hold to what they say now, as there are obviously Pandemic factors outside their control.

Thessaloniki Docs: (normally in March) Likely to be spread out over several months, with the largest part of the Festival probably in early Summer.

Seattle International: (normally mid-May to early June) Canceled in 2020, 2021 dates (April 8 – 18) are more than a month earlier than the usual, all screenings virtual, significantly less films (although still a lot…it’s a huge festival).

RiverRun: (normally mid-April) Now nearly a month later than usual (May 6 – 16), hybrid format planned (some virtual, some physical).

Phoenix International: (normally early March) No firm plans yet for 2021 yet due to just having wrapped the 2020 festival in November, considering screening series in April/May, with possible full festival in June…all plans for physical screenings pending vaccination status of the population.

Of all the changes afoot in 2021, perhaps the most difficult one to fathom right now (particularly as I personally write this from Plague-choked Southern California) are the massive efforts well underway to postpone major festivals to the late Spring/early Summer 2021 weeks (sometime in June), presumably to take advantage of the ameliorating effects of the vaccinations, and also warmer weather to accommodate outdoor venues. This is the most important change we are looking at right now, with the bulk of programming for major festivals like Berlin, Tribeca, Rotterdam, and Full Frame being planned for some time during that late Spring/early Summer period.

Obviously, this wholesale shift of major 2021 festivals all into June will have dramatic impact on the rest of the festivals that usually feed off these film premieres, as well as dramatic impact on the release of films into the marketplace. But of course it also begs the most important question…do we REALLY think we will be free of the specter of COVID-19 by then? Do we really think we can just keep postponing with the hope that someday—not very long from now—we will see a return to something we once called normal?

At least from here today in L.A., where we are setting deadly new records for caseloads every day, I cannot imagine that will be the case, although of course I deeply hope I am wrong. And yet, we cannot just do nothing, as we did for a brief while in 2020…as our year of experience shows that the calendar still turns, release schedules still roll on (although in dramatically revised ways), films still become dated the longer they sit on the shelf, new films come along, and we must continue to do business to survive. And so, we have no choice to continue to try and adapt.

Below is a partial list of 2021 Festivals that we at The Film Collaborative regularly book with, in normal times and now in COVID times, and some of the key ways they are different than 2020, and of course, from pre-COVID days. These Festivals are listed below in what we can call a “traditional chronological order,” meaning based on their 2019 dates…to give you a feel for how much they have already changed.

Amidst the shakeup lies a deeper question, however, whose answer will not be known for several months. Beneath the surface awareness of these well-known festivals lies hundreds, even thousands, of smaller “local” film festivals with business plans and models that may have not survived this transition at all. At this point we know some of them will never reappear, and we can only imagine we will see glimmers of them as they attempt to resurface as conditions change, with varying degrees of success.

If you are a filmmaker or a professional wondering how to adapt to releasing a film onto the Festival circuit in 2021, I can only offer one over-arching piece of advice….do your research from a number of up-to-the-minute sources, ask other people in the field, and try to get in direct touch with the Festival to ask your questions. You will NOT be able to rely on their websites and on FilmFreeway as in the past…many if not most festivals don’t actually know well enough themselves to make the information fully public. Abandon the notion that looking at how it’s “normally” done will be a reliable guide for how it will be done for now. Remember that the chaos brought about by this Pandemic is not over, not by a long shot.

NOTE: Festival Chronology below is in traditional (pre-COVID) date order. The dramatic effect of COVID on this year’s schedule should be evident by comparison below.

NOTE: Anything that RED and BOLD represent schedule changes that have arisen after this article was originally published.

Palm Springs International
2019	Jan 3 – 14
2020	Jan 3 – 12
2021	Canceled
International Film Festival Rotterdam
2019	Jan 23 – Feb 3
2020	Jan 22 – Feb 2
2021	Feb 1 – 7	Virtual Part 1
	June 2 – 6	Physical Part 2
Sundance
2019	Jan 24 – Feb 3
2020	Jan 23 – Feb 2
2021	Jan 28 – Feb 3	Virtual. Shorter in duration and fewer films.
Slamdance
2019	Jan 25 – 31
2020	Jan 24 – 30
2021	Feb 12 – 25	Virtual. Additional small hybrid program planned.
Berlinale
2019	Feb 7 – 17
2020	Feb 20 – Mar 1
2021	Mar 1 – 5	Industry-only Online
	Pushed to June	Physical
True/False
2019	Feb 28 – Mar 3
2020	Mar 5 – 8
2021	May 5 – 9	Format not yet announced
Boulder International
2019	Feb 28 – Mar 3
2020	Mar 5 – 8
2021	Jun 24 – 27	Format not yet announced
Thessaloniki
2019	Mar 1 – 10
2020	May 19 – 28
2021	Mar 4 – 14	Online “best of” showcase
	Jun 24 – Jul 4	Hybrid Format Planned
SXSW
2019	Mar 8 – 17
2020	Apr 27 – May 6	Main festival/conference canceled. Special online showcase presented by Amazon.
2021	Mar 16 – 20	Virtual. Shorter in duration and fewer films.
Hong Kong International
2019	Mar 18 – Apr 1
2020	Canceled
2021	Apr 1 – 12	Physical format planned
CPH DOX
2019	Mar 20 – 31
2020	April	Reduced virtual program
2021	Mar 17 – 28 Pushed to Apr 21 – May 2	Virtual
BFI Flare
2019	Mar 21 – 31
2020	Canceled
2021	Dates not yet announced but likely March	Virtual
Movies That Matter Netherlands
2019	Mar 22 – 30
2020	Mar 20 – 22	Virtual
2021	Apr 16 – 25	Format not yet announced
Cleveland International
2019	Mar 27 – Apr 7
2020	Apr 15 – 28	Virtual
2021	Apr 7 – 20	Virtual format planned
New Directors/New Films
2019	Mar 27 – Apr 7
2020	Dec 9 – 20	Virtual
2021	Dates not yet announced
Wicked Queer: Boston LGBT
2019	March 28 – Apr 7
2020	Jul 24 – Aug 2	Virtual
2021	Apr 9 – 18	Virtual
Full Frame
2019	Apr 4 – 7
2020	Canceled
2021	Jun 2 – 6	Format not yet announced
Visions Du Reel
2019	Apr 5 – 13
2020	Apr 17 – May 5	Virtual
2021	Dates not yet announced
Sarasota Film Festival
2019	Apr 5 – 14
2020	Apr 27 – May 3	Virtual
2021	Apr 30 – May 9	Format not yet announced
San Francisco International
2019	Apr 10 – 23
2020	Canceled
2021	Apr 9 – 18	Hybrid format planned
Doc 10 Chicago
2019	Apr 11 – Apr 14
2020	Postponed
2021	Dates not yet announced
Dallas International
2019	Apr 11 – 18
2020	Postponed
2021	Jun 25 – Jul 2
Ashland Independent
2019	Apr 11 – 18
2020	Apr 16 – 23	Virtual
2021	Apr 15 – 29	Hybrid format planned
Tribeca
2019	Apr 24 – May 5
2020	Canceled
2021	Jun 9 – 20	Format not yet announced. Likely hybrid.
Torino LGBT
2019	Apr 24 – 28
2020	Oct 22 – 25	Virtual
2021	Dates not yet determined
Hot Docs
2019	Apr 26 – May 6
2020	May 28 – Jun 6	Virtual
2021	Apr 29 – May 9	Hybrid Format Planned
Off Camera Poland
2019	Apr 26 – May 5
2020	Sep 11 – 25	Virtual
2021	Dates not yet announced
Bentonville
2019	May 7 – May 11
2020	Aug 10 – 16	Hybrid
2021	Dates not yet announced
Against Gravity Poland
2019	May 10 – 26
2020	Sep 4 – 13	Physical
	Sep 19 – Oct 4	Virtual
2021	May 14 – 23	Physical
	May 27 – Jun 13	Virtual
Cannes
2019	May 14 – 25
2020	Canceled
2021	May 11 – 22 July 6 – 17	No format yet announced
Seattle International
2019	May 16 – Jun 9
2020	Canceled
2021	Apr 8 – 18	Virtual
DocAviv
2019	May 23 – Jun 1
2020	Sep 3 – 12
2021	May 20 – 29	No format yet announced
Telluride Mountainfilm
2019	May 24 – 27
2020	May 15 – 25	Virtual
2021	May 28 – 31	Physical
	May 31 – Jun 6	Virtual
Doc Edge New Zealand
2019	May 30 – Jun 9	Auckland
2019	Jun 13 – 23	Wellington
2020	Jun 12 – Jul 5	Virtual
2021	May 27 – Jun 27	Hybrid format planned
Provincetown International
2019	Jun 12 – 16
2020	Jul 16 – 19	Drive – in
2021	Jun 16 – 25	Physical format planned
Frameline: San Francisco LGBT
2019	Jun 20 – 30
2020	Jul 6 – Jul 15	Virtual
2021	Jun 17 – 27	Virtual
New Zealand International
2019	Jul 26 – Aug 14
2020	Jul 24 – Aug 9	Virtual
2021	Dates not yet announced
Milwaukee International
2019	Oct 17 – 31
2020	Oct 15 – 9	Virtual
2021	May 6 – 20	Virtual

Jeffrey Winter January 9th, 2021

Posted In: Uncategorized

---

A Way of Life in Peril
Film Festival Distribution in the Age of COVID-19

By Jeffrey Winter

Part Six: Our Virtual Vicissitudes: A Pivotal Journey Ahead
(May 28, 2020)

Tech Note: There are three pop-up videos in this installment. If you are seeing large white spaces in between paragraphs, may we suggest that you clear the cache on your browser? Instructions for: Safari • Firefox • Google Chrome • Microsoft Internet Explorer • Microsoft Edge.

Six feet of social distance, 25% of venue capacity, navigating conversations through glitchy FaceTime and muffled Face Masks… it’s clear to me that we are now squarely in the “Bargaining” Phase of the classic Kubler-Ross model of the five stages of Pandemic Grief. This is as true in life as it is in business, where independent filmmakers are now being forced to make choices that would have been unthinkable—indeed unacceptable—just three months ago. We’re bargaining because our survival depends on it.

For many of us contemplating our distribution choices, this bargain is indeed approaching Faustian. If physical exhibition is existentially compromised, how, when, and why do we make the leap to virtual space? And if the choice is actually Faustian, who plays the Devil, or is the devil just in the details?

To ponder such heady topics, I am thrilled to invite five of the savviest indie distribution professionals I know (Brian Newman of Sub-Genre, Annie Roney and Cristine Platt Dewey of ro*co, Tim Horsburgh of Kartemquin, and Orly Ravid of The Film Collaborative) to our WAY OF LIFE IN PERIL “Zoom Room,” both to kibitz about the controversial topic of online film festivals and share their insight on their personal journeys towards the final stage of Pandemic recovery…..which is, of course, acceptance.

Note: as always, this blog is heavily weighted to the humanizing aspect of indie film distribution, so if it’s the nitty gritty business stuff you want to get right down to, you might want to skip the first few questions! But we’re giving you time and space here to get to know your panelists first…

Welcome everyone! I’ve started each of my Zoom Blogs by asking the interviewee(s) to tell us about the “hats” that they wear in the film world. Not only your various job titles, but also opening up to the many ways we each approach indie film—as artists, creators, advocates, entrepreneurs, thinkers, educators, activists, and also avid consumers of media. So, let’s start by going around the “Zoom Room” and describing our hats! How about you first, Brian?

Brian Newman: I started my career working at a film festival, and worked at several. So contrary to some rumors, I love film festivals, and I think about them a lot. I met my wife at a film festival. Then I worked at a lot of non-profits that supported filmmakers, so, I’ve always considered myself an advocate for independent filmmakers.

Right now I’m wearing two hats. First, I’m producer of a narrative fiction film that was supposed to premiere at Tribeca. We’re figuring out what we’re going to do in all this, just like a lot of other producers. I also help brands that are funding and making films, and I help them with their distribution and marketing, which often includes premiering at film festivals.

So I’m coming at it from a couple different angles. But when I think about film festivals right now, it’s mostly as a producer with a film that would normally be playing tons of festivals right now.

I love that you met your wife at a festival, because it reminds me of what you and I were talking about yesterday, Cristine, which is that this isn’t just our business, this is our culture, this is our lives. So, with that, how about we hear from the folks at ro*co?

Annie Roney: OK I’ll start. I am founder and CEO of ro*co films. We just celebrated our 20th anniversary. We are primarily thought of as distributors globally and in the educational market. Recently, we’ve also been taking on films domestically as the markets have changed and it’s become more necessary to oversee all rights.

So now we work more closely than we ever have with films and their decisions around film festivals. As head of a small but mighty company, my hats change from day to day, but I think we are ultimately problem-solvers, filmmaker advocates, and nimble and elastic advocates for documentaries that we feel really can make a difference in the world. I’ll stop there.

Cristine Platt Dewey: I joined ro*co in 2006 after working in local politics as an activist. I was feeling jaded about the effectiveness of political activism and had begun to see documentaries as a far more effective tool. My role has evolved over the years, I’m now focusing on international sales and also supporting the North American sales work as well. I’m tracking sales trends and watching the market shift as buyers are adjusting to this new world without festival releases to focus their attention.

OK great, sales is a big part of where we’re headed with this conversation, but let’s go back towards production first. Tim, tell us about your role with Kartemquin Films.

Tim Horsburgh: I think my hats have continued to evolve as Kartemquin has. I’ve been there 10 years, and this year my title changed to Director of Film Strategy, which means that I’m the central hub for all our filmmakers to come to with questions. But my experience at Kartemquin is I started as the Office and Communications Manager and so I was managing the interns and buying the toilet paper and things like that, and I was terrible at that.

The other thing we were developing at that time, which is now really the core of who we are, were filmmaker development programs. So I ran a lot of those programs as well as doing the marketing. As we got bigger, I chose to move away from the program side and into distribution. That was about five years ago. So I still help with distribution strategy, but now I’m moving more into production. I think that’s a reflection of where my skill set is needed, due to the way documentaries are being financed and funded now; people are making production decisions that are actually distribution decisions.

The other thing I do is teach on the side, most recently teaching marketing and distribution for documentary at Northwestern. So those are some of the hats.

Lovely hat rack there Tim! In working with you during this Pandemic, I have found that you’re very quick to adapt and understand the way that the world has changed, and I think that’s the big challenge for all of us right now.

OK finally, my colleague Orly Ravid, who actually wears more hats than I can keep track of!

Orly Ravid: First I want to know whether Tim used to hoard toilet paper. I also started out as an office manager doing international sales, and if it weren’t for that, 20 years ago, I don’t think I would have founded The Film Collaborative because it was at my first two markets that I was like, “What is happening with this business that is like everyone’s making money except for the people who made the movie?”

So, the hats are a few, but I founded The Film Collaborative and we are 10 years old plus and going strong, and Jeffrey and I co-run it together. Other than overseeing our educational initiatives, I focus on distribution, mentoring, and implementation, and specifically with VOD, and sales, and I’m definitely very boutique in the sales practice now and recommend ro*co more often take on sales. And I also am an entertainment attorney and I’m a law professor at Southwestern Law School, and I run their media law Institute. And I have a two-year-old.

Ok, well, I’m going to run with that mom thing for a second because I’m noticing as I’m having conversations with people, that having children in the middle of this Pandemic makes folks think even more deeply about the future of the world and how it’s changing. Like, we have to find hope in this! So I do want to take a couple of minutes to hear how y’all are feeling and doing. Beyond just the bottom line in your business, how are you feeling these days?

Tim Horsburgh: I think it’s the most exhausting period of my life. That’s been the constant, a day of Zoom calls and tag team parenting and home schooling and putting the kids to bed and then going back to work for another couple of hours. But we’re grateful to have jobs, we’re grateful to live in a very nice community north of Chicago.

There’s a feeling you’re at capacity and feeling you might be letting people down.

And I magnify that across Kartemquin’s filmmaker community of 500 people and recognize that they are the most underrepresented, emerging artists, with the least power, and I’m terrified they are going to leave the field because, what future is there? So we are pouring as much energy as we can to address that for our community.

Trying to do all of that while also navigating a slate of seven films that were supposed to to be on the festival circuit this year, and that’s a lot for us.

Brian Newman: I, like everyone else, have been up and down, and today is a little bit more up because I had a new client come through… but I’ve got a lot of others that have dropped because budgets are getting slashed left and right for everyone. I’m happy because I’ve got some semblance of a job and a house, but I’m really worried about what it’s gonna do for our field. And while I’m worried about all sectors, I would agree with Tim that I think a lot of the voices that we don’t hear from as often are the ones most in danger.

I’m in Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan in New York, so in the epicenter of the disease, but of course most of us are in our homes so I think by and large we are all experiencing the same issues.

We at TFC are a little lucky because unlike Hell’s Kitchen we’re in perennially socially-distanced L.A. But how about the ladies in beautiful Sausalito by the Bay, ro*co?

Annie Roney: Alright, well, you asked us to be real. The two weeks before this all hit and everyone was sheltering in place, I was with spending a week with my father, as he was dying. He lived a good long life, and he was ready, but still all of that was emotionally exhausting. The following week, I was getting my daughter home from Italy, she was among the first of college students to be sent home, so that we could get back to have a funeral for my dad who probably had the last actual funeral that we’ve seen in a while.

And then within three days, the shelter-in-place started, and we all had to, both personally and professionally, figure out how to make all of this work. We were able to transition to working from home pretty quickly. And the good news is we had someone immediately focus on successfully securing a PPP Loan, to give us flexibility.

But I will say that I have never had this many—I mean in our field a lot of it is holding the hands of filmmakers—but I’ve never had this much correspondence. And I’m really feeling their nerves and their concern and they’re legitimate and they’re real. Like Tim, our fear is disappointing (filmmakers) but the reality is, the market is what it is, and we’re doing everything we can for our films.

Yeah, anybody else feel like they’re a trauma therapist now? It feels like my job has become dealing with with filmmaker trauma, and I’m not trained for that! But grief and loss are real now, and one of the major ways we in the film world are dealing with it is to try and recreate what we had in the “Real World” in digital/online space. As such, we have a historically unprecedented and controversial explosion of Virtual Film Festivals…which I think most of us find simultaneously very exciting and deeply problematic.

So, here’s the question… are you personally “pro” or “anti” Virtual Film Festivals? Let’s discuss!

Orly Ravid: Look, festivals are a critical component of independent film distribution, and sometimes, in fact often, the most important and the biggest part of it, and the most successful part of it. So yeah, I’m all for it… there’s just some issues.

Annie Roney: I am “pro,” provided that there’s some thoughtfulness around getting press. Press is the component that’s really important.

Cristine Platt Dewey: I am pro and I’m starting to really become impressed with the way festivals are responding to individual films and their circumstances, and their willingness to work with films, that’s really critical and important.

I just wanna say that I am both pro and terrified, because I also see that it robs us of our culture in many ways, it robs us of our ability to be together. Obviously, filmmakers need to be trying to recreate festivals for revenue and exposure and press, etc. But I’m also terrified of the fact that we’re crossing all kinds of previously understood rights classes, and that it’s making everything five times the amount of work for 25% of the money, right? And then, of course, there are distributors that just won’t allow it.

Tim Horsburgh: And even if the distributors don’t say anything, you know the exposure may be diminishing the product, all in service of something that is in fact not even close to what existed.

So here’s where we go to Brian. There’s no reason to hide the fact, Brian, that you made a splash with a recent article that created a sort of dramatic wave of terror among our filmmakers, and was interpreted as an anti-online festival screed. But I don’t think that’s really where you were coming from…I think it was more nuanced that that, but with an unfortunate “click-bait” title.

Brian Newman: Yeah, the very first thing I said in the first paragraph, was that for a lot of films (online film festivals) make sense, and I actually think that it’s a case-by-case basis for the films and the filmmakers. If I were to add up all the films in the world, I would bet 90% of them or more it works for… and there’s a subset that I don’t think it works for, and that’s what I was focused on that everyone missed: that first disclaimer.

I will say, I’m all for experimentation and I think that there’s going be good things about virtual parts of festivals in the future that, whenever we go back to regular festivals, that should stay. But the things that I love most about festivals don’t exist online—being on the big screen and having that audience in front of you and meeting people. In fact, I met Tim and Orly and Annie at film festivals, and those things just don’t happen in the same way and so I do miss that part and don’t think can be completely recreated.

And I also think that in our rush to save what we have of film festivals, which I completely understand, it’s not truly a reinvention either. I mean it if you think about it, in an online world, we shouldn’t be bound by geography and geoblocking, we should be bound by interest, and a lot of other things. So if anything, I would say I would want a more radical reshaping of festivals.

And I think we also have to acknowledge that there are a subset of films that online film festival just do not work for, and that’s the problem.

I should note that it was only just like six weeks ago that we at TFC and most of filmmakers we work with were like, “No way we’re doing online film festivals, we need to wait this out!” Tim, you and I have worked on a film that was supposed to physical premiere near the start of all this, and at first we were adamant against online. At this point, we have been on ALL sides of this fence in just a couple of months….what’s changed?

Tim Horsburgh: Well, that was March thinking! And I think we were reasonable then, but now we’re reflecting the evolution of all of our thinking. We too had nervous filmmakers who sent us Brian’s article and said, “Is he right?” And I think, Brian, you were making a position that was “pro”…IF festivals meet certain requirements. I think we’ve just been trying to see would festivals get to that level. There was not evidence of that necessarily in March.

Two of the festivals that we’ve elected to do so far, Hot Docs and AFI DOCS, have stepped up differently than earlier festivals. And I see that with other trends that have been happening, I’m realizing that actually the film ecosystem that I care about needs these festivals more than ever, and so I don’t want to buy into a year where they all just disappear, or are even more cut off at the legs and just limp through the year. I would actually like to support them because I understand they provide a really important curatorial function that the rest of the industry, at its top levels, just doesn’t care about.

OK so this brings us into what I consider the meat of the conversation, and my biggest fear. I think we NEED to preserve physical exhibition because I’m afraid that the entirety of our culture is being subsumed by big Corporate Streaming content in our living rooms. It’s not that I don’t see marvelous things on the major streaming platforms, I just think they are big Corporations and they’re running the Industry including independent film now. And virtual film festivals are putting us into direct conflict with Corporate Streamers and their own perceived control of the internet. Do you think online film festivals can co-exist with Corporate Streaming and how?

Orly, I know you have strong feelings and a unique strategy around this. How do you think we navigate this?

Orly Ravid: I think I’m actually aligned with Brian, because while we’re super boutique in the sales practices, we had a film that we were handling world sales for that had its premiere at SXSW. And it was extremely stressful to be thrilled about that premiere, and then of course it was canceled, and then, “Oh, but now it can be on Amazon.” And that was the issue, and it had to be resolved within days, not even five business days.

My resolution for handling that (and this is where I think it is a case by case, because I agree that for 90% of the filmmakers, they’re not even in this position) and this is very important because in this case it was an A-level festival premiere, and it was a film that, at least on paper, had potential to sell to a Streamer. And I do think that is a critical analysis, a threshold question that filmmakers are not often clear about how to answer and it’s to their detriment. But in this case, what I simply did was, I turned to all the big Streamers and said, “I need to know: are you in or are you out? Because otherwise we’re doing this thing”…and that’s what happened.

We knew they (the Streamers) were going to be against this, not only against virtual festival distribution, but certainly if Amazon was the Streamer. But everyone should know that Amazon barely buys independent film anymore, so they weren’t likely to be the buyer. So it was a way to clear the deck, look at the offers that were on the table, and see that they were simply worth risking. And therefore, by having a whole vision and a plan such that if we lose all our distribution potential through these companies, we have a very clear roadmap of exactly what to do across all rights, provided that we could really maximize the shit out of publicity, which we did. And it was the best decision we made. The filmmakers are thrilled, and now we’re going to do a virtual theatrical and do everything else, either with partners or without.

I just think that that’s a difficult thing for people to do on their own. So that’s a question of the filmmaker dialoguing with their sales agent if they have one, and of course not all sales agents want to have that analysis because they can’t stand losing the deal of any kind. I’m happy to lose it if it’s not a good enough deal.

But I also just need to say, I think the Streamers need to be more transparently honest and say, “You know what, we buy like 10-20 independent movies a year, and if you’re not at Sundance then your odds are like slim to none, and that way liberate people. I think the damage that is being done is that filmmakers are trapped, they’re desperate to be on Netflix. And I love Netflix, it’s just not buying that many independent films. And these filmmakers trapped by this are now going to lose everything…the festival distribution, the audience, the PR and THEN not get the SVOD deal, and it’s a tragedy.

Yeah, we had a film that was supposed to premiere back at Tribeca and I got on a conference call with the sales agents who said, “HBO will not even talk to us if you put it on any online film festivals.” So the sales agent in this case just capitulated and caved. He was like, “So we’re just not doing anything online,” and I was like, “You don’t even have an offer!” But the truth is, the Streamers have all the power. It’s scary.

Brian Newman: I think it’s case by case. I think I’m left of Marx and I’m not into big corporations, but right now we have to realize that it’s not just HBO and Netflix, we’re talking Amazon and Disney and Apple… all these different places that do reach a large number of people. And by the way, I think Netflix has done a better job at promoting diversity than almost any film festival I know of, so I don’t think it’s all bad either.

I think if you have a film that you can determine has a shot at ending up with one of companies, I think it’s simple math. If you had add up the number of people who are going to potentially see you if you go to 50 or 100 film festivals that are virtual, versus who’s going to see you if you through one of these bigger distribution platforms—then until the big companies say otherwise, I think for that subset of films, you have to say no to those other opportunities.

I feel really strongly about that. I do not think that fits for every movie. Just last night, I had two different films get accepted to a festival that I love. One of them has distribution and the distributor is fine with doing the festivals as long they’re geo-blocked and some other restrictions, and so we said yes. The other film is still being considered by some of the major buyers. and it actually has a shot. We may get turned down and regret it, but right now we can’t shoot yourself in the foot when they won’t give us an answer.

And it’s a shitty situation, I totally agree, but I also think that the film festivals can exist by programming a lot of movies, without having to program those particular movies.

Ro*co?

Annie Roney: I love what Orly said about liberating filmmakers. Frankly, I’m very cynical in the documentary space. The big Streamers are just…they’re just not buying.

We can all go back three or four years ago when they were buying quite a lot and saying documentaries are really rating well, but the fact of the matter is now they’re looking at their internal data and we’re not… and they know what’s working for their viewers. So now they’re just sort of commissioning to feed the beast. And I think in the documentary space—at least with the kind of films we tend to want to work with, that we feel actually make a difference in people’s lives and in the world—my advice is okay, we can try them, but in parallel let’s be really looking at lots of other options because the reality is you’re not going to get a big global deal. And I think we give them too much power when we continue to wait for that answer while were also trying to decide about a film festival.

And to switch gears, because we do have an educational division, we’re having similar kinds of conversations, not around virtual film festivals, but about virtual screenings, campus screenings, and so we’re getting up to speed on how to execute those and do those well, because for so many of these films, let’s get it directly to the audience. Why are we waiting? The chances are so slim. Let’s move forward. This film needs to be seen, it’s wanted.

In that educational space, we’re particularly thrilled that our EVOD Platform, which is Film Platform, allows students and professors to access films remotely as well as assign them. We partner with the biggest library information system in the world, so these films are being discovered. And in this age of distance learning, suddenly, this is where we are all at, and we’re already seeing really exciting results. And these are the kind of results that you don’t get if you are on one of the big Streaming giants.

So my feeling is we, collectively together in the industry, have to start thinking beyond the Streamers—not that we don’t want to pursue them and I enjoy them as well, and love making a sale to them—but if we’re holding back on a documentary that has the power to make a difference in people’s lives because what some company might think is impinging on their rights, it’s a real loss for all of us.

Cristine Platt Dewey: In addition to not acquiring as many documentaries, what the Streamers are acquiring is very different than what they used to acquire. Both the Streamers and international broadcast world have told us they’re looking for “light and entertaining,” and in this time of COVID viewers are gravitating toward “comfort content,” films that make people feel good.

So there is a particularly vital component that the Festival world plays for social issue documentaries. (Festivals) can lift up these important films that we love and give them enough profile that the Streamers then feel like there is reason to take them. And so I think that’s a real loss right now in the festival world, and that these social issue documentaries in particular are suffering right now.

Annie Roney: I do need to have a shout out to the various PBS strands: in the past twomonths, they are the ones showing up in brave ways and just trying to make everything work.

If only PBS could pay as much as Netflix, right? Ha ha.

Orly Ravid: And then you could do a PBS deal and a Netflix deal after, if they want it. But I just want to say about the reach of the Streamers, yes it’s obviously massive as Brian says, but if they don’t market your film….then nobody might see it, or at least very few.

It seems to me that if we’re trying to get creative, and traditional physical infrastructure (festivals, etc.) is on pause, then that makes this a DIY time, an exciting time. Is there an eco-system you see developing outside of the current SVOD streaming/bingeing status quo? Can we add Virtual Theatricals and Digital Exhibition to the mix here? What is your vision for the future?

Tim, you advocate for a lot of “outsider” filmmakers, what do you see?

Tim Horsburgh: It’s very hard to say—are we ready for August thinking yet? In my head I am going DIY. I am remembering earlier films at Kartemquin that got nothing at all from the Industry, but got out very profitably and very happily and had wonderful lives, connecting with core audience using digital screenings and events and really innovative distribution and I’m like, “Maybe that’s what I need to be telling my filmmakers to do.” That IS what I’m telling my filmmakers to do. Just using the online availability that we can, that can be scaled up in ways that we couldn’t imagine 10 years ago.

I think there’s a need to just be balanced in our thinking. I think we just need to get real. The consolidation of the media platforms, what’s happening is akin to something like the 1980s when there were only 5 channels, and you need to realize if you’re not making content that’s in that stream early, crossing over is almost impossible. But there are people within those platforms that get that the larger ecosystem needs to survive to find exciting new films…so I have optimism there. We have an accelerator program supported by Hulu where they are funding development on two projects that would otherwise be very unlikely to get a look at Hulu.

The thing I am very interested in preserving, from festivals and educational and social impact, is the discussion that happens after the movie. We need to preserve discussion and making the kind of films that foster dissent and different points of view and change, and I think those are the kind of films that larger corporations are just not going pick up because they scare them. That’s why we need festivals, live and online, because festivals can really amplify a film and make executives realize, “Oh, that film seemed scary to us, but actually an audience is going to it. Maybe we should pay attention to it.” And so I’m really thinking that we need to try and figure out how to bring that back.

Orly, as I’ve said, you’re a big thinker. How do you think the world can change?

Orly Ravid: I love that there’s a happy impact on climate change from this Pandemic in parts of this country, India and China, and other happy by-products—less traffic in L.A., which dramatically improves people’s lifestyles and enjoyment of the city, for example. The fact that telecommuting has been globally shown to be viable is likely to positively impact certain workers for good (adding to their free time and reducing costs). And also the ill that even inspired me to found The Film Collaborative in the first place, which is the nonsense of the business-to-business layers of bullshit in the traditional big markets, is going to dissipate, it’s going to be collapsed a bit, and there will be a lot of virtual markets that make it much more streamlined. There’s a beauty to that.

A lot of companies are going out of business. There’s a glut in the business and this will be a course correction in that direction. I know that’s brutal; obviously a lot of great work and great creators will be impacted negatively, but there is also just from a pure market perspective an insane amount of supply.

I think that there has to be a more careful curation of one’s lifestyle and to understanding what it means to be a creator; you can’t just assume that you’ll have these big deals. There are a ton of distributors and platforms and places for cinema to be seen that are not the big American-based global conglomerates. And the other happy thing that I think is already been occurring is there’s a lot more philanthropy, towards the cinema that I care about anyway (I’m not really concerned about the horror movies). I think there has been an elevation of documentaries and impact-oriented films in recent years and I think that will continue, though money and support whether from NGOs or non-profits or corporations, and I think in that financing model it may even be possible to make those films available for free, which is exciting.

As long as the community experience and dialogue around cinema and ideas continues to thrive in public—I mean we HAVE to get away from our screens or there’s going to be illnesses just from that—as long as we can force ourselves to stay public, I do think there are going to be interesting results from this crisis that will probably be healthy in the long run.

Now, in virtual space, films can just craft their own release. The barriers to showing films are so much lower, there’s no four-wall fees, etc…

Orly Ravid: The costs are so much less! And we should remember that the A-level festivals were also problematic gatekeepers in their own right, and now they can find ways to audiences without any of that! And they do, they just need to know their communities.

Cristine Platt Dewey: For me, the future is in aggregating audiences. When I think about the films that are positioned to do well in this DIY world, it’s the films where the teams have connections to organizations and they have access to their audience, and they don’t need the platforms to deliver the audience. We’re working on building ongoing databases of fans, of certain kind of documentaries, that you can turn to. Instead of just doing this film by film, can you create a structure based on audience that can be used for multiple films?

OK folks…I think we’re reaching a great place to wrap up here, unless someone has a burning last thing to say. I know for one I have a burning bladder now after all this talk,but Brian, with all the flames that have been coming your way since your article, how would you like to wrap us up?

Brian Newman: What I’d like to see is bigger thinking about collaboration amongst the festivals that are looking at virtual. I think what Christine mentioned about aggregation… I think there’s a big opportunity for more festivals to band together at the same time, and be able to get network effects, wherein if I’m posting on Facebook, my friend in Seattle could watch it at the same time. And if it could go to the respective festivals, I think there’s a lot of data sharing, where if the film is a science fiction film, or a science doc, that would play in one town or another…that stuff is not being collaborated on enough.

To my knowledge, festival people are just thinking about putting their existing business model online. I think it needs to be expanded, and much more innovative. That’s what I’d like to see, because then, a lot of the films I work with, whether they are brands or independents, could actually see a system whey could get revenue and audiences that would be worthwhile, and they would bypass the Netflix’s of the world, for that kind of system. So, I hope there will be much more conversation in the future about that much larger sense of collaboration.

Tim Horsburgh: And then why just festivals, and why just theaters? I think we’re already seeing the innovation that it can be restaurants, bookshops, conferences, whatever you want. And then you are really running an entrepreneurial business around each film.

OK, awesome. That sounds like the next blog in the series. Stay tuned people…watch this space.

NOTE: This blog was recorded in real time on May 19^th, and subsequently heavily edited down for length.

---

Part Five: It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And We Feel Fine?)
(May 5, 2020)

Presented in collaboration with Roya Rastegar
Until today, this blog series has been focused on the immediate problems imposed by the COVID catastrophe on the daily machinations of quotidian film festivals, and the immediate ramifications for our film culture and our livelihoods. Last week, we peered into the not-too-distant Fall 2020, under the guidance of Festival power-broker Thom Powers, asking the pressing practical question, “What is the next step?”

But today, we dare to peer even further into the future…to loosen the reins and question the larger cultural ramifications of this moment, for us both as fallible humans and as members of an Industry that will never look quite the same again.

In journalistic parlance, I believe this is what we call an existential “think piece.”

For big ideas, honest introspection, diverse perspectives, and professional experience and wisdom beyond her years, I can think of no one better in my life to invite to the Zoom interface than programmer/professor/indie producer Roya Rastegar, whom I originally met when we worked together at Sundance in 2006 and beyond. In the years following, she and I have tangled in many professional scenarios stemming across much of the indie film spectrum. Roya has a way of helping me to remember what it is essential and important about the work we do, and helping me take my head out of my ass when I am drowning in the mundane.

Since we are trusted friends and colleagues, we conducted this “think piece” as a freeform Zoom share of private fears and public proclamations, riffing off a classic 80s post-punk alt-rock theme song that has NEVER been more relevant than it is today. But before we get to that…let’s introduce Roya to this digital stage!

---

Part Four: What Does Thom Powers Have Hiding Under His Hats? (April 19, 2020)

This is the fourth installment of a series on the fate of film festivals and non-theatrical exhibition in the age of COVID-19. Please email comments and questions to festivals@thefilmcollaborative.org. (Also, please scroll down for the previous three installments in this series, which contain a list of canceled/postponed festivals with TFC films)

Perhaps unscientifically, I routinely name Thom Powers as the most important individual documentary programmer in the world. Given his roles at TIFF, DOC NYC, CPH:DOX, Miami, etc., he plays a prominent role in pre-determining the path that many documentaries take to the marketplace. Now that Spring festivals are shuttered and the fate of a few remaining Summer festivals hang in the balance, the eyes are of the film world are inevitably turning to the Fall, or what I like to call “Thom Powers territory.”

So, it is with great pleasure that this week we bring you words and wisdom from the man himself, as he joins us here for an interview in this fourth part of our series.

NOTE: While I sincerely hope you read this whole interview for substance, I have also placed Thom’s most important filmmaker takeaways in dark pink and italics, so you can skim if you absolutely must. And before I get any hate mail, let me say that I know there are many honorable mentions and runner-ups for the role of “most important documentary programmer,” so hopefully we’ll get to interview some of you too for upcoming blogs….

Jeffrey Winter: Good morning Thom. You wear a lot of very fabulous hats. Would you outline/describe them for us?

Thom Powers: Yes. So, I’ve been the documentary programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival since 2006. This is my 15th year doing that job.

I am a co-founder and the artistic director at DOC NYC, which started in 2010, so we just had our 10th anniversary last November. And for readers who have never been to DOC NYC, I should explain that we are the country’s largest documentary film festival, where we show over a hundred new feature films. We also have a section called Short Lists, where we spotlight what we think of as the year’s leading awards contenders for both features and short films, that has a strong track record of being predictive of future Oscar winners and nominees. We have an eight-day seminar of panels and conferences called DOC NYC Pro, and we have a section called Only in New York for works in progress to match filmmakers with industry leaders, distributors, funders, sales agents, and other mentors. So that’s some of the stuff that happens in November.

A few other hats I wear… I’m a programmer at the Miami Film Festival, which happened in March and was cut short right in the middle of the festival due to health concerns and ended up shutting down. I’m a consultant for CPH:DOX. And then, on the podcast level, I host the podcast called Pure Nonfiction that’s been going for four years now, and for the last five years I’ve hosted with my wife, Raphaela Neihausen, a segment for New York’s public radio station called Documentary of The Week, which has been running for 260 weeks, which you can also get as a podcast.

Wow…that’s prolific. I think that’s more hats than I could fit in my closet. I actually don’t know where you live. Where are you sheltering in place?

Yeah, so Raphaela, who is also the executive director of DOC NYC, and I live with our son in Montclair, New Jersey.

And you started the Montclair Film Festival as well, right?

Raphaela and I started the Montclair Film Festival and ran it for its first three years. And now it’s in the good hands of Tom Hall as the executive director.

I have to say that from my perspective, DOC NYC has made a big leap forward in the last two years, and I can feel a lot of the result of your energy there as we move towards Fall 2020. So, congrats on that. Given the condition of the world, a lot of the film community is looking to Fall festivals such as TIFF and DOC NYC to relaunch some sense of normalcy. You stand to play a large role in all that. Short of trying to predict the future how do you feel about Fall Festivals?

Well, you know, like everyone, I and my colleagues are responding week by week to the news. What I can say for both Toronto and DOC NYC is that both those festivals are committed to happening in the best version that we can make.

We will be adapting to whatever conditions exist of people being able to come together.

I think in both the cases of Toronto and DOC NYC, we are very rigorously exploring the possibilities to supplement or replace the theatrical experience with online versions. We hope that there will be an in-person version of Toronto and DOC NYC. But it would be foolish to take that for granted at this point. And it is too early to say what an online version of either of those festivals would look like. But we’re trying to learn from everything that’s being tried this Spring and bring the most innovative techniques to making that a robust experience.

I have a burning question…If festivals like TIFF and DOC NYC happen this Fall, how do you think they should treat the films that lost their World Premiere opportunities in the Spring (SXSW, Tribeca, Hot Docs, Cannes, etc.)? Should they be considered World Premieres in the eyes of TIFF and DOC NYC? How are you guys going to treat this crazy situation we have where we’re talking about festivals that usually have strict premiere status requirements…. North American premiere, New York premiere, etc. For example, most Tribeca films are still saying they are Tribeca films. Will you consider that a New York premiere, if it has Tribeca laurels? Or if it has SXSW laurels, will you consider it a North American premiere?

I think we’re still figuring this out as we go. I think the one thing I can say is, both TIFF and DOC NYC are trying to be collaborative with our friends at Spring festivals that had to postpone or shift online. And you know, we’re very sympathetic to the filmmakers who lost their opportunities for theatrical premieres. I think we want to be more relaxed in the normal guidelines that apply.

I think part of your question is very specific, a question about status and naming. Like, what do you call a film if DOC NYC was the first time a film could be shown in a theater, but it had previously been curated online – what do you call that? And I think we’re just going to have to kind of figure that out as we go along. I mean, I feel like one distinction that I pay attention to is there are some films that are taking opportunities to participate in some online version of festivals. Whether it’s Tribeca or another festival and they’re going to stay in competition and get whatever online exposure that festival is giving them, I feel like, in terms naming something a premiere, it’d be weird for us to show that same film at DOC NYC and call it a world premiere if it’s already been viewed by the competition and another festival. I also think it’d be a kind of slight to that festival that took the time to curate it.

So I think in terms of naming it, we would probably call it something else. But I can say at DOC NYC, if there’s a film that was curated by Tribeca and was in their competition, but by November it’s never had the chance to have a theatrical screening and if we’re lucky enough to be able to give it that chance, then we would be open just showing that kind of film, if it excites our programmers, in a way that we normally wouldn’t show a Tribeca film.

OK, that’s the fundamental question. So you think you can relax some of the stricter parts of the core requirements, along with obviously not wanting to also offend other festivals. But part of what I worry about is how you Fall programmers could manage the avalanche of additional films from the canceled/postponed festivals that you would have to consider/watch? I mean, part of the reason you guys have premiere requirements, in addition to keeping your own status up and at a high level, is also to protect you from the amount of work that you would have to do. I mean, the amount of hours in a day hasn’t changed, right?

Well in the case of the Toronto film festival, our submissions are already up this year. So whether that is related to other festival cancellations or not, I haven’t been able to do that analysis yet, but, yes, we are going to have a bigger load of films to watch. In fact is, anyone who curates a fall festival is going to have extra layers of work. They are going to have more films to watch. They’re going to have to be spending more time on backup plans. They’re going to have to worry about serious economic challenges, reduced sponsorship, and probably reduced paid attendance.

There’s the possibility that even if theaters are open in the fall, maybe there’s some social distancing that is going to have to be involved, so you can’t sell the full capacity of a theater. All of these are unknowns as we’re speaking in April and, they take up, I can tell you, a lot of time, that we would normally spend just planning our festivals, which is normally a big enough job in itself.

So, I’m not asking for extra sympathy because everyone has extra stress right now, but I’m trying to give a clear picture from the festival side of what that really looks like.

I really appreciate everything you’re saying and I know I am grilling you on things that are difficult to answer. So let me ask you something a little bit more fun. How do you think all this will impact people’s desire to watch documentaries? Do you think that this will change what kind of documentaries get to the marketplace because people want to see them now? Basically, how do you think this Pandemic and the multi-layered issues will affect what people want to watch? Will other topics seem dated and frivolous? Will everyone want escapist fluff? Will we look to other crises of the past? Perhaps none of the above?

Well, I think you know the general public always has a bigger appetite for escapism than they do for, you know, hard realities. So, I think that’s just built into the business of making documentaries that if you’re making a documentary that’s taking on a tough subject, you’re already fighting an uphill battle, but a very worthy one in my opinion.

I think that these days people have an extra layer of worry. They’re worried about their health. They’re worried about the economy. It is harder to take on additional serious topics. So I think undoubtedly we’re seeing a greater appetite for escapist topics, whether that’s food or music or a kind of crazy, true crime.

You mean like TIGER KING.

Yes, for example. So, you know, that is a reality that I don’t think we can get around.

Ugh, yes. So, doing what you do, a large amount of your social circle and the most important people in your life must be filmmakers. How do you feel for your friends and your family in all this, in this world right now? How do you see people responding to each other and what are they going through right now?

At DOC NYC we’ve done a series of free webinars. We’ve done two of them so far, and I have another couple coming up. And it’s been a great experience to see familiar names pop up in those webinars, and new names. People from all over the world.

I think that it’s hard to generalize about people’s experiences. The experiences that I’m hearing the most about are those filmmakers who were hoping to launch a film this spring, whether it’s SXSW, Hot Docs, CPH, Tribeca, Full Frame or another festival, and have had those plans disrupted. And, you know, I feel for them because each one of those projects represents years of experience. A few months ago, they felt like they were at a pivot point and had gotten an acceptance into one of these festivals that are hard to get into in the first place. And, now they’ve had the rug pulled out from under them.

It is a very difficult situation. Often when you’re at that point, you’ve got financial debt behind you. So those are very real issues. I don’t think anyone has an easy solution for them. What we’ve been trying to provide in our DOC NYC webinars is any insights that we can give behind the scenes, and what’s happening in the distribution marketplace. The last webinar we did was about different forms of cash flow, whether it’s emergency relief funds or an initiative that Kickstarter did to try to encourage small scale crowdfunding projects called Inside Voices), and I wanted to highlight that for that filmmakers who are staying at home and not seeing any of the normal opportunities to make money. I don’t have a quick-fix solution for them, but I wanted to be able to offer any ideas I could give.

Our next webinar is about film promotion and PR during these times, trying to illuminate what some of the challenges and opportunities are for filmmakers right now to get the word out about their films.

How do people find out more and keep up with the DOC NYC stuff you’re doing? Oh and, and by the way, thank you for doing it! We want people to follow you.

The best thing to do is at our website docnyc.net, you can sign up for our free Monday memo, and that’s an email newsletter that shows up around noon every Monday. The person who writes it is Jordan Smith, who has been doing a tremendous job for the last several years. It encapsulates all the week’s news, not just DOC NYC news, but documentary news from all over the world—film releases, film funds, festivals, etc. So signing up for the Monday memo is a great way not only to keep up on what DOC NYC is doing, but what’s happening in the documentary world in general.

Let me ask you a broader think question before we wrap up. Obviously in our lifetimes, we’ve never seen anything like this level of disruption and we’ve never seen this kind of change to the independent filmmaking and documentary world. Do you have any feelings about how you think this will change our lives moving forward in terms of independent and documentary filmmaking and the ways we’ve been doing business thus far?

There’s a couple things that I think we should pay attention to. One is the distribution structure for documentaries, which I think in the last 10 years has a lot of positives about it. There’s no question that the rise of streamers, and Netflix especially, has made documentary viewing a much more common and easy to try experience for many, many more people. You know, I would say 10 or 15 years ago, if I was at a dinner party and brought up a documentary with a bunch of non-film people, it was unlikely that a lot of people would have seen that film, or would even have the means to see that film. These days, when you talk to people outside the film world, it’s likely that that documentary is going to be a common touch point for conversation, whether it’s a theatrical documentary like RBG or FREE SOLO, or online projects, like WILD WILD COUNTRY or these days TIGER KING. So that’s been a tremendous boon for documentary making and documentary consumption.

I do think that even without COVID-19, we were reaching a tipping point in these distribution networks, with the introduction of a lot more streamers coming on to the market where, I don’t think, in the long run, the general public can sustain this many streamer subscriptions. If you’ve got Netflix and Amazon and Apple and Hulu and HBO and Disney and Quibi, or if you’ve got some of the more niche platforms like Criterion or MUBI or IFC Films—that’s more than you can watch in any month. So there was bound to be some shakeout there. I don’t know what that shake out is going to be or how quickly, but it’s going to come, and I think it’s important for documentary filmmakers to kind of be aware of those larger trends and ask themselves where they’re going to fit in.

I think that what’s interesting about this moment of everyone being at home and needing to rethink their business is that I think it is forcing filmmakers to be a little bit more self-reliant. It reminds me that 10 or 15 years ago there was greater talk in the documentary community about trying out these new digital distribution tools to be more self-reliant. I think of a filmmaker like Gary (Hustwit), who we featured in our last webinar, who was very successful at controlling his own content with films like HELVETICA, making a direct relationship with his audience and not being dependent on larger distribution channels.

I think that there was a DIY movement not so long ago, and consultants like Peter Broderick who was featured on our first webinar had a lot to say about that. I think what happened in the last 10 years is filmmakers moved away from that self-reliant mode, partly because it was hard and partly because business was booming so much amongst streamers that it really seemed foolish, and probably was foolish, not to be trying to take your business to those streamers because there were so many lucrative contracts to be producing films there. That really seemed like the way to go, and it may still be the way to go, for the next several years.

But you and I know that of the hundreds or more films that had their Spring festival launches disrupted between CPH:DOX, SXSW, Hot Docs, Tribeca, Cannes etc., there was only going to be a small percentage of those films—I don’t have a scientific statistic, but I would guess 10 -15% at most of those titles – were actually going to find a distribution deal at one of these larger streamers. It is still 85% of documentary films being made today that need to figure out another avenue of reaching an audience. So I think that these kind of hard months of being at home and thinking about how to use tools to reach audiences are going to, in the long run, be worthwhile for filmmakers, because for a lot of people making documentaries, those are the tools they need to survive.

Wow, that was so awesome the thing that you did for me just there, to help me remember the DIY spirit in this time and remember that in a certain way, the DIY climate has never been better because we can all access larger audiences than ever if everybody’s going to be online anyway. I’m just really afraid that in the age of the streamers, that the large, vibrant public exhibition/film festival culture that we’ve all created (and in many ways has never been bigger than it was just before COVID), will take such a massive hit that it will never recover.

I think that there are new opportunities I see for both film festivals and filmmakers that I find very encouraging. With DOC NYC and these free webinars that we’ve been doing, the first one had more than 3,000 people enrolled, and more than half of those people told us they’d never been to DOC NYC before.

So I have to say that for many years, DOC NYC has been trying to imagine ways in which we could take the special things that we do in theaters in New York City and share them with the rest of the world, but it had not been a high priority for us to figure out the technology to do that. Now it’s moved to our number one priority, to figure out how to do that. And I think that there’s real potential there. I look at what CPH:DOX did, which was incredible, turning their festival into an online event in just two days, and in doing so, they reached more people than they ever had before. It was geoblocked within Denmark and from the point of view of the United States, Denmark seems like a small country, but they were reaching people who normally would not go to Copenhagen to watch a film.

They did an in-person conversation with Edward Snowden that I think they were originally going to hold in a 2,000 seat theater, but now it’s been moved online and it’s been seen by more than 60,000 people, so I think that this experience is forcing us into new ways of thinking about connecting with people.

I mean, I am definitely not ready to give up, nor do I think we need to give up the in-person experience. And I can’t wait to be back at IFC center or the SVA theater, where we hold DOC NYC events and look out at an audience of hundreds of people. That’s special, but this experience has forced us to try some new things. And I think that’s a positive.

---

Part Three: Virtual Survival (April 2, 2020)

This is the third installment of a series on the fate of film festivals and non-theatrical exhibition in the age of COVID-19. Please email comments and questions to festivals@thefilmcollaborative.org. (Also, please scroll down for a running list of canceled/postponed festivals with TFC films, as well as the previous two installments in this series.)

If ever a blog post would be diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (previously known as multiple personality disorder), this might be the one.

For the last two blog posts, I have been fighting to remind us why public exhibition of independent film is important in an increasingly online world. Heck, I’ve been saying this to whoever would listen for the last couple of years. Trying to remind us that seeing films together is how we most effectively share our stories and social messages, and experience a sense of community.

And then, poof!…in the space of a mere three weeks…it’s all gone. Every place we gathered to share breath, is shuttered. Solidarity replaced by social distancing.

So it makes sense that I feel like a man experiencing multiple personalities, one of which believes that this too shall pass, and another which wants to accept the way things are. In film distribution terms, this manifests as an urgent question as to whether to wait this out until public exhibition returns (if/when it ever does), or to cut ties with physical reality now…and move quickly to stream our films online.

Over the course of the last week, online screenings have become the trending topic in independent film. On March 25^th, The New York Times ran an article entitled “Select Film Festivals and Indie Movies Figure Out Online Access,” highlighting several online festival efforts that The Film Collaborative is contributing to including ReelAbilities NYC and Greenwich International, as well as virtual initiatives by such boutique distributors as Kino Lorber, Film Movement, Music Box Films, Oscilloscope, and others. Several large festivals in Europe launched last-minute online efforts to salvage significant portions of the festival, including “virtual screening rooms” at BFI Flare and CPH:DOX (the latter even streamed a live award show last weekend). Several other large fests have launched digital initiatives to save the Press & Industry-focused programs of the festival, including Tribeca, Hot Docs, and Visions Du Réel. Innumerable others are now streaming shorts and archive films to engage their membership, or simply suggesting curated programs of SVOD titles as a way to stay relevant and in-virtual-touch.

Stranger still is the language that many festivals are now using to describe their COVID-disrupted events. Organizers are rarely calling their Festivals canceled anymore, they are instead “postponed” into an uncertain future, hopefully this Fall. In the last few days, Festivals have started adopting a far cheerier tone, announcing that their festivals are “turning digital” and “now taking place online” and “offering audiences privileged access,” as if the transition will be seamless and nothing will be lost.

Indeed, one well-known Festival Director I deeply respect wrote me the following, as an intro email to send to our filmmakers to coach them into embracing the virtual screening space…

“This is the time to realize that responsible streaming of films is important for our culture and for the filmmakers. People are home and bored and scared and Indie film can connect with people in powerful ways. By making film festivals something you go online at a specific time as opposed to those films that will be up all week, drives people and actually gives them something to look forward to at this time. Better to connect, serve the audience and the makers and get the work out there. Be a mensch!”

This is the kind of language that drives my multiple personalities into high gear…

Be careful…This is where Pandora’s Box starts to open.

Personally, I fully understand the drive to embrace the NOW and move forward and seize opportunities where they avail themselves in uncertain times. In fact, as mentioned before, The Film Collaborative is moving forward with quite a few online screenings especially of our 2019 films right now, under select and secure conditions. These include such wonderful TFC titles as OUR TIME MACHINE, SELL BY, THE EUPHORIA OF BEING, MR. TOILET: THE WORLD’S #2 MAN, SONG LANG, and others – all of whom had their World Premieres at major Festivals last year and have been on the market for a significant period of time.

There are logistics and intellectual property concerns, of course. What kind of file format are online ventures requiring? And if you don’t have that file at home …where are you going to go in a Plague to get it made?! (It’s maddening to think that one through… film labs aren’t exactly essential businesses.) What security measures and what platforms are festivals using to keep the film safe from piracy and downloads? These may seem like solvable problems, but at least one of our top 2019 films has made it clear to us that they do not consider the risk of piracy to be a risk worth taking, and has restricted us from including it in any online efforts, despite a number of festivals requesting it.

There are also profound financial questions of course, lest we forget that revenue is a pressing question for so many (most?) of us right now. Certainly, filmmakers are more likely to be tempted into the virtual space by monetary compensation, and thankfully, we are finding that most festivals ARE open to paying online screening fees, although at a somewhat reduced rate than they offer for physical events. This formula makes some sense, as they don’t have experience selling tickets to virtual screenings, nor physical seat counts to work with. Some nimble distributors are in fact getting out in front of the screening fee math, proposing models such as this (redacted) formula we’ve seen one distributor using in their online festival negotiations….

Relevant issues raised here are the platform control (this distributor is offering their own), audience access to the screening (what’s to stop someone from forwarding the link outside of the festival membership?), the time limit of the screening window, the price (a barrier to many in these time when films on the SVOD channels feel free), and the admin fee. These are logistics beyond the scope that most individual filmmakers can control or hope to profit significantly from, so the onus rests on the festivals to create new models that can protect and benefit the filmmaker, as well as create new audiences for event-driven independent film.

The highest hurdle to online festival participation is the one faced by films that have not yet had a “real world” premiere…especially the ones we called the “unicorn films” in prior posts and were scheduled to launch at COVID-casualty festivals like SXSW, Tribeca, Cannes, Hot Docs, Full Frame, New Directors/New Films, Sheffield Doc/Fest, etc. As yet, there have been no online ventures that I am aware of that have tempted significant numbers of these wounded films into virtual world premieres. Fearing insurmountable losses in terms of sales exposure, marketing visibility, press attention, and premiere status, nearly all remain on the sidelines and out of reach for the time being, nervously waiting for Fall festivals, and/or (most importantly) those few active buyers (particularly the Streaming platforms and Broadcasters) to make their decisions about purchases.

(NOTE: SXSW and Amazon have recently announced a new online initiative to feature Official Selections of canceled 2020 SXSW. This is a major development that has many SX film considering the offer—although most of the films we have heard from thus far are hesitant. We will continue on this topic in future blogs!)

Above all, it is this question of how the splintered Festival circuit and its newly-conceived online efforts will affect the leading Streaming services that seems to be driving most of the indie market right now…and for good reason. Of all the Orwellian issues in this dangerous new world, the most perplexing facing virtual film exhibition are the rights issues. And warning, this is where my mental health issues kick back into gear.

By merging virtual space with physical exhibition space, films are now entering into the realm we’ve classified as internet and broadcasting rights in a way we’ve never done before. These are the domain of the all-powerful—the Amazons, the HBOs, Netflix, Hulu—all the sprawling apps on my AppleTV.

Long before COVID co-opted our lives, these had become the primary way we as a society were consuming the vast majority of our filmed entertainment content—at least those of us with homes, smart devices, and WiFi. They were already the reason that gathering for public exhibition was so threatened, and paradoxically so valuable.

And yet for now, for this moment in which public gathering is non-existent, streaming entertainment is all we have. On one hand, streaming entertainment bandwidth is virtually unlimited, but the commercial streamers don’t seem to see it that way. To date, we are not seeing a welcoming reaction by the Streamers to the perceived encroachment of the online Festival ventures. Before the current crisis, there was a general agreement that the Streamers had first dibs on the internet, and for now, it seems the Streamers want to keep it that way.

In fact, in just the last couple of days, we at TFC have been several key online festival ventures come into direct conflict with potential Streaming deals. For right now, there is no doubt that jumping online without carefully consulting with sales agents and potential buyers CAN conflict with pending sales deals.

I personally find this to be a frustrating situation at even the best of times, now obviously magnified by the current crisis in public exhibition. In these extremely difficult times, this leaves filmmakers, and by extension, the many in the Industry looking for dramatic new solutions during the plague, in a very precarious place, principally driven by a clash over rights.

In consulting about this clash of rights with my colleague and TFC founder Orly Ravid (who also counts here as a third aspect of my multiple personalities: a bolder, no-bullshit approach), we at TFC are taking this opportunity to recommend and call for the following:

1. That festivals and filmmakers liberate themselves from distribution rights terminology and jargon because there are not universally consistent rights definitions. We doubt that people would all agree to adopt a set of definitions, and any effort to do resolve rights definitions will likely be cumbersome, create delay, and may backfire.
2. Instead, get clear in basic terms about what is allowed:  how can audiences watch the film that is ideally most consistent with an in-person public venue film festival experience which is limited by time and location and comes with a financial cost to the audience member / viewer (either ticket sale, pass, or underwritten by commercial sponsor with sponsor messaging / branding — i.e. either transactional, subscription, or ad-supported). Allowing downloads and not protecting films territorially makes no sense and may negatively impact TV and SVOD licensing and other distribution.
3. Broadcast / SVOD and All Rights buyers/distributors should be lenient during the COVID-19 crisis regarding their policies for licensing/ buying films that screen in digital/online versions of film festivals, provided the festivals reasonably imitate real festival events (per #2).
4. Any film festival doing more than offering online/digital distribution not reasonably imitating the traditional public event in-person film screening environment should (1) properly warn filmmakers about potential negative impact on distribution and (2) remunerate for screening the films.

These are times of emergency, and they call for emergency measures if independent film is to survive.

I personally love to “Netflix and chill” as much as anyone, and the emergence of peak TV has brought us countless hours of great filmed entertainment….indeed more than I personally ever could have dreamed of a decade ago. It plays a crucial role in today’s world, especially as we social distance and shelter at home, but it cannot be the onlyway we share our culture. Streaming culture may in fact be strengthened by this crisis, and so it does not need to use this time to crush all else. We can all be bigger than that, multiple personalities and all.

Here’s to hoping we all rise again, strengthened both in physical AND in virtual form. But don’t hold your breath…this is going to be a long and bumpy ride.

As a shout-out to my LGBTQ+ film community comrades, I’d like to take a moment to pay homage to one particular postponement this week, the venerable Frameline San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival, originally scheduled for June 18 – 28 over Gay Pride weekend, as it has been since the heady movement days of the mid-to-late-1970s. You gotta be formidable to quash the queer spirit this way, but COVID-19 is, at least so far. Here’s hoping Frameline can raise from her ashes in the Fall, along with everyone else!

For a lengthier list of disrupted festivals TFC has been tracking see below.

Festivals with TFC Films canceled prior to 3/11/2020
Thessaloniki Docs
SXSW

Canceled or Postponed: 3/11/2020
CPH Dox (switching to online only)
Full Frame
ZagrebDox
Cleveland International Film Festival (switching to online only)
Princeton Environmental Film Festival
Philadelphia Environmental Film Festival
Torino LGBT Film Festival
Bentonville Film Festival
Salem Film Festival
Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival
Thin Line Film Festival (switching to online only)

Canceled Or Postponed: 3/12/2020
Tribeca Film Festival
IFF Boston
Wicked Queer: Boston LGBT Film Festival
FilmOut San Diego LGBT Film Festival
CinHomo Vallodolid Spain
Philadelphia QFlix
Greater Farmington Film Festival
Montclair Film Festival
San Diego Latino Film Festival
ACT Human Rights Film Festival
Sun Valley Film Festival
Sebastopol Documentary Festival
Luxembourg City Film Festival
Ashland Independent
New Directors/New Films

Canceled Or Postponed: 3/13 – 14/2020
Hot Docs (switching to online only)
San Francisco Film Festival
Sarasota Film Festival
Greenwich International (switching to online only)
Reel Abilities NYC (switching to online only)
Garden State Film Festival
Gasparilla Film Festival
OUTShine Miami LGBT (switching to online only)
Columbus Documentary Week at Gateway Film Center
Annapolis Film Festival (switching to online only)
RiverRun
Geelong Pride
One World Brussels
Fargo Film Festival
Coronado Film Festival
Queergestreift Festival
International Festival of Films on Art Montreal
Maine Jewish Film Festival
Frameline (special off-calendar screening)
New Jersey Jewish Film Festival
San Luis Obispo Film Festival
Minneapolis St. Paul International
Milwaukee Film Society screenings through end of April

Canceled Or Postponed: 3/15 – 18/2020
BFI Flare LGBT FF (switching to online only)
Millennial Docs Against Gravity
Calgary Underground
QDoc Portland
Illawarra Film Society Wollongong
Reel Affirmations (switching to online only)
Lost Weekend
Island House Film Festival
ARTA Cinema Romania
University of the Arts
Jacob Burns Film Center
One Take Film Festival
Viewscreen Festival Birmingham
Kashish Mumbai Queer FF
AKS International Minorities Festival Pakistan
Northwest Fest
Woodstock Film Festival (special screening)
World Bank (private screening)
NewportFILM
Denver Women + Film
Cinema St. Louis/Qfest
Riverfest Saginaw Film Festival
Queerzzine Bilbao
CINE-Brations
Sydney Film Festival
Seattle International Film Festival
MountainFilm Telluride
TLV Fest
CAAM Fest
Gay Film Festival Freiburg
Arizona State University Human Rights Film Festival
Zinentiendo
Atlanta Film Festival
Doc(k) Day Ontario
Niemeyer Center in Spain
Doxa Documentary Film Festival

Canceled or postponed 3/19/2020
Cannes Film Festival
Edinburgh Film Festival
DocAviv
Dallas International Film Festival
Dallas VideoFest (switching to online only)
Phoenix Film Festival
Virginia Film Festival
Sonoma International Film Festival
Pink Apple LGBT Film Festival
Berkshire Film Festival
CineLas Americas
Deep Focus Film Festival
Camden International
Malmö Queer Film Festival
Translations Seattle Transgender Film Festival

Canceled or postponed: 3/20/2020 – 3/24/2020
Visions du Réel (switching to online only)
Doclands / California Film Institute
BAMCinefest
Provincetown International Film Festival
Mendocino Film Festival
Capitol Theater Cleveland (special screenings)
Qara Film Festival Kazakhstan
The Art Theatre Long Beach
ECOCUP Green Documentary Film Festival (Russia)
Port Jefferson Documentary Series
NewFest (special off-calendar screening)
eTown
Roze Filmdagen
Washington Jewish Film + Music Festival
Toronto Inside Out LGBT Film Festival
Austin Film Society (special screenings)

Cancelled or postponed: 3/26 – 4/1/2020

Sheffield Doc/Fest
Frameline: San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival
Cinestudio
Monadnock Film Festival
Mama Film Microcinema
Parkway Theater
Movies That Matter (Netherlands)
Epos International Art Film Festival (Israel)
Spectrum Film Festival Martha’s Vineyard
London Lesbian Film Festival
Kansas City Out Here Now LGBT Film Festival
Fairy Tales Calgary LGBT Film Festival
Seoul Human Rights Film Festival
Moscow International Film Festival
Nordic International Film Festival

---

Part Two: Perspectives (March 26, 2020)

This is the second installment of a series on the fate of film festivals and non-theatrical exhibition in the age of COVID-19. Please email comments and questions to festivals@thefilmcollaborative.org. (Also, please scroll down for a running list of canceled/postponed festivals with TFC films, as well as previous installments in this series.)

Recent days have lanced our hearts again, what with the postponements, cancellations and disruptions of such Industry stalwarts as Visions Du Réel (April 17 – May 2), BAMcinemaFest (mid-June), Provincetown International (June 17-21), and the 30th anniversary of Toronto’s Inside Out LGBT Festival (May 21-31). There are still some optimistic hold-outs in the schedule (especially special screenings), but for the most part, we know what’s up now…we’re looking at a near-total cessation of regularly scheduled public programming stretching until at least the 2020 summer solstice…and hoping that the longer days to follow will shed further light on the situation.

But let’s put this in perspective. There are very real lives at stake here. Two weeks ago, as this was just all getting started, I was furiously messaging back and forth with a small LGBT festival in the Basque region of Spain, feeling desperate to get a few films booked before their print deadline. And then, silence. A few days ago I finally heard back from the head programmer, and he wrote:

“Sorry we haven’t sent you news before. We are overrun here in Spain. Because of COVID we are all in quarantine in our houses. Actually, my husband is very ill and we are very scared. All cinemas and theatres are closed, so we have cancelled our Festival. Please, I beg you to give us a little time to see how things develop, and we’ll let u know something asap.”

Ok, right. We are humans first. It is painful that he had to beg me to remember that.

We in the film community create (and transact business in) stories about people’s lives, their struggles, their triumphs, their heartbreaks. And, despite what some in the general public think, we are real people too. It behooves us to remember that at this time, lest our drive to make a buck make us monsters.

Now, I am not suggesting those of us who are healthy and housed at the moment should be feeling lucky—far from it. For many of us, especially the filmmakers and those in the Industry based around their work output, our ability to stay healthy and housed means we must find our way through this, and to continue to bring our films to a viewing public that probably needs them more than ever.

So let’s look squarely at what we are dealing with. In this morass, everyone brings very different perspectives and agendas to the table. Many of us have films that were fortunate enough to have A-level premieres in Fall 2019 and at Sundance/Berlin 2020, and this is a serious disruption in the normal distribution flow that would bring their films to market in the next few months. The Film Collaborative represents a number of these, such as the 2019 Locarno/IDFA prize-winning THE EUPHORIA OF BEING, the 2019 AFIFEST/Doc NYC portrait HE DREAMS OF GIANTS, and groundbreaking Sundance 2020 social impact docs DISCLOSURE, WELCOME TO CHECHNYA, and ON THE RECORD, among others, each of whom were scheduled to play many Spring festivals that will never take place as intended.

Then there are those of course who are the most impacted of all, the hundreds of “unicorn” films now facing a situation never-before-seen in my lifetime: those films who had their Spring 2020 World Premiere and subsequent launches canceled by COVID-19. I think we are all the most concerned for them right now, including such beautiful TFC films as THE DILEMMA OF DESIRE (SXSW 2020*), MY DARLING VIVIAN (SXSW 2020*), CICADA (BFI Flare 2020*), P.S. BURN THIS LETTER PLEASE (Tribeca 2020*), AKICITA: THE BATTLE OF STANDING ROCK (Hot Docs 2020*), and many others.

So now what? Pause and take a breath…

First, let’s face the fact that nothing much is likely to happen for a couple of months now, other than “social distancing,” various stop-gap online measures, and the voracious streaming platforms continuing to buy up and spit out films for home consumption. So we can afford at least a few moments to reflect.

I suggest we start by re-considering and remembering why we do Festivals in the first place, and to reconfigure our diverse agendas accordingly.

We must recall that, even in the age of binging, we show independent films in public gatherings to 1) expose the film to the Industry including buyers, sellers, agents, etc; 2) to build word-of-mouth and marketing buzz; 3) to generate press/reviews; and 4) to generate a revenue stream based on screening fees, educational licenses, non-theatrical fees, box office shares, etc. In the immediate future, that isn’t going away or being replaced, it is on PAUSE.

For most, the World Premiere of a film is just as much an emotional inflection point as it is a business necessity. And that’s OK…remember I am trying to remind us that we are human beings first. As director Maria Finitzo of the SXSW 2020* Official Selection THE DILEMMA OF DESIRE wrote me today:

“Launching a film at an A level festival matters so deeply for filmmakers not only because of the buzz and potential marketing opportunities for the film that come as a result but also because the moment a film is seen for the first time with an audience is a celebration of all of the hard work that was done by all of the artists who worked on the film. It is a moment we all long for and need. Many of us have spent years making our films and way too much of our own money keeping them going. We do that because we believe deeply in the mission of the film and know that the best way to ignite the conversation at the heart of the film is with a Festival run. Seeing a film with a Festival audience that loves filmmaking is one of the greatest rewards filmmakers can receive.”

I firmly believe that even though THE DILEMMA OF DESIRE’s SXSW physical premiere was canceled, nobody can or will ever try to take away the fact that it was an Official Selection of the elite Festival. From a pure business POV, that should remain extremely valuable, as it still marks the film as having been vetted and chosen amongst the best. SXSW in turn chose to give out its awards online as selected by virtual juries, and SXSW films were still offered to the press to review. But the emotional inflection point did not happen, and to be frank, there have not been anywhere close to the usual flood of reviews that this excellent doc would normally attract. At least, not yet.

And so, THE DILEMMA OF DESIRE and so many others face the hard choice…to soldier on and accept any and all Festival invitations once the circuit resumes, or to refocus and attempt another A-level premiere at a later date? If SXSW were the only major festival to have been canceled, I would strongly lean towards the former, believing as I said that the original premiere laurel will never be taken away. But THE DILEMMA OF DESIRE and so many others have now had numerous Festival invites cancel, and the summer months are generally lacking in top-level Festival launches (except for a few notables in Europe and various niche opportunities, especially LGBT pride festivals).

But is re-focusing now for a Fall re-launch even a viable option? In many ways, this will fall to the major A-level festivals like Toronto, Locarno, Venice, San Sebastian, IDFA, and, yes, 2021 Sundance/SXSW/Berlin and beyond to grapple with and decide. Will they allow a film with 2020 SXSW (or Tribeca, Cannes, Hot Docs, etc.) laurels to circumvent their normally strict Premiere guidelines? I am guessing they will, to some limited degree, although what that will look like I can only guess (special sidebars and sections perhaps?). I cannot imagine they will relax those premiere restrictions entirely, even if some will claim they are, if only because there won’t be enough hours in the months and days for their programmers to watch all of those. Even in normal times, those Festivals are extremely difficult to get into, and now they are certain to be exceedingly so, as the competition for limited slots will likely be overwhelming.

I know that there will be some films that are either so well made or on particularly hot-button topics (does anyone have a film on how to survive a pandemic, perhaps?), that the choice to wait for Fall (or later) will be simple. Most likely those Festivals will get word of your film soon and start telling you that, behind closed doors, anyway (truly great films don’t tend to stay secret for very long).

For the rest of contemplating our paths forward though, I would ask filmmakers to consider the following questions:

• How much does your film need to build word of mouth to find its audience? Is it a specialized film for specialized taste that requires critical attention to break through?
• What is your financial situation and how much do you need to maximize return-on-investment to get whole? Can you afford to short sell the film without the traditional premiere and critical and WOM attention a festival run can create? Is it even possible for you to sell the film now? Will you survive if you wait for a more opportune moment?
• How much do you really personally want the experience and the attention of the Festival circuit? Is showing the film in front of live audiences one of the main reasons you made the film in the first place? Are you ready to give up on that yet?
• Does your film fall into a subject matter, genre, niche, or celebrity-driven mold that may fit the existing appetite of commercial buyers and find their audiences via broadcast and streaming alone?
• Does your film already have a distribution deal in place, with a hard stop to a Festival run already dictated by other release windows?

I think that once a filmmaker has taken a soul-searching look at their priorities and survival strategies based on the questions above, the answers will likely be obvious to them, based on their own perspective.

Of course, a number of these questions will best be answered in consultation with a sales agent. Most sales agents are finely attuned to what a Festival run can do for your film, as Festivals are the primary launch pads for their efforts as well. I am hearing from some sales agents that the streaming platforms are already getting hungry for new content now, in light of the upsurge in subscriptions and the drying up of new productions that are also a casualty of this plague. I spoke to one producer today who has a slate of films with varying levels of financing in place, and she was honest with me about a sacrifice she is already willing to make. She explained that given the difficult landscape of what the Fall festivals will likely look like, she is indeed ready to sell a particularly commercial doc in late post now to an interested streamer, instead of treating it with the normal Festival premiere and run it would usually merit, given the difficult road we face ahead.

For those films fortunate to already have distribution deals in place, these decisions about next steps forward are of course easier. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t painful. Such TFC films as WELCOME TO CHECHNYA and ON THE RECORD, both Sundance 2020 premieres, were gearing up for productive Spring festival runs that would have helped bolster the issues raised in the films, and been important in garnering critical claim and awards. But both those films have HBO broadcasts just a few months from now, so those windows have largely closed. And still many more films were counting on festival runs to build momentum and press to Fall theatrical releases, such as the Venice 2019 premiere HOUSE OF CARDIN, which informed me today that they had 14 festivals canceled in the last few days, and that they were now reconsidering when the theatrical run would take place, assuming they could restart the momentum when the world returns to “normal” (whatever or whenever that may be).

I personally think the most important question of all is, “How will we treat each other in the wake of such disruption, if and when the world returns?”

How will we as an Industry react to the very real crisis of so many hundreds of worthy films left without a traditional launchpad? Can we even imagine communal responses to support each other? While we are sparked by adversity to dream of new solutions to health care, housing, and unemployment, can we envision ways to rise from these ashes to become a better vocation? Will we be humans, or will we be monsters?

NOTE: It is with great sadness that we learned yesterday of the death due to coronavirus of one of the greatest playwrights of our era, Terrence McNally, who was also the subject of the 2018 Film Collaborative documentary EVERY ACT OF LIFE by Jeff Kaufman and Marcia Ross. He was a legend among legends, and the lights of the American theater will never burn as bright without him.

Festivals with TFC Films canceled prior to 3/11/2020
Thessaloniki Docs
SXSW

Canceled or Postponed: 3/11/2020
CPH Dox (switching to online only)
Full Frame
ZagrebDox
Cleveland International Film Festival (switching to online only)
Princeton Environmental Film Festival
Philadelphia Environmental Film Festival
Torino LGBT Film Festival
Bentonville Film Festival
Salem Film Festival
Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival
Thin Line Film Festival (switching to online only)

Canceled Or Postponed: 3/12/2020
Tribeca Film Festival
IFF Boston
Wicked Queer: Boston LGBT Film Festival
FilmOut San Diego LGBT Film Festival
CinHomo Vallodolid Spain
Philadelphia QFlix
Greater Farmington Film Festival
Montclair Film Festival
San Diego Latino Film Festival
ACT Human Rights Film Festival
Sun Valley Film Festival
Sebastopol Documentary Festival
Luxembourg City Film Festival
Ashland Independent
New Directors/New Films

Canceled Or Postponed: 3/13 – 14/2020
Hot Docs (switching to online only)
San Francisco Film Festival
Sarasota Film Festival
Greenwich International (switching to online only)
Reel Abilities NYC (switching to online only)
Garden State Film Festival
Gasparilla Film Festival
OUTShine Miami LGBT (switching to online only)
Columbus Documentary Week at Gateway Film Center
Annapolis Film Festival (switching to online only)
RiverRun
Geelong Pride
One World Brussels
Fargo Film Festival
Coronado Film Festival
Queergestreift Festival
International Festival of Films on Art Montreal
Maine Jewish Film Festival
Frameline (special off-calendar screening)
New Jersey Jewish Film Festival
San Luis Obispo Film Festival
Minneapolis St. Paul International
Milwaukee Film Society screenings through end of April

Canceled Or Postponed: 3/15 – 18/2020
BFI Flare LGBT FF (switching to online only)
Millennial Docs Against Gravity
Calgary Underground
QDoc Portland
Illawarra Film Society Wollongong
Reel Affirmations (switching to online only)
Lost Weekend
Island House Film Festival
ARTA Cinema Romania
University of the Arts
Jacob Burns Film Center
One Take Film Festival
Viewscreen Festival Birmingham
Kashish Mumbai Queer FF
AKS International Minorities Festival Pakistan
Northwest Fest
Woodstock Film Festival (special screening)
World Bank (private screening)
NewportFILM
Denver Women + Film
Cinema St. Louis/Qfest
Riverfest Saginaw Film Festival
Queerzzine Bilbao
CINE-Brations
Sydney Film Festival
Seattle International Film Festival
MountainFilm Telluride
TLV Fest
CAAM Fest
Gay Film Festival Freiburg
Arizona State University Human Rights Film Festival
Zinentiendo
Atlanta Film Festival
Doc(k) Day Ontario
Niemeyer Center in Spain
Doxa Documentary Film Festival

Canceled or postponed 3/19/2020
Cannes Film Festival
Edinburgh Film Festival
DocAviv
Dallas International Film Festival
Dallas VideoFest (switching to online only)
Phoenix Film Festival
Virginia Film Festival
Sonoma International Film Festival
Pink Apple LGBT Film Festival
Berkshire Film Festival
CineLas Americas
Deep Focus Film Festival
Camden International
Malmö Queer Film Festival
Translations Seattle Transgender Film Festival

Canceled or postponed: 3/20/2020 – 3/24/2020
Visions du Réel (switching to online only)
Doclands / California Film Institute
BAMCinefest
Provincetown International Film Festival
Mendocino Film Festival
Capitol Theater Cleveland (special screenings)
Qara Film Festival Kazakhstan
The Art Theatre Long Beach
ECOCUP Green Documentary Film Festival (Russia)
Port Jefferson Documentary Series
NewFest (special off-calendar screening)
eTown
Roze Filmdagen
Washington Jewish Film + Music Festival
Toronto Inside Out LGBT Film Festival
Austin Film Society (special screenings)

---

Part One: And so it begins… (March 20, 2020)

This is first of a new series of blog posts on the fate of film festivals and non-theatrical exhibition in the age of COVID-19. Please email comments and questions to festivals@thefilmcollaborative.org. (Also, please scroll down for a running list of canceled/postponed festivals.)

If you know The Film Collaborative, it’s likely you know that we are an Industry leader in distributing films across the global Film Festival circuit. We do this for a variety of sound business reasons relating to sales, marketing, and revenue…but we also do it because we believe it is important. Film Festivals are an elegant and intimate form of public gathering, and they are where we in the indie film world go to pay homage to our life’s work, to share our stories, our important social messages, and to achieve a sense of community.

If ever you doubted why public gatherings are important, now you know. Recently in California (where The Film Collaborative is based), a state-wide order was issued to “shelter-in-place,” meaning, of course, we are to stay at home unless absolutely necessary. This same thing is almost certainly happening in your town, your city, or wherever you are reading this. And so today, as you know, we are glimpsing a world where public gatherings are no longer possible—including film festivals, screening series, art house theatre bookings, university screenings, museum presentations, community screenings, NGO & human rights conferences, scientific/environmental/academic conferences, and all the many other kinds of public assembly venues that The Film Collaborative regularly services.

A quick reminder of how we got here. On March 6, the annual tech, music, education, and film meet up collectively known as SXSW collapsed under the weight of growing health concerns around the spiking number of COVID-19 cases in Washington State, major sponsor withdrawals, and fierce public outcry. At the time, to me at least, it seemed more like a hugely significant blip on the radar—and as much a public relations gambit as a serious effort to safeguard the public—than the sounding of the death knell it would prove to be.

Only five days later, on March 11, the drip-drip of worldwide festival cancellations began to cascade into a torrent, at which point we at The Film Collaborative began to track the number of festivals with TFC Films that were being canceled as they happened, and reporting them to our filmmakers nearly every day. Here is the tally that has followed…

Festivals with TFC Films canceled prior to 3/11/2020
Thessaloniki Docs
SXSW

Canceled or Postponed: 3/11/2020
CPH Dox (switching to online only)
Full Frame
ZagrebDox
Cleveland International Film Festival (switching to online only)
Princeton Environmental Film Festival
Philadelphia Environmental Film Festival
Torino LGBT Film Festival
Bentonville Film Festival
Salem Film Festival
Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival
Thin Line Film Festival (switching to online only)

Canceled Or Postponed: 3/12/2020
Tribeca Film Festival
IFF Boston
Wicked Queer: Boston LGBT Film Festival
FilmOut San Diego LGBT Film Festival
CinHomo Vallodolid Spain
Philadelphia QFlix
Greater Farmington Film Festival
Montclair Film Festival
San Diego Latino Film Festival
ACT Human Rights Film Festival
Sun Valley Film Festival
Sebastopol Documentary Festival
Luxembourg City Film Festival
Ashland Independent
New Directors/New Films

Canceled Or Postponed: 3/13 – 14/2020
Hot Docs (switching to online only)
San Francisco Film Festival
Sarasota Film Festival
Greenwich International (switching to online only)
Reel Abilities NYC (switching to online only)
Garden State Film Festival
Gasparilla Film Festival
OUTShine Miami LGBT (switching to online only)
Columbus Documentary Week at Gateway Film Center
Annapolis Film Festival (switching to online only)
RiverRun
Geelong Pride
One World Brussels
Fargo Film Festival
Coronado Film Festival
Queergestreift Festival
International Festival of Films on Art Montreal
Maine Jewish Film Festival
Frameline (special off-calendar screening)
New Jersey Jewish Film Festival
San Luis Obispo Film Festival
Minneapolis St. Paul International
Milwaukee Film Society screenings through end of April

Canceled Or Postponed: 3/15 – 18/2020
BFI Flare LGBT FF (switching to online only)
Millennial Docs Against Gravity
Calgary Underground
QDoc Portland
Illawarra Film Society Wollongong
Reel Affirmations (switching to online only)
Lost Weekend
Island House Film Festival
ARTA Cinema Romania
University of the Arts
Jacob Burns Film Center
One Take Film Festival
Viewscreen Festival Birmingham
Kashish Mumbai Queer FF
AKS International Minorities Festival Pakistan
Northwest Fest
Woodstock Film Festival (special screening)
World Bank (private screening)
NewportFILM
Denver Women + Film
Cinema St. Louis/Qfest
Riverfest Saginaw Film Festival
Queerzzine Bilbao
CINE-Brations
Sydney Film Festival
Seattle International Film Festival
MountainFilm Telluride
TLV Fest
CAAM Fest
Gay Film Festival Freiburg
Arizona State University Human Rights Film Festival
Zinentiendo
Atlanta Film Festival
Doc(k) Day Ontario
Niemeyer Center in Spain
Doxa Documentary Film Festival

Canceled or postponed 3/19/2020
Cannes Film Festival
Edinburgh Film Festival
DocAviv
Dallas International Film Festival
Dallas VideoFest (switching to online only)
Phoenix Film Festival
Virginia Film Festival
Sonoma International Film Festival
Pink Apple LGBGT Film Festival
Berkshire Film Festival
CineLas Americas
Deep Focus Film Festival
Camden International
Malmo Queer FF
Translations Seattle Transgender Film Festival

Even a quick glimpse reveals the horrific situation. Nearly every continent represented. Nearly every festival between now and early June, canceled, so far. Some of the greatest totems of contemporary film culture…Cannes, Tribeca, Hot Docs, San Francisco Film Festival, etc. No end in sight. No adequate words to summarize or quantify any of it.

We at TFC alone have canceled more than 250 bookings of our films scheduled for this Spring. These are not just bookings, these are the expressions of our filmmakers’ lives, their art, their craft, their commerce. The loss is, well, incalculable.

And yet, it must be noted, perhaps it is all also NOTHING compared to the devastating loss of life, health, and economic activity being experienced now by nearly everyone, everywhere.

So what comes next?

As we move into uncharted territory, what are the marching orders for today’s filmmakers as they attempt to navigate a new virus-laden terrain? Are there proactive strategies for surviving and even thriving on this new front, or do we bide our time and temporarily concede to powerlessness in the face of a shadow combatant we cannot yet control?

How do we get through this?

I’ll conclude here today by saying that obviously nobody actually knows, whether they are so-called “Industry experts” or laypeople. Nothing I can write here should be construed as “fact,” only best guesses and informed opinion.

What I do know, is that these are perilous waters and if we are to explore them, we must come together as a community to do so. And I also know…

This. Is. Important.

We would LOVE to hear from you as this Blog Series movies forward. Please email us with any comments or questions at festivals@thefilmcollaborative.org, or respond to the original social media posts on Facebook and Twitter. We will gather responses and plan to post a new blog on this topic every few days in the coming days and weeks.

Jeffrey Winter May 28th, 2020

Posted In: Uncategorized