A word about methodology:

• All films interviewed were feature length.
• TFC has, of course, received feedback about these distributors over the years from sometimes dozens of filmmakers who have used them, but for the purposes of this guide, we have made every effort to interview and utilize quotes from at least 8 separate filmmakers who have had relatively recent experiences working with these distributors. Of course, these experiences will vary from film to film, especially in terms of whether the project in question was fiction, documentary, or hybrid, what genre it was, and whether the film contained “name” cast.
• When there were sharp differences between filmmakers with older and more recent titles, in order to provide a more accurate picture of the distributor’s current position regarding staffing and efficacy, we conducted interviews with additional filmmakers who had worked with the company within the past year.
• Certain elements have been redacted in places to ensure the anonymity of the filmmakers interviewed.
• As a nonprofit dedicated to filmmaker education and transparency in the industry, we will continue to offer filmmakers a forum to express their views without preconception or bias, now and always. If there are filmmakers or distributors who would like to add to, or further contextualize, any of the opinions provided herein, we have set up a special email address that will only be accessed by the TFC staffer who is facilitating these interviews, and not by the TFC team as a whole.

Additionally, we recommend that you join the following two Facebook groups. These are primarily driven by major grievances by filmmakers who have been wronged so badly that they are willing to shed their anonimity to discuss their experiences in a semi-public forum, even though these are both closed groups. It’s a different approach from the Distributor ReportCard, but we encourage you to check these out, especially since they may contain information about filmmakers’ experiences with distribuotrs that the DRC has not yet covered:

• Protect Yourself from Predatory Film Distributors/Aggregators