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How did you first hear about IFC Entertainment?
IFC Films is a well-known brand that I have known about for many years. I’m familiar with many of their high-quality films
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I was always aware of it. I have a family member who introduced me to independent film at a very young age. I have been aware of it for a very long time.
I have worked in the film industry prior to becoming a filmmaker. I have a pretty extensive knowledge of all distributors.
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We had been familiar with IFC Films for many years, having seen their past feature films in theaters before we signed our distribution contract with them.
I first heard of IFC ages ago as an audience member.
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Our domestic sales rep put us in contact with them after they had made an offer. We were familiar with their catalogue of films and other filmmakers who had worked with them.
What motivated you to work with them?
[Very specific answer with regard to promotion.]
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They made us the best offer.
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Ultimately, I knew them. I knew people who worked there. I had a comfort and Arianna [Brocco] was a fan of the movie.
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Our sales agent had recommended them after our film had played at several major film festivals. Additionally, they were the only major distributor to offer us a rather substantial minimum guarantee.
This film is an indie film. We made a film with no celebrities in it. I paid for it out of pocket. We wanted to find a partner who kind of had the same grit and grime that we made this movie with—with a lot of handshakes and hugs, not a lot of contracts. IFC came to us after [major film festival]. They made the most competitive offer (which ruled) but [IFC staffer] was a really big advocate for the movie. This persion was very aggressively pursuing the movie. It felt very good to be the pretty girl at the dance not only to have someone like the movie, but get what we were going for.
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Didn’t feel like they were an aggregator. I believe it’s been considered a prestige label for as long as I’ve been in indie film. That’s good for the film and the filmmaker. They have a good reputation for tailoring their rollout to each film and not a one-size-fits-all approach.
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They had a solid reputation for honesty and transparency. Confirmed by our sales rep.
What went well?
Though it was incredibly expensive, they created a great trailer, and I was happy with how much their marketing team consulted with me on the trailer and poster.
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They did an amazing job on social media, marketing the movie. They built a new website for us and cut a beautiful trailer for us. They were so cool about us showing the movie at festivals we really cared about. I have worked with other bigger distribution companies who would never let us do that.
They were really thoughtful about marketing and about using whatever money they had in smart ways. I was very involved in that process. Normally a lot of people don’t get that opportunity to be that involved.
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Mainly worked with [IFC STAFFER], who was extremely transparent with everything. I think of them as pretty open about things. Don’t know if that was specific to him or culturally what they are like.
IFC had a decent marketing campaign for our film, and they were very transparent. They offered input from us as to the design of the campaign such as the poster, trailer, etc. Within less than a year after our film was in release, IFC had started paying us our royalties which we were successfully able to pay down the negative costs of the film.
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The film got out to audiences both in theaters and digitally.
They were communicative and updated us on theatrical and VOD numbers on a weekly basis. The PR team pushed for interviews and press ranging from national to local. They took our input on promotional trailers and poster design.
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Buzz around the film was good. The MG was fair and came close to recouping investors’ money on just a domestic deal, which is great at any time but especially in this market for non-”star” based indie films.
What went poorly?
This is a long list. Let’s start with communication. Once the deal was done, I really never heard from anyone over there, other than their delivery people and the guy responsible for the trailer and poster. Never heard from any of the PR people, social media people (if they even have social media people), or anyone else. They don’t return calls or emails and in fact, many of them don’t even have voicemail on their phones.
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They have bad deal terms that are non-negotiable, like even if your film recoups its expenses, they will collect a backend fee. I suppose other companies do this, but I’d never seen that before.
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I wish we had some actual P&A (promotion and advertising) budget and an M.G. (minimum guarantee).
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They didn’t spend a penny to market the film, and I doubt they spent 3 minutes total doing any social media marketing or any other kinds of marketing. They sent press releases to certain press, but not any outside-the-box press that I recommended for my particular movie. While I hired a social media person, and posted constantly running up to the theatrical premiere, tagging them on every post, they couldn’t even bother to “Like” a single post, let alone re-post it. While they have a big following on Twitter, for instance, they sent out exactly one Tweet promoting our release.
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Their recoupable costs are very high, and even though you’re going to get a decent license fee from their output deals at Hulu or Showtime, you’ll never make any money off their deal unless you do incredibly well during the transactional window. And remember, they’re doing nothing to help you do well.
The snafu was on our part [involving very specific delivery issues].
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Can’t say anything went really poorly in our experience.
Even with the success of our film and solid effort, it remains challenging to recoup our entire budget…although this is a reflection of the entire indie film market and not specifically IFC.
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Not too much. I think they could’ve platformed it in theaters a little better. We did well in cities where we had a strong base, and I felt the other theaters were just throwaways to hit certain numbers for TVOD. Could have done better in some more cities where we knew our fan base to be.
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Did they breach the contract?
They seem to be sticklers for the contract, so, so far, they haven’t.
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No.
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No.
No.
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No.
No.
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As far as I know, no.
Filmmaker Friendliness?
I’m not exactly sure what “filmmaker friendly” means, but I can’t imagine attributing this term to IFC Films. Maybe if I was a famous filmmaker…
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Everyone but their legal team is respectful and communicative. Legal team has been a little difficult. Everyone on their marketing side has been amazing. Acquisition side too. They’ve been incredibly responsive. Lovely partners.
[IFC Staffer] was great. They were very respectful and creative. They didn’t have a ton of money in their budget, so they figured out the creative ways to do things. They were informative in that way.
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Yes, I would say that they are filmmaker friendly and are open to finding independent films available for distribution. Since the release of our earlier film, we kept them in mind for future films and continued our pre-existing relationship with them.
I felt they absolutely were filmmaker friendly. I was included and consulted in the creation of the poster and the trailer, which was very important to me.
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Yes, overall. They still respond to us in a timely manner several years after our original release.
I’ve dealt with a lot of distributors. They were very friendly and sought our input on everything from the trailers, to poster, to distribution strategy. They included us in a lot of conversations with a lot of their team.
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What would you have done differently?
It’s hard to say if I had the opportunity to choose again, whether I would go with another company. I kind of got out of them what I was expecting (I had low expectations). Yes, they managed to perform below my low expectations, but I wanted their stamp of approval for the film, and I got that. I didn’t make any money on the deal, and likely I could have made more money even with a company like Indie Rights, but I wasn’t after just money, though I’m very disappointed with our returns. Even though it would have been expensive, I would probably now consider hiring my own publicist—their in-house PR people didn’t do anything.
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I would have paid for a lawyer.
Given my options at that time, I would probably still go with IFC over the others. They were a known quantity. I knew they were reputable.
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Maybe see about a larger theatrical release, but overall, I cannot think of anything to be done differently on that end. They did a very good job distributing our film.
I’m not sure I could have done more. I made a really good film that got into a top tier festival, won an award. All I could have done that would have helped distribution would have been to have cast more “valuable” talent.
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We’re happy with our choice overall.
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Probably would have hired a better publicist. It’s hard to get through the noise.
Any Final Thoughts?
IFC, like a lot of distributors, is a mill. The difference between them and many of the other companies is they do release very good movies, so your film will be in that company. They are a finely-tuned machine designed to enable them to break-even and even make a little money on every one of their movies. How well the filmmaker does is none of their concern, and I imagine most don’t make very much money off their deals. I know other filmmakers I’ve talked to had the exact same complaints about how little they did for their films. I went in with my eyes wide open and yet still, they surprised me about how poorly they performed.
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I would say to myself and any other indie filmmakers that it’s good to prepare yourself for your film to be successful. I didn’t anticipate being as successful as it has been, and it has created problems because we weren’t prepared.
I’ve done business multiple times now with IFC and they really do love movies and filmmakers. Arianna Bocco is great. I wish they could offer more money for films but that’s just not the industry anymore. Every year a very small handful get windfalls and everyone else gets what’s left.
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I know the state of the industry is extremely hard right now. Not only to raise the money for the films but then to find a home. Hoping the non-big studios don’t get squeezed out and even more consolidated because eventually we won’t have anywhere to put our films. I was very impressed with IFC and hope people keep finding our films.
Takeaways
We hear some of the usual gripes here—lack of communication, and low effort in terms of publicity. Some filmmakers lamented the inflexible deal terms with high recoupable costs and backend fees, which might give pause to those looking to work with this distributor. Most felt, however, that above all else IFC was a known quantity and that they were in good company in terms of other films that this distributor releases. Apart from that, it is hard to know how much the sorry state of the industry is contributing to poor performance many filmmakers here mention, even if a few were actually pleased with the financial results.
Contribute
Are you a filmmaker or distributor who wants to contribute to this page? Please reach out at drc@thefilmcollaborative.org. Emails sent to this inbox are confidential and accessed only by the staffer who facilitates ReportCard interviews.
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