DECADE:  Marcus Hu and Jon Gerrans - Staying Indie, Through Thick and Thin, Parts 1 & 2

by Eugene Hernandez and Mark Rabinowitz/indieWIRE

[Part two of this interview is linked at the bottom of the page.]

Ten years ago, Marcus Hu, Jon Gerrans and Mike Thomas formed Strand Releasing, one of many upstart distributors in the late 1980's looking to provide a place for the rising tide of solid small features without a U.S. home. While many have since passed on, Strand continues into the next decade with its sharp eye for high quality gay-themed work, foreign features, and American independents. They began by booking Lino Brocka's "Macho Dancer," producing Gregg Araki's ultra low-budget "The Living End," and releasing Alison Maclean's "Crush." A decade later, a list of highly acclaimed features emerge: Amer-indies such as Araki's "Totally F**cked Up," Ira Sach's "The Delta," and Jesse Peretz's "First Love, Last Rites," as well as prestigious foreign titles like Claire Denis' "Nenette and Boni," Tsai Ming Liang's "Vive L'Amour" and John Maybury's "Love is the Devil."

While Thomas recently left the company to form gay distributor Jour de Fete, Hu and Gerrans remain the heart and soul of Strand Releasing, producing and distributing the kinds of films that many in the business are too afraid to touch. With 1999 their best year yet -- including releases like Gaspar Noe's "I Stand Alone," Ferzan Ozpetek's "Steam: Turkish Bath," Lukas Moodysson's "Show Me Love" and David Moreton's "Edge of Seventeen" -- the indie distributor keeps on nailing its audience. And with the duo's next producing effort, "Psycho Beach Party" premiering at Sundance 2000, the company heads into the next millennium with a spirit of fun as well as dedication. indieWIRE's Eugene Hernandez and Mark Rabinowitz spoke to Hu and Gerrans about the past and future of Strand and the industry. [Anthony Kaufman]

Marcus Hu: Things go in cycles. Things change so quickly that just today you look and where is Gramercy Pictures, where is October Films, where is Miramax, where is Sony Classics? Though actually Sony is probably the most faithful to what they stand for. But ultimately, they get so caught up in: What is the bottom line? I think everyone goes out and they think they're going to be noble, and they're going to face the world and be supportive of an incredibly daring kind of cinema. And then ultimately, at the end of the day, they see that they didn't make much money on that movie, all of a sudden the profiles change and there are changes.

Gramercy and October don't exist anymore, and now they are consolidated into USA Films. So therefore the kind of support of independent films is all consolidated into one company now, and they're not supporting the kinds of independent films that they set out to do before. There's no Bingham Ray championing small independent films like "The Living End." Could you imagine USA Films picking up "The Living End"? I don't think so. And for that matter, I think there are a handful of us that are very supportive of independent films still. I think there's us, there's Zeitgeist, Cowboy, Kino, New Yorker Films, etc. But when you look at Miramax now, they're not really supportive of the independent films that are made for shoestring 16mm budgets. That said, I can still see a Sony Classics picking up "The Living End" and supporting it. They're one of the few that have remained true. On the one hand, they can still do the big drama with an Academy push, but on the other hand, I can still see them doing "Slackers." And "American Movie," for example.

Jon Gerrans: In looking at the last ten years you have seen changes. What is different from the ten years before that and the ten years before that? I can tell you I have seen in these ten years the cyclical changes, whether it will rebound back to where it was before, I don't know.

I would imagine it would have to. I would say right now is kind of a down period for independent film, or truly independent film. I think that new media will change that -- ten years ago when it was very, very fiercely independent, you saw some really interesting, provocative films come out of that period and then it sort of became...with the success of the Tarantinos and the Soderberghs came the studio independents, and you'd see these more homogenized types of films coming out of that system. Now with the new media, its getting cheaper to make films, easier to make films, and so maybe there will be a whole -- I believe there will be -- a whole new wave of filmmakers that now don't have to rely on having Miramax and New Line give you the greenlight to make your film.

Gerrans: We are getting a sense of it. I expect next year, when you look at the phenomenal -- and I am sure that won't happen for another ten years -- the success of "Blair Witch," I think all the "Blair Witch" knock-offs haven't hit, just like three years ago you had all the Tarantino knock-offs, but you know it takes a while before you start seeing the copycats, but, out of the copycats always come a couple of very interesting new twists on that same genre.

So, it will be there, but it kind of really hasn't hit yet, you hear that quote from Sundance -- from Geoff Gilmore -- he said that he hadn't really gotten that many submissions, or as much as he would have expected, that were digital productions.

iW: The difference between some of the bigger and smaller companies is a lot wider than it was at the start of the decade. I am wondering how you guys remain committed to the independent vision that you have, since there are such major changes on one end of the spectrum.

Gerrans: Definitely, definitely. The gap has widened considerably. You can't compete with the studios, you can't come up with a new company and try and compete with the studios and their library, now what the studios have done is affiliate themselves with the independents, so how can a company like ours or October survive without having that affiliation? They don't really, if they are going to compete directly.

Hu: We've kept the same formula of being conservative about what we spend, and I don't think we ever overspend. It's really rare that we ever go into the red on a film. There are very few occasions where we ever end up in the red. And we've always been very cautious and conservative. We know our market, and I think we know how to exploit the market on a picture, particularly the Gay and Lesbian ones, and we understand it and are sensitive to the market. And we have a reputation for picking up pretty good films. I think our library kind of shows that we have a good track record with that.

Gerrans: I think that is the key to our survival, we know we can't compete with them, we know its impossible, we don't have the financial backing that they do to make the mistakes that they can. When we start thinking we can compete -- when we start doing that -- is when we start slowly going out of business. And you see the companies that have come in the past ten years and did not survive, it's always because they try and step up to the plate and compete directly with those companies, and you can't. So, companies like ours, you find a way to sort of counter-program to take advantage of the opportunities that may slip by them, but knowing that we can't directly go head to head against them. Once again, indirectly you still are, you are still fighting for a lot of the same theaters, but we can spend a tenth of what they spend, so we vie for the same theaters but we don't take it personally when we don't get it -- we don't take an arrogant position, thinking, "Well, let's up the advertising so we can get that screen, we know that's a fight we are not going to win. We know the limits.

The conversation continues on page 2...

News » Oscar Doc Shortlist Features » Tim Burton's Big Show News » Sundance's 2010 New Frontier

Login to recommend this article » posted on December 17, 1999 Films to Snag Login to Leave a Comment »