Trading Up: New Paradigm Poaches From Fests

His cross-country jump is only the latest in a trend of festival execs moving up, not only for a bigger paycheck, but for a bigger canvas—a way to expand art and indie film out of a broken domestic model and into a global one.

Moreover, it shows that fests have turned into hunting grounds for certain companies looking for a different kind of exec—one who can take ideas formed within their microcosmic event and apply them to an international strategy.

Christian Gaines left AFI FEST to be Director of Festivals for Withoutabox, now a division of IMDb.com, which in turn is owned by Amazon. While Gaines is charged with helping client festivals connect with filmmakers and audiences, his job title stresses the global outreach of Amazon and IMDb.

In theory, lineups from festivals via Withoutabox are cataloged on IMDb and either streamed right on IMDb, or linked to VOD purchases and rentals on Amazon.  And while Amazon’s ebook device, Kindle 2, doesn’t yet have movie-viewing ability, you can bet that’s in the works, closing the circle.

“Being a festival director often means addressing the basics needed to put on a good show,” says Gaines. “In doing that, I learned about the evolving needs of filmmakers and audiences. Now I work with the world’s great film festivals to harness the benefits of emerging, global distribution platforms.  It’s a fascinating challenge.”

Matt Dentler left SXSW Film to manage digital rights for Cinetic.  At SXSW, Dentler championed a group of filmmakers who shared internet-based marketing and distribution notions.  Thus, at Cinetic, Dentler has been pushing a steady stream of festival films to iTunes, Amazon, Jaman, Hulu, SnagFilms etc.  “The Auteur,” which premiered at Tribeca last year, is now on iTunes while Whit Stillman’s “Metropolitan,” which began at the Independent Feature Film Market in 1989, is on Hulu.

“It’s very similar to being a festival programmer,” says Dentler. “I’m still working in the world of contextualizing an indie film for the right audience. And my favorite part of my old job still rings true: uniting filmmakers with audiences.”

Paola Freccero left Tribeca to head up B-Side’s new distribution arm, formed out of the company’s success distributing the docs “Super High Me” and “Crawford” via an internet-based, grassroots effort.

“Moving from festivals into for-profit distribution takes the same skills and expertise - on steroids,” says Freccero. “Probably the biggest difference is that instead of worrying about the launch of 200 festival films, I’m worrying about the entire fate of 10 or 15.  The focus is more concentrated, but the skills and the stress are the same.”

And while some people think Gilmore is Tribeca fest’s new programming head, he clearly indicates he’s got much bigger ideas, as he told indieWIRE:

“The problems right now for the independent arena are multiple. They include the distribution bottleneck and the difficulties of finding new alternatives to having your films reach audiences. Festivals have helped that world change and festivals are going to continue to help that world change.  What Tribeca Enterprises is going to do is be involved in setting up a new paradigm,” exploring, “the ways that festivals become platforms for new enterprises.”

As the economy sinks some believe time has run out on these ideas, or at least put them on the back-burner.  Profit was elusive even before the downturn and a few industryites believe these business models are just too vague.

“You can’t blog your way to financial success,” quipped one major sales rep before this year’s Sundance.  Don’t bother talking to him about digital, he continued.  Traditional theatrical discussions were the only ones he was open to for his slate. Even when cash changes hands within these new models filmmakers mostly see pennies, he stressed.

And a national, grassroots distribution effort will not work for every film.  When it does, it takes a long commitment.  Even with this new marketing and distribution pipeline, it still takes experience and elbow grease.  And less experience equals more grease.

So as indie film stakes its future on a different pipeline, the industry needs to remember what worked before and what didn’t.  Gilmore’s old-school experience in a “new paradigm” may be what this new model needs.  Let’s hope he’s able to build it from the experimental to the viable.  Because within the tiring discussions between the “falling sky” and a “new frontier,” indie film simply needs something to work.  And soon.

Mike Jones is a writer based in Los Angeles.  He’s held senior editorial positions at Filmmaker Magazine, indieWIRE, and most recently served on staff at Variety covering the independent film and film festival beats.