Thirty Something: Independent Film & IFP Evolve. But, What’s Next?

CAA’s Micah Green talks with IFP Market attendees at the Filmmaker Conference at the Puck Building in Manhattan. Photo by indieWIRE

There would be other narrative successes nurtured at the IFFM and eventually plucked for distribution, but not before the event would be forced to change dramatically. In 2002, reacting to the lack of deals for new dramatic work, the IFP discontinued its focus on completed narrative features, emphasizing the nurturing of new talent and works-in-progress. Recent films that have found success and mainstream attention include “Maria Full of Grace” in 2004 and recently Ryan Fleck’s “Half Nelson” followed by Courtney Hunt’s “Frozen River.”

Doc Days Dominate

It is the IFP’s strong track record in non-fiction work that has truly distinguished the Market event. Even in the early days, documentaries were a strong suit of the IFFM, particularly as the 1980s became the ‘90s. In 1989, it was Michael Moore with “Roger & Me,” shepherded by successful rep John Pierson. The director’s look at GM boss Roger Moore went on to major mainstream success and launched his career, while two years later Jenni Livingston’s look at Harlem drag balls, “Paris Is Burning” made its own mark. After a successful indie run at downtown Film Forum, it was acquired by Miramax and released successfully.

The career of documentary filmmaker Doug Block spans the decades of the IFFM. In 1987 he was there with his first film, “The Heck With Hollywood,” so he has a long view on the event. “I think one of the great and unheralded things about the IFP, and why they’re the essential organization for indie film, is that they’ve always supported docs as wholeheartedly as fiction films,” Block expained, “I don’t think the role of docs has really evolved much at the IFP Market over the years, it’s always played a central role.”

Ten years ago, Liz Garbus and Jonathan Stack’s “The Farm” was a high point. The film went on to an Oscar nomination, but like many acclaimed indies this past decade, never secured traditional theatrical distribution. With or without immediate distribution deals for the documentaries, the IFP has aggressively championed non-fiction. In 2003, the event showcased Slamdance Film Festival co-founder Paul Rachman’s “American Hardcore” a few years before the movie would find its way to Sundance and then a deal with Sony Pictures Classics. It also nurtured “Mad Hot Ballroom” two years later, before that movie scored a Paramount Classics deal at Slamdance.

“It’s an important stop for docmakers because nobody else does what they do—set you up with buyers at a relatively early stage of your work-in-progress,” noted filmmaker Doug Block, who later used the event as a stepping stone for his films “Home Page,” “51 Birch Street” and most recently, “Almost Gone.” He noted that despite the opportunity to network and connect in an intimate industry setting, it remains difficult for doc directors.

“I don’t delude myself that it’s not a hugely difficult time out there, and that the economy is crashing around us as we speak,” Block added in a conversastion last fall, “The irony is as doc filmmakers who deal with reality, we simply have to proceed with blinders on—I mean, what else can we do?”

It’s a sentiment that echoes non-fiction filmmaker Joe Berlinger’s comments ten years ago when IFP’s Market was twenty years old. “All this talk about it being a golden time is misleading,” Berlinger (“Brother’s Keeper”) told the New York Times at a lunch celebrating the event’s two decade mark. “It’s very difficult to get into major distribution.” He and filmmaking partner Bruce Sinofsky would instead forge their own independent path generally self-distributing their work.

DIY and Beyond

Every once in a while, the IFFM would reward the ingenious, persistent and clever filmmaker. For every few hundred desperate directors roaming the sidewalk peddling a new film, there was a savvy D.I.Y. filmmaker like Sarah Jacobson, director of “Mary Jane’s Not A Virgin Anymore,” who developed a strategy that used the IFFM for what it was best at offering: networking and access. One year she and her mother/producer were there with a trailer, the next year she had finished a film and eventually made here way to a Sundance premiere, before hitting the road and distributing the film herself. Jacobson’s D.I.Y. approach harkened back to the early days of the event and the ethos that drove a group of indie filmmakers to form the IFP and IFFM.

As the IFP market reached its peak from the ‘80s to the ‘90s, new leadership struggled to get their arms around the event. The success of the Market, and the growth of IFP chapters in New York, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Seattle, Chicago (and other cities) throughout the ‘90s lead to the creation of a national organization in 2002. They hired a national executive director, hoping to mobilize the 10,000 U.S. members of the organization, but efforts failed. While unity between IFPs in New York and Los Angeles lead to a settlement with the MPAA after a DVD screener ban, the chapters couldn’t put together a bi-coastal coalition and a final nail in the coffin of IFP unity came when the L.A. chapter separated from the others and adopted the name Film Independent. Earlier this year, longtime IFP head Michelle Byrd announced that she’ll be leaving the organization at the end of the year. A search for a replacement is currently underway.

Longtime IFP Executive Director Michelle Byrd with actor Channing Tatum and sales exec Stuart Ford at the 2006 IFP Market opening night with “A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints.”

As the IFP event reached its 30th anniversary last year, Byrd finally abandoned the term “market” altogether. It was a way of reiterating that the mission of the program had changed considerably. Independent Film Week now showcases virtually no finished films, instead offering just 150 or so works-in-progress and projects in development. Emphasizing networking, career development and mentorship, over deal-meaking.

“When the organization was founded there was no organized independent film movement with any kind of structure or business model,” explained outgoing IFP head Michelle Byrd at last year’s event. “How could we harken back to that level of energy, enthusiasm and contemplate what the future might hold—that was totally what we were hoping for [this year].”

She explained that two things had to change - the name of the event itself and the fees charged to participating filmmakers attending with projects. Byrd said that she sought to use last year’s anniversary to make a clear statement. She and her IFP colleagues decided to open the 2008 event with Barry Jenkins’ low budget “Medicine For Melancholy,” a hit at SXSW and the Los Angeles Film Festival that was later acquired by IFC Films, “to reclaim what an independent film is most like for 99% of the world.”

“The elimination of the word market would just free us to not continually have to defend [the] metrics for success,” Byrd noted. “To say it’s based on sales would mean the event is a failure. You have to take a stand and issue a press release as a seller. That’s not what it is set up to do.” She continued, “Not to say that there is not a desire to have business done, but that overwhelming pressure of sales, we just needed to eliminate it.”

Looking Ahead

In the wake of a period at the movies in which films from studio specialty divisions seemed particularly strong, industry insiders and pundits began to worry publicly last year that the system had become bloated. There were too many movies vying for attention at the end of the year and quality American films from Indiewood were cannibalizing each other at the box office, forcing the studio arms to spend wildly to try to get a leg up. Meanwhile, a new generation of American indie filmmakers were again on the outside looking in, generally unserved by the established traditional theatrical distribution systems.

“So now, we are left seduced and abandoned,” explained Warrington Hudlin, who continues to work in Hollywood a bit, but remains committed to independent work. In the wake of the closure of numerous studio specialty divisions that weren’t serving indie filmmakers anyway over the past year, he feels, “We need to go back to where we started.”

Such feelings dominated the many conversations at last year’s IFP conference, exploring new platforms for distribution and considering the future of film festivals. “Now, we are sort of back where we started, where we are having to re-invent the distribution system all over again.” Sandra Schulberg noted as the IFP’s 2008 Independent Film Week came to a close in New York City. She sat in on many of the sessions at this year’s conference, drawing distinct connections between year one and year thirty and thinking about how to start to preserve the work that came at the beginning of this era.

“In 1978 and ‘79, it was pretty obvious that the delivery system that counted was the theater,” Schulberg said,” The same movie theaters where you went to see Hollywood movies.”

Now, some filmmakers and producers are pondering whether theatrical is the best route for their work at all. “It isn’t up to a third party to determine whether they are in movie theaters,” noted distribution Peter Broderick, who published a guide to new and old modes of distribution in indieWIRE during last year’s Independent Film Week.

“You can have distribution, you just have to decide what kind you want and then you figure out which partners are possible,” wrote Broderick, “We are sort of in this transitional moment where people are more open to what the possibilities are.”

And now, others have taken up the cause of creating a more self-sustaining independent film movement. Namely, established producer Ted Hope, who has been involved in making some sixty independent films over the years. He’s become an outspoken advocate of independents joining forces to support themselves and working together to reach audiences. Yesterday, inspired by high quality work at the current Toronto International Film Festival that he fears won’t find a way to audineces, he published a list of, “18 Actions Towards A Sustainable Truly Free Film Community.”

“The time is now,” Ted Hope wrote yesterday, “If we don’t fully own the absolute necessity to change how we’ve all been working, we won’t be working—and we won’t have the illuminating, inspiring, transforming films that we now enjoy. It’s your choice, but action is required.”

The IFP Independent Film Week kicks off tomorrow and runs through next week in New York City. More information is available on the IFP website.