Finding distribution for independently made documentaries was a hot topic of conversation at the 20th edition of the Maine-based Camden International Film Festival, which kicked off on Sept. 12.
Founder and CEO of Cinetic Media John Sloss, who sold the Christopher Reeve documentary ‘”Super/Man” to Warner Bros. Discovery for a reported $15 million out of Sundance earlier this year, admitted that finding homes for some of the most popular docs at festivals including “No Other Land” has been difficult.
About the resistance of Palestinian activists against forced displacement and settler expansion in the West Bank community of Masafer Yatta, “No Other Land” was part of the CIFF lineup. Most recently the film screened at TIFF and Telluride. The IDFA-supported doc debuted in February at the 74th edition of the Berlin Film Festival, where it won the Documentary Award and Panorama Dokumente Audience Award.
Sloss didn’t go into details about why the film has not yet found distribution, but it’s not exactly surprising given streamers’ recent antipathy to controversial political and current event docus.
At a CIFF panel on Sept. 14 titled ‘Bottom Lines: Social Impact Storytelling and the Documentary Market,’ panelist Brett Story, who co-directed the Sundance 2024 doc “Union,” said that despite successful screenings at 50 festivals across the world, including Camden, “Union” was not picked up by a major distributor. Story and her co-director Stephen Maing decided to self release the film in theaters in October.
“By almost all metrics that matter to the heart of a filmmaker, we have had great success,” Story said.
The story of a group of current and former Amazon workers attempting to unionize Amazon employees working at a facility in Staten Island, N.Y., “Union” is the latest doc to be self-distributed due to the shifting marketplace. Over the last few years, doc filmmakers have increasingly had to create a budget not only for the production of their films but also to distribute their films. Service deals, which is when a filmmaking team pays a distributor like Abramorama to release their doc while maintaining the rights to their film, have become very popular. Recent examples of docs that struck service deals are “War Game,” which premiered at Sundance 2024 and the SXSW 2023 doc “Join or Die.”
Story did not specify the details of “Union’s” upcoming release.
“We came out of Sundance elated to have been there,” Story said. “Elated that the film was being received so well and hoping that someone would immediately say to us, “We would love to get this to as many people as possible.” That would have made our lives easy and would be exciting. But, we were also prepared for that not to happen because certainly we see lots of films that are amazing and incredible and urgent and not getting those kinds of platforms.”
Story explained that she and the team behind “Union” have spent the last several months fundraising to facilitate the distribution of the film.
A fellow panelist, director Bonni Cohen, has two docs in the festival circuit this year – “In Waves and War” and “The White House Effect.” Both films, which are about political issues, premiered at Telluride and are seeking distribution. (“The White House Effect” screened at CIFF.)
Cohen said that whether or not her docus find a buyer, she will make sure that both films make an impact.
“We still have our fingers crossed that (both docus) are both going to make it out into the world in some way,” said Cohen. “We are simultaneously developing, as we are waiting for the sales to go through, what our impact plan is going to be and that involves, maybe more so now than it used to, actual screenings. We are foregrounding the planning of those screenings on college campuses and communities before we even know about the sale.”
Producer and film financier Marie Therese Guirgis was also on the CIFF panel. Guirgis works at Play/Action Pictures, a documentary feature production company that was founded by Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie. Play/Action Pictures produced and help fun the Academy Award winning documentary “Summer of Soul” and most recently Petra Costa’s “Apocalypse in the Tropics” which screened at CIFF and premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September.
An investigation into the influence of the evangelical movement on contemporary Brazilian politics, “Apocalypse in the Tropics” is seeking distribution. Guirgis said that while Play/Action Pictures has not turned to self-distribution in the past, the current landscape might force the company in that direction.
“(Lurie ) cares about, in this case with ‘Apocalypse in the Tropics,’ the fragility of democracy and the threat to democracy around the world,” said Guirgis. “If (the film) doesn’t get distribution I don’t think (Lurie) would close the company overnight but I do think that it is the bind that a lot of people who are in this (business) philanthropically and are in. They want films to be accessible (and) what they think of as accessible is that you can turn on television and it will be on a platform. That’s a challenge I am facing now.”
The in-person component of CIFF concluded on Sept. 15. Online screenings will available from Sept. 16 to Sept. 30 for audiences across the U.S.
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