Dealmaking in the Indie Film World. Five Experts Discuss Market Changes

Here’s an interesting roundtable discussion from The Hollywood Reporter on the state of independent film.

Where is the money coming from, how do you get distribution, what is the role of the international market in the indie film world and what about film festivals?????

Stephen Galloway of The Hollywood Reporter discussed those and other matters with five experts: Newsweek film critic David Ansen; Kirk D’Amico, president and CEO of Myriad Pictures, a production and sales company; Cassian Elwes, co-head of William Morris Independent; Mark Gill, CEO of finance and production company the Film Department; and Avi Lerner, co-chairman and CEO of Nu Image/Millennium Films.

THR: Let me throw out a statement: The independent film scene is as flourishing as it has ever been. True or false?

GILL: True, with a bullet in the wrong direction. There’s more money in it, certainly, than there ever has been before. There’s more studio interest than there has been before. But there are two parts of it that are falling apart: One is that the sort of movie that’s really hoping to get into Sundance, of which there are 5,000 a year, can’t seem to find distribution or a way to get to the audience. And the other is that all the money that’s fueled a lot of this boom is about to go away.

THR: The movies that can’t get into Sundance being the ultra-low-budget movies?

GILL: The under $7 million or $8 million movies. The market for those is extremely tough. Every now and again, there’s a “Little Miss Sunshine” (2006) and everybody gets excited and thinks: “I could have that too.”

Read the entire article at THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

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Watch the video roundtale