I was at a film event this past weekend, and a well-respected producer summed up the state of the industry by detailing a project he’s trying to make with a well-known director, which was budgeted at $3M a few years ago, and now they’re trying to make it for $100K. It will get made, and at that budget, they can possibly make their money back, but it’s not the kind of thing you want to be doing when you no longer enjoy sleeping on couches to get a film made – that works when you’re twenty, not in your fifties. But that’s the state of indie film producing – and party chatter – today.
This producer’s other project will get made at a more comfortable $5M USD, but only because it’s an Irish story, with an all Irish team, tapping into Irish co-production funds, many of which face a fragile future, but remain for now, and make this one of the only ways this producer can get a film made where people get paid a living wage. But they also go into it knowing that their production budget is their wage – no one is counting on premiering at a major fest and selling for a major profit anymore, as that market is gone. But this producer having an Irish passport is helpful not just for getting something made today, but also for preparing for what’s next in the US, it would seem.
Standing next to this producer was a film exhibitor, and we mused for a few moments on the multiple arthouse theaters we knew of in NYC that were essentially being kept alive on rentals for FYC campaigns, not from their regular ticket sales or concessions. We wondered how sustainable those places might be should Netflix or Amazon suddenly decide that maybe these Awards aren’t worth it? A proposition that isn’t hard to discount.
Beside us was a film festival director, who had recently wrapped a very successful festival, with record audiences and lots of artistic accomplishments. But no, they admitted, things were not looking up. Grants and sponsorships were down, and while all film festivals (in the US at least) are held together by duct tape and shoestrings, this one was debating which key staff might need to move to part-time and look for other jobs if things didn’t change soon.
But they felt better knowing they were unlikely to get attacked/sued anytime soon by our current administration. A former festival director sitting beside us mused on just how long a place like Sundance might last when faced with a gazillion dollar lawsuit for showing a film that supported “left-wing terrorists” or maybe “defamed” the president. Another proposition that isn’t hard to discount.
Party-chatter only went more serious from here, so log-out now if you are weak of spirit. This made us turn to the topic of attacks coming for philanthropy, with Ford, MacArthur, Soros and others in the crosshairs already. Over 100 of them didn’t sign an open-letter to defend the sector for nothing. People expect the other shoe to drop sometime this week, and supposedly they’re prepared for the attack (that link is paywalled, sorry). But I doubt this is any truer than how prepared CPB/PBS were for their attacks. Sure enough, as I was writing this, the NYT reported that the Justice Department said it will go after Soros and the Open Society Foundations, with “Possible charges included racketeering, arson, wire fraud and material support for terrorism, according to a copy of the directive.”
That’s quite a bevy of crazy charges, and the Soros family will fight them, but trust me, this is just the first attack. This will trickle down to other funders, and to grantees. Just wait until your festival must sign a pledge that you won’t show or fund anything in support of Antifa or anything critical of Israel, or this administration, before you can get that foundation grant. That language will be in your terms before the end of this year.
I’ve personally seen this before, when post Sept-11th, major grant funders directed a nonprofit foundation I ran to not finance any filmmakers who were supporting terrorism. We said – we support artists, not terrorists – but they weren’t so sure that was true when you looked at our grants to filmmakers in Chiapas, for example – and who was going to ask those artists to sign a pledge?!? This stuff gets complicated fast, and the effects are as intended – to chill dissent and discussion through art.
And when that starts to happen, other voices fall silent. Or they focus on the “true emergencies” which are bigger problems than supporting your social issue doc. Saving ITVS or POV is a big enough job to take funding away from your little film, or some festival programming. One party-goer, ever the optimist, hoped that we’ll start to see other wealthy individuals and philanthropies getting fed up and joining the fight. I hope they’re correct, but my hunch is that they don’t want to be attacked next, they don’t see any real leadership or proposals worthy of support, and they’ll focus instead on problems they can more easily solve without getting stuck in the crossfire. And no, none of my brand partners are ready to join these fights, either.
At this point of the party, it was time to grab a beer and change the subject to what good films we were expecting to see at the New York Film Fest, because we couldn’t take it anymore. For this crowd, escapism is getting together in a crowded theater and watching the latest from Jafar Panahi, Jim Jarmusch, Claire Denis, or Lucrecia Martel. I suspect other parties would lean more towards escaping via Trainwreck: Poop Cruise, or we’d have not been gathered wondering about the state of arthouse and indie films. But I also must admit – when I got home after that gathering, I wasn’t streaming the latest hard-hitting documentary, either, I went straight for an episode of Wednesday, but at least I could think better of myself by pretending that was high-brow.
