“The New Breed”

NEW BREED PARK CITY – AN OPEN DISCUSSION from Sabi Pictures on Vimeo.

Interviewed by CinemaTech‘s Scott Kirsner:

New Directions for Independent Cinema: Ian Calderon from Scott Kirsner on Vimeo.

On Tuesday (January 19), I’ll be joining a panel for New York Women in Film and Television to talk about gender, race and disability issues in the film industry. In particular, I’m tasked with commenting on women’s roles in distribution. Most people are familiar with the rather brutal situation for female directors in Hollywood as reported recently in the New York Times- last year just 3% of studio films were helmed by women. Cinematography is similarly imbalanced. In independent film the opportunities increase if not exactly balance. There are positions like editing and producing where women have long been numerous.

However, distribution is more complicated. Being more purely a business, it seems to reflect business culture, with more women working in lower-paid positions and fewer in top jobs. Being the film industry, this disparity may be exacerbated. But as far as I know, any evidence one way or another is anecdotal.

Does being a woman affect one’s experience in being a distributor? Any more so than being a woman affects daily life in general in any profession? Is there in fact more discrimination in the film industry than in other industries? How does that play out in the various spheres in which a distributor engages, i.e. film festivals, exhibitors, broadcasters, DVD wholesalers, etc.? And how many women really do “succeed”?

To engage further in this discussion, join me at Imagining Gender, Race & Disability In Film and TV: Part II–Above The Line & Below The Line, Marymount Manhattan College 221 East 71st Street Peruggi Room, 2nd Floor. Registration Required, free for students.

Just like everyone else these days, the New York Times is onto the notion that distribution is a-changing. Manola Dargis profiles Peter Broderick tomorrow and positions him in the New World and all those turnkey distributors as the Old. No matter, I suppose, that Broderick has been saying the same thing (and possibly delivering the same Power Point- no offense, Peter) for many years at various festivals and seminars.

I’m guilty of being one of these people who are offering to help filmmakers develop a strategy if they choose to hoist the mast of their own Niña or Pinta. There are options that filmmakers now have to reach an audience that not only don’t require a middleman but makes direct connections advantageous. But the old options just don’t exist as a point of comparison. It’s not “make your film and manage it yourself” vs. “make your film and have someone else do a great job managing it,” which was the old paradigm when a distributor was the essential and sought after route. A distributor can still be a huge contributor to the success of a film, especially a fiction film, but it can almost never come without any involvement of the filmmaker.

We as filmmakers are simply looking to connect with an audience who will be compelled by the work. The means of communicating have changed but the experiences of discovery and community are still fundamental. Rather than trying to see all the new things and new ways to “get the word out” or “market,” the New World is just your world, where you make connections and where your audience is, just organized a little bit.

The year is starting out with big news for me- I’m leaving my job as Director of Home Media Sales & Marketing at Zeitgeist Films, where I’ve been in charge of selling DVDs and the move to internet and VOD licensing.

I’ve decided to return to the equally if even less logical pursuit of making docs, consulting, and looking for a sustainable day job. I’m very excited and I hope I’ll be able to give readers of this blog an even more first-hand take on the challenges and opportunities for filmmakers today.

Stay tuned!