By the films teams of: BAD PRESS, FANTASTIC MACHINE, JOONAM, and KING COAL
As Variety recently reported, “Every year, the race for the Oscar for best documentary feature gets more expensive and less inclusive.” For self-distributed films, the challenge is even greater, as filmmakers must find a way to independently cover their marketing costs in an attempt to get their films seen by audiences and Academy voters alike. Yet potential visibility for films that are “shortlisted” for the Oscars – a select few from the long list of potentially-eligible films – can elevate an independent film seeking distribution.
An awards campaign, simply put, is a political campaign, with the goal of winning being to secure the votes of as many Documentary-branch Academy voters as possible (a body made up of our own colleagues). The process begins with the qualifying steps – which in broad strokes, require that the film must have a week-long theatrical run in New York or Los Angeles (but ideally both!), during which it must play at least three times a day. This can incur heavy costs from the very start; filmmaking teams may have to pay out of pocket to four-wall (rent out the theaters) for these two saturated markets that can often be both challenging to book and difficult to fill with audiences.
As awards season begins in September, this triggers a flurry of many, many private screenings and events all over the world, in the hopes of getting the film in front of as many voters as possible. The cost of renting out theaters plus hosting receptions begins to mount, and energy focuses on securing high-level moderators and ensuring RSVPs from voters. On top of this, film teams are expected to assume the process of costly emails blasts through organizations like Independent Documentary Association, DOC NYC, The Gotham, Film Independent, etc. – again, with the goal of keeping your film constantly at the forefront of voters’ minds.
The list of a few hundred potentially Oscar-winning films narrows to fifteen with the announcement of the “shortlist” at the end of December, then goes down to the final five during the second round of voting in January, which determines which films will make it to the awards show. The entire process is lengthy, time-consuming, and extremely expensive, making it realistically out of reach for many filmmakers, particularly if they are covering the costs of their own distribution and marketing.
So why do it? Is this all just a pay-to-play game where the highest spender comes in first? Certainly not. In recent years, we have seen films without gigantic budgets navigate this process skillfully and innovatively: WRITING WITH FIRE (2021), HIDDEN LETTERS (2022), and A HOUSE MADE OF SPLINTERS (2022) are wonderful examples of documentary films that made it to the final rounds; A HOUSE MADE OF SPLINTERS and WRITING WITH FIRE even went all the way to the Oscars. It is not to say that the possibility of great films without huge budgets are doomed to fail. But when independent films are competing against entities that are able to be spending upwards of six and seven figures on the awards campaigns alone, it makes the competition much harder. We set expectations for the great films of the year, without acknowledging that we are not looking at an equal playing field.
In response to this dilemma, the filmmaking teams from our four documentary feature films decided to do something radical and become more inclusive: we worked together.
Shane Boris (Maximillien Van Aertryck and Elaine McMillion Sheldon on screen)
Our feature documentary films BAD PRESS, FANTASTIC MACHINE, JOONAM, and KING COAL all premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2023. The films went on to garner dozens of festival awards collectively, along with New York Times’ Critic’s Picks, Critics’ Choice Award, IDA, Cinema Eye, and Independent Spirit Award nominations. We were also listed on multiple industry “best of” and “Oscar-contender” lists.
In other words, each film had been deemed as critically worthy, and if there were “golden tickets” or markers signaling a film’s value for awards attention or distribution, each one had hit the bullseye. Yet all four of our films still struggled to find traditional theatrical distribution in what may arguably be the worst market for documentary sales in recent history. All four films went the independent, self distribution route, found their target audiences and built momentum organically along the way. We engineered all the effort of our theatrical roll outs: hiring bookers, impact producers, and press and by the fall, we had all technically qualified our films, but with little left in our budgets. FANTASTIC MACHINE ended up with a US theatrical deal with Strand Releasing and KING COAL secured a spot with POV for summer 2024, but three of the four films handled their own theatrical distribution, and all of us were left to our own devices to navigate an awards campaign.
So rather than compete or vie for the last seat at the table, we assembled not just a team, but a team of teams. A collaboration of four marquee titles, working together to collectively promote our films to voters and pool our resources, skills, networks, audiences, industry experiences, and expertise to lift each other up. By combining our voices harmoniously, we could speak just a bit louder above the cacophony of the field. We hired and collaborated with Sylvia Desrochers and her team at MPRM to help amplify the publicity and get the word out.
In this spirit, we called our event DIY/FYC 2023: a series of two collaborative, celebrative, conversational For Your Consideration (FYC) events that recently took place at DCTV’s Firehouse Cinema in New York City and Vidiots in Los Angeles. Instead of simply screening the films for consideration, our events included clips from each film, followed by a panel discussion about the state of the industry. We chose this approach so that all films could be included in the same discussion and planned the events around the theatrical releases of three of the films, so that the films could be seen in full that week.
To support these events, we secured $40,000 in grants from two separate entities with whom we had existing relationships, and were awarded funds outside of the budgets we each raised to execute our self-distribution or theatrical releases. To be completely transparent: all of the funding for these events went to the efforts to support and promote them, not to any of the filmmakers who have done all this additional work without pay. The funds went towards the venues for two screenings, receptions, email blasts, and team travel. We were realistic in our efforts, knowing this amount and this number of screenings was nowhere near what our competitors were likely spending, but we were determined to try something new, to extricate ourselves from a conversation that is constantly bemoaning what is, and experiment around something that could be. There are so few stories about how films collaborate, particularly on the notoriously cutthroat distribution side. We wanted to tell a different story.
With voting just days away, who can say if DIY/FYC will help land any of our films on the Oscar shortlist. But we do know that working together has at least offered an opportunity to explore new possibilities and take new risks. It has helped us alleviate a financial burden none of us could handle alone, and helped to make awards season less grueling. It has allowed us to save our energy for the things that still need our focus, such as impact campaigns, educational windows, broadcast and international sales, etc., while offering a model of how awards campaigns may be more sustainable.
Distribution and marketing are typically spoken about in binaries: you have it or you don’t. You won it or you didn’t. But we also realize that we cannot build a sustainable model on a system that is entirely out of our control. Everyone in this film ecosystem of ours –- whether they are streamers, distributors, financiers, grant funders, agents, publicists, mangers, festivals, arts organizations, journalists, awards entities, partners in impact, audiences, etc. – has a role to play in creating a more equitable system that supports critically-acclaimed independent films. This was our attempt to do something different.
To us, the success of this experiment looks like a continued evolution of this idea: that future film teams will choose to come together to mitigate the often insurmountable costs of putting together an awards campaign, to use their shared networks to elevate each other, and to center collaboration over competition. Distribution has never been a clearcut formula for success; our goal is simply to try something new.
Written By:
TEAM BAD PRESS
Rebecca Landsberry-Baker, Director
Joe Peeler, Director
Garrett Baker, Producer
Conrad Beilharz, Producer
Tyler Graim, Producer
Saelyx Finna, Impact Producer & Theatrical Booker
Vee Hua 華婷婷, Impact Producer
TEAM FANTASTIC MACHINE
Axel Danielson, Director/Producer
Maximilien Van Aertryck, Director/Producer
Kathleen McInnis, Producer of Marketing
TEAM JOONAM
Sierra Urich, Director/Producer
Keith Wilson, Producer
TEAM KING COAL
Elaine McMillion Sheldon, Director/Producer
Shane Boris, Producer
Diane Becker, Producer
Peggy Drexler, Producer
Mia Bruno, Producer of Distribution & Marketing