How Do Independent Films Find Distribution At Sundance?

Welcome to the latest episode of One Moore Hollywood Podcast. In this episode, our hosts, Chris Moore, Katie Marpe, and Dennis De Nobile, will take you on a tour de distribution and discuss how independent films find distribution at Sundance and what filmmakers should expect in the festival marketplace.

Along with all the parties, networking, and screenings at Sundance, many producers and filmmakers are there to sell their films, and plenty of studios attend in the hopes of buying some movies. Thankfully, our trusty industry insider hosts know what the marketplace side of Sundance looks like. Moore has personal experience selling a film at Sundance (Manchester by the Sea), and Marpe wrote her entire Ph.D. dissertation on independent film distribution in the streaming era. 

Let's get into it.

Distribution Defined

Historically, distribution is where the money is, the distribution arm of the film industry being one of the most powerful. As Marpe has explained to students, distribution is like the middleman between the film's production and how the audience watches the film. Distribution concerns the deals made between the film's producers and the studios, streamers, and theaters that determine how many screens the film hits and for how long, as well as the public-facing marketing and publicity to promote the film's release.

Back in the day, Moore says, producing a film without having a distributor lined up is what made a film independent, but that line is blurring a bit. Now, when people refer to a film as independent, it can mean anything from the company producing the film to its overall style or genre. 

Today, claiming a film is independent could also suggest it has been produced independently of money from the five major Hollywood studios (also referred to as The Big Five). For example, A24 and NEON are production companies independent of any major entertainment conglomerates and act as their own distributors, so their films are considered independent. Of course, over recent years, A24 has become a powerhouse in the film industry, so some would say the connotation has changed, even if referring to A24 movies as independent releases is still correct.

Sundance and Distribution

At Sundance, the films screened are split into different sections, and one of those sections is labeled 'premiere’ and exists for films that already have distribution set up. The rest of the films at Sundance don't have distribution, or in other words, don't yet have a plan for public release.

This year, Moore was surprised that several movies he's looking forward to seeing at Sundance already have trailers in theaters. To him, that takes away some of the meaning in having a film picked for Sundance and makes him wonder whether the distributor paid for festival inclusion or if Sundance chose it themselves. 

Originally, Sundance was intended to be a curated selection of the best movies that no one knew about because they didn’t have marketing, distribution, or (usually) famous talent. "I've lost the ability to tell what it means to get picked," Moore says. Despite being slightly disheartened by the shifting focus on films that have distribution, Moore still sees value in Sundance. There are still plenty of films looking for distribution that screen at the festival. 

Streamers Enter the Fray

In 2016, Moore sold Manchester by the Sea to Amazon at Sundance. According to him, this film was the lucky beneficiary of several coinciding outside factors that helped it become an Oscar-winning film. “It was a successful use of the moment in time,” he says, “making a movie like that today is a lot riskier.”

The primary outside factor was that the streamers had just entered the Sundance marketplace that year to buy movies. Netflix and Amazon came rip-roaring in with their money bags and, Marpe says, bought 7-10 movies apiece for an average of 10 million each. 

For context, previous distributors at Sundance would buy 1-2 films at a range of 2-10 million dollars. Netflix and Amazon essentially destroyed the equilibrium and drove all the prices up, so traditional studios and distributors couldn't compete. Even today, Marpe says, Apple holds the highest record for purchasing Coda at Sundance in 2021 for 25 million. 

Moore brought Manchester to Sundance right when Amazon was looking to enter the Oscar pool. They needed an independent gem, and Manchester fit the bill. Moore’s decision to sell to Amazon rather than one of the traditional studios he'd hoped for came down to an offer he couldn't refuse. The highest the traditional studios could bid was half of what Amazon was willing to pay. And so to Amazon Manchester went. 

What's the Future of Independent Film?

So what's to become of independent film as these streamers and tech companies take over with their extra cash? That is the question of the moment, and no one knows the answer yet. 

The streamers entered the fray to collect some cultural capital in the form of association with quality film, but will they continue to do so when (with few exceptions) the money independent film makes is chump change compared to the numbers they're working with daily? 

A recent Deadline article pointed out that independent film made a significant amount of money this year–1.47 billion dollars, up from 811.7 million in 2022. Will Netflix want to get a piece of that, or will it just not be worth it to them? As Moore says, "We may be better off if they just left that world alone." 

Amen to that.

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