Is it just me or does the indie film market seem non existent anymore like I remember the early 2000's to the 2010's we had amazing small indie films banging out each year that actually got to be at venice film fest etc. now it's more like big films at the movies are the thing idk. As a millennial, I will always love indie films that's where my heart is. Maybe if the indie film market was better mike could find something interesting to be in?
OMG this is such a great question! I love it because I think about this often. Anony, you sent this back in April and it's taken me so long because I've been legitimately considering what happened to the indie film market.
I believe the conglomeration of all the entertainment outlets means we're afraid to have imperfect movies that are earnestly made but potentially box office "flops". There's too much of a focus on getting big celebs (either as the director or the stars) who are not willing to take the same weird, creative risks indie movies used to take with weird, awkward, newly discovered people instead of the same super popular actors. There's a real lack of humanity in the media now, not necessarily in the stories told but in who gets to tell those stories. The same studios and people have access to the most resources and they tend to churn out the same things with the same faces so the same standards of beauty are there and....idk how to say this. Because it's not that the indie market was full of uggos but the faces were usually more realistic, less perfect, definitely no iPhone face (I'm thinking about how Ryan Gosling used to be my Sundance sweetheart, I'm thinking of Zooey Deschanel, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Ben Foster - these are some of the folks that come to mind when I think of indie movies of yore).
An indie director with newly or undiscovered talent is going to have a harder time making a movie than Netflix and Apple and Disney, etc. The thing that also made the indie market so great was a lot of the talent in the market was discovered more organically and not just based on follower count.
I don't think the indie market is entirely gone but I think it's much smaller and regionally based; its probably more alive and well at your local/smaller film festivals, local theaters, and in the student film market -- and in a bigger way, maybe through separate specific streaming services like Sundance channel or Criterion. I'm curious what you think because we do see some overlap in the "indie studio" market with companies like A24, Neon, etc but that still doesn't remind me of that very specific indie film culture you and I are talking about.
