I hardly ever read any industry news (superstition? laziness? self-righteousness?), but this story about the director of a much-lauded Sundance hit withdrawing from a distribution deal with IFC really captures this climate of despair from the other angle--sure, there's been pervasive flap over the indie distributor crisis (excuse the unbecoming journalistic argot), but almost exclusively from a news-critic-blogger-fan angle. Now we're going to start seeing what it's like for those filmmakers who are being offered deals in this new era. "Nevermind."

How poorly informed am I? Well, I was trying to track down the acquisitions people at ThinkFilm around the same time they were selling their entire catalog to a "Canadian speculator," a phrase which beautifully demonstrates the art of nonsensical disdain (maybe the Canadian speculator will in turn sell the catalog to an Arab oil magnate). My cast and crew are probably hung up on my admission of total obliviousness, wondering why I don't have a producer's rep sticking my film under the noses of active distributors--that image of Alejandro in sandals at the playground with a screaming baby under one arm as he puts a band-aid on his toddler's elbow and braces the crackling cellphone against his shoulder: "My film is really, really bankable. Let's blow it up to 35 for a five-city release." But that's what I'm getting at: the uselessness of a producer's rep (or equivalent) in the face of sudden new realities. And this is where Alejandro breaks out words which mean nothing to him but lie at the outer reaches of his amorphous fantasies. "Marketplace" is such a word. It sounds to my ears like the word "divorce" must sound to the ears of a five-year-old child--the implications are menacing indeed, suggesting realms of existence we may never fathom, all the opaque gravity of the adult world, some event or state of being over which we have no control but which will certainly affect us as directly as a bowl of oatmeal. Small-time independent filmmakers have been under the hegemony of this elusive "marketplace," but as it now stands there simply IS no marketplace--and how freeing is that?

A few days ago I heard from a friend who started doing "this" around the same time I did--say, five years ago. His most recent project is suffering all manner of setbacks, mostly related to cast commitment (or lack thereof). I feel guilty because this is the least of my problems. I keep hearing reports that my name is coming up at a good number of Bay Area auditions, actors shooing each other toward my projects, real or imagined. But this news is counterproductive; it suppresses my hunger as effectively as a diet pill. The hunting and gathering which kept me alert and agile is superfluous if someone is willing to serve me gazelle shank on a silver platter. We must stay hungry, desperate, uncertain. Bare minimum resources and talent give way to adequate resources and talent, which give way to a cornucopia of resources and talent, and then maybe the reason we started doing this in the first place has been eclipsed by merely doing it. Maybe the methods and the apparatus are inversely proportionate to the vision, just as obesity works against bone density--a greater body mass forfeits its ability to move but only because it no longer has any reason to move.

Sometimes the most discouraging occurrences seem to have encouraging symptoms--or, rather, they have a galvanizing effect. The story above describes what seems to be the apex of this cultural moment--the one remaining indie giant is offering such insulting deals to filmmakers that filmmakers are backing out of contracts and opting for self-distribution. This makes me want to pick up a camera and shoot a feature tomorrow--I mean, the idea that distribution and exhibition routes for independent cinema (even Sundance hits!) are now totally undefined gives one a sort of hysterical hope. It's a time for invention.