With blockbusters filling up the big screen and streaming giants dominating the small, independent film-makers are running out of options
It used to be the dream scenario for aspiring indie film-makers: you would scrabble together a first feature, maxing out credit cards and remortgaging your parents’ house, and get it shown at the Sundance film festival, where your raw talent would get noticed and your movie picked up for a record sum, establishing your A-list career. In the early 2000s, thousands followed that dream, hoping to be the next Quentin Tarantino or Paul Thomas Anderson. It was barely achievable at the best of times – last year’s Sundance received more than 14,000 submissions – but right now is the worst of times.
In a recent interview in Variety, film-maker Oren Moverman did not mince his words. “It’s very clear that independent cinema, as we know it and as we love it, is over,” he said. Moverman, who directed movies such as The Messenger and Rampart, questioned whether there was still a place for the sort of “grungy putting-together of 10 dollars here, 10 dollars there to make a film”.