Headlamp Pictures Blog

At the IFP Conference last week people were already referring to the “post-Toronto” landscape referring to the miserable number of acquisitions at this A-list fest. This wrap-up describes Toronto as a “bloodbath”, but my take on it is that we are just seeing the natural result of a) the economic downturn and the loss of many Indy film distribution houses, b) the glut of quality indy films, and c) the confusion amongst studios and networks about where the money is.

Ultimately, I came away more inspired than dejected. Our business plan for Skatopia has always held out the possibility or likelihood that we’d be pursuing what Peter Broderick has called “hybrid distribution.” Here is Indie Wire’s summary of the panel I enjoyed the most at the Conference. Our film seems excellently poised to move in the new direction.

I just returned from the annual Independent Filmmaker Conference in NYC run by IFP. I could only go for Sunday’s panel discussions, but came away with some real insight into the mess that is today’s state of indy film distribution. Over the next several days I’ll post some of my notes on the various panels. The real standout discussions that I heard were from Lance Weiler (see the Workbook Project and Culture Hacker links to the right), Ted Hope (see Truly Free Film link), Josh Green from Emerging Pictures and Mark Rosenberg from Rooftop Films (see links). These guys are really trying to carve out new paths for strong films to find their audiences without using “traditional” distributors. Very inspiring!