The (not so) hidden agenda of non-dependent film

part 1 of 3 // 2 vip things

I’ve often described NonDē¹ as a sort of union.

It’s not a great analogy, of course. It doesn’t function like one. There are no dues, there is no negotiating table.

But one thing about a union is: it’s a group project.

Same as NonDē.

And in some metaphorical ways, there are dues. The unpaid labor, time, and collaboration you put into the project of non-dependence is an investment. The idea being this investment will compound toward a future ecosystem that can take care of us (all of us).

And in some ways, there is a negotiating table. We’re redefining our terms of participation in this landscape in order to make it a better one. That requires confronting the dominant powers that be. That requires using what leverage we’ve got to redirect the Titanic away from the iceberg.

But mostly, I use the metaphor of a union because there’s a secret paradox within it I really love.

The paradox: working like a union on a group project, makes space for, enlivens, and strengthens your individual voice.

It’s easy to miss that part.

But it’s true and accounted for.

“Who is housed when money talks?” mural on Sunset Blvd. How you perceive that question will give you a lot of insight on how you interpret the world.

Last year, I was talking with some friends about this concept of “collective labels” — this was six months before I met Taylor Lewis and read The Label, which tells you that she and I are kindred spirits. And there was some understandable fear in one of my friends who felt he’d lose his voice if he teamed up with other people in this way.

I understood him, truly I did.

I don’t want to give up my voice either.

But my response to him was that the current system we’re living under does not free your voice. You’re constantly gaming the system to squeak a version of your voice into it, if you’re lucky.

Your voice is truly free when you have options.

And, as unions know well, leveraging collective power as a group gives you options.

But before we go too far down this road of putting individualism up high on its pedestal, don’t forget: this NonDē group project isn’t only about strengthening our individual voices.

If our dynamic, ambitiously-authored, risk-taking, voicey films exist in a culture that isn’t ready for them, then we’ll be bringing a croissant to a carrot fight.²

Which is to say, part of a sustainable future for film requires us to shift the culture.

What we’re really actually for real doing here

Think about what kind of culture might embrace those kinds of singular, individual, voicey films.

Perhaps a culture unafraid of its own shadow. Maybe a culture that saw the value of identity as an intrinsic net-positive without requiring a bottom line proof. Certainly a culture that knew how to have fun.

I’m sure a culture like that could start, imperceptibly at first, to use more just and loving political levers. I’m sure a culture like that would take care of all the world’s children, not just the ones in our fenced in backyards.

I know a culture like that could do anything. Truly anything.

I believe culture affects politics. And I believe what we see over and over again on screen affects culture.

So it’s a logical conclusion to say which movies we make and how we make them can change the world.

But you don’t get there by falling in line with one dominant doctrine of how movies should get made. For my part, a decree about “the right way” to make movies is as compelling as a mammogram.³

A culture as beautiful as the one described above could only ever come by way of a group project.

So back to unions.

In Jen Pan’s book Selling Social Justice: Why the Rich Love Antiracism she writes about how unionizing actually strengthens the community bonds across workplaces by valuing the differences between the workers’ experiences:

“…there already exists an incredibly reliable and effective mechanism for combating workplace discrimination, lowering racial prejudice among whites, and narrowing pay gaps between workers of different races or genders…the fix is a union contract.”

Pan goes on to explain why unions are so effective at creating healthier atmospheres and more efficacious results (bolding is mine):

“One deceptively simple reason for [the reduction of racial and gender prejudice among workers in unions] is that successful collective bargaining requires workers to bridge racial divides and other differences in order to win concession from their employers, and working alongside fellow shop members in pursuit of these and other shared goals tends to generate mutual respect, if not genuine camaraderie.”

This study of unions reminds me of some advice I read once about making friends in adulthood — that it’s easier to do when working together on a shared goal.

If you actually want to make a friend, instead of asking “What do you do for work?”, ask them to build a Lego with you.

This is certainly why I was drawn so quickly into the theatre as a young woman. We didn’t have to meet each other at the level of our given circumstances (18, freshman, Hershey, PA, happy to be here), but rather at a more cellular level. The scene work brought us closer than any basic personal facts ever could.

I suppose that’s why I feel so much kinship with FilmStack and those in the NonDē 50 Films Project.

It’s not that I know everything about you all. It’s that I can meet you beyond all that.

Rumi said it this way:

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.”

It is an urgent thing to befriend each other

Not in the way of superficial niceties, but in true kinship and collective alignment. In our sweat and time. In understanding we are our each other’s keepers.

When I use the phrase “community-building”, I don’t mean we’re gaining subscribers, I mean we’re rewriting the future.

Because we must.

Rebecca Solnit, interviewed by the New York Times about her new book The Beginning Comes After the End, put it this way:

Working together on the group project of non-dependent film gives us two important things:

1. Voices to use

2. A culture that can hear us

And I believe the natural conclusion of this group work is a better, more sustainable, more loving world. With new narratives and new stories. Where we can be free. Where Rumi’s field is close at hand.

If you like the world as it is, that sounds like a threat.

If you want a better one, it can’t come soon enough.

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Feeling NonDē curious? Quick Ways to Get Started in the NonDē Film Movement ahead »

1. Subscribe to FilmStack Daily Digest and start getting your analysis and breakdown from thinkers on this platform with independent voices.

2. Read about the New Film Criticism and subscribe to a swath of amazing film critics who don’t just introduce us to new work, but also help us think and write about films in an altogether fresh, original, personal way. Check out Film Soup Zine run by KLA Media Group and Charlotte Simmons who will be reviewing specifically-NonDē films.

3. Join the NonDē 50 Films Project by signing up here and checking out the dashboard here.

4. Start talking about it. Let’s bring these ideas into the conversation. At first people will say we can’t do it. That’s fine, let’s talk about it. Let’s bring these big ideas into the rooms with us.

5. Discuss with your team. Be the leader on your production team and bring non-FilmStack filmmakers into the fold. Share resources and posts with them about how to do things differently.

6. Share about the NonDē Film Movement far and wide. A better world is inevitable if we make it so.

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Read the entire NonDē series:

1. It’s not too late to say you were there when it started

2. You’re invited to the table

3. If you say it, they will come

4. Went to Slamdance, and all I got was renewed faith in the future of film

5. The (not so) hidden agenda of non-dependent film

1. Non-dependent film

2. I think this is funnier than the usual violent metaphor.

3. If you haven’t had the pleasure, Dear Reader, mammograms are not compelling.