You're invited to the table
A non-exhaustive list of NonDē Film Movement values. If they resonate, come join us.
If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?
If a non-dependent movie releases without a distributor, does it get seen?
There’s a tension we’re dealing with in the non-dependent movement and it’s worth talking about. We want to make films our own way, ambitiously-authored, with feeling. But we also want people to see our films, and that has traditionally meant handing our work over to a system who handles the “getting seen” part.
The standard logic is: either get an all rights distribution deal or your film will go softly into that good night.
Even studio films walk this line themselves. They’ll throw half the budget into marketing campaigns, saturation-style, flooding the feeds. You’ll see billboards and late night appearances and clips on the TikTok. There will be profiles of actors and manufactured rumors of on-set romances, and all sorts of stunts to make sure you, the audience-consumer, is paying attention.
How does one non-dependent film compete with that?
It can’t. It couldn’t.
And it shouldn’t.
We cannot solve the issue at the level of the problem. We have to expand our minds to the level of the solution, and hoist reality up to that new visionary cliff.
One film cannot break through the system.
Even when films do break through, they become examples as “exceptions to the rule”. That’s all well and good, but an exception is still working at the level of the problem. We don’t want to point to exceptions and say “Oh look! They actually did it!”
Good for them. But we want to change the rules.
To do things differently, we’ve gotta do things differently
I watched Moneyball earlier this year, and the metaphor for the NonDē Film Movement was as loud as a hungry toddler at 4pm.
I wrote about how NonDē films need a strong position to get on base (get attention). And in that essay, I offered the “Oh yeah?” energy you need to break through:
“…your strong positioning doesn’t have to be anything spectacularly sophisticated. It just has to be honest. It must be true. It can’t be bullshit. If it’s bullshit, you blend in.
If you believe something with your guts, your position becomes magnetic. You become infallible. People might disagree with you, but they’ll still want to watch you. They’ll want to be around what you’re doing.
You can feel how this is a wholly different strategy than “Post more consistently! Grow your audience! Be everywhere!” right?
You can feel how rigorous this is, right?
This is deep, critical thinking.
This is not insignificant stuff. This is art. It takes time and honesty about your inner life. You can’t short cut it, and you can’t pretend.
And like I said, most people won’t do it.
But if you want to win, you gotta get on base.
But since I wrote that piece, I realized, it’s not just me or you having the “Oh yeah?” position, although that is a necessary element.
We need a coalition of filmmakers who coordinate from the “Oh yeah?” position.
That’s why we’re running the NonDē 50 Films Project. To coalesce under the philosophical banner of “Oh yeah?” and break through.
But let’s be clear — breaking through isn’t about breaking through to a studio deal or an all rights distribution deal. Instead of using the term breaking through, we should probably use the term breaking out:
Breaking out of a system that doesn’t serve the artist’s or the audience’s interest
Breaking out of the playbook that is unsustainable unless you come from generational wealth
Breaking out of the mindset that artists aren’t “workers” and they’re not producing measurable “value”
Breaking out into the wild world and attacking the problem at the level of the solution which is an entirely different game
The NonDē Film Movement rounds up that “Oh yeah?” energy around shared values and plays a different game entirely
The NonDē Film Movement is political. We define what we prioritize, we make a list of demands/changes we want, we find partners and alliances who can help us get there, and we shift an entire culture.
NO BIGGIE!
So let’s start with defining what we prioritize. As I see it, this is the starter pack of values that bring us together. It’s a non-exhaustive list.
NonDē filmmakers believe in:
COLLABORATION > COMPETITION
When we work in a filmmaker-led cinema ecosystem instead of a studio/permission-driven ecosystem, we are no longer vying for one or two coveted spots as the Golden Child of Cinema. We each have viable paths. There’s literally no point in competing, except with yourself.
We create for our audience and build our audience. And you know what audiences love? More of what they love. So there’s no need to compete with each other because there will always be a demand for more.
Our collaboration, our curation, our coordination becomes a value proposition to our audience. This kind of coalition is good business, good marketing, and good for the artistic process.
We work together to find the recommended best practices for each step of the process. When we collaborate, everyone wins, moves faster, works smarter. If you do well, that helps me do well, and vice versa.
AMBITIOUSLY-AUTHORED CINEMA
Audiences are tired of second-screen content, and they deserve more nurturing, love, relationship-building, and collaboration than a streaming platform’s mandate to merely “acquire” them allows.
Ambitiously-authored1 films (by original voices, made with fearless teams, who are willing to push the guardrails of what’s come before) are the movies audiences want to watch. They’re the movies we NonDē filmmakers want to make.
Life is too short to not take big swings.
We are willing to risk and fail. In fact, failure is built into our 10-year plan.
NONDĒ FILMS FOR ALL
Again, NonDē filmmakers LOVE our audiences.
The NonDē Film Movement IS NOT JUST FOR FILMMAKERS. It’s for film lovers, film-adjacent comrades, the film-curious.
We believe in film as an art form that cuts across cultures and languages. It has great potential to bring people together, offer them alternative visions, instigate a latent passion deep within their souls.
We want to give our audiences easily accessed challenging, moving, fun, beautiful, original films. We want to grow our audiences and bring them with us from film to film. We are not looking for eyeballs, we’re looking for people.
Eventually, we want our audience to turn into community and into collaborators. A directive articulated by Ted Hope.
ARTIST-AUDIENCE-ART
We believe in the Tripod Theory of the Artist-Audience-Art and that when it is aligned and nurtured, it elegantly sustains the NonDē ecosystem.
We need investment in all three legs for this ecosystem to be viable.
We believe in nurturing the process itself (art), the filmmaker’s material economic reality (artist), and the connective tissue of distribution (audience). All three things have to work together.
In sum: the art has to be good, the filmmaker has to be able to afford to make it, and the audiences have to get easy access to watch it and should be nurtured consistently over time.
THE REDISTRIBUTION OF KNOWLEDGE-WEALTH
We believe that each person has part of the solution.
We believe in picking ourselves to teach & lead.
We are also perpetual students, never calcifying around a paradigm because “that’s the way it’s always been”. Hell no. We iterate, fail, iterate, fail, break out, and iterate again, together.
We give more than we take and know there’s no point in gatekeeping information. Information can be freely gotten anywhere, at any time, now is the time for trust, building coalitions, and moving beyond just reaching for individual gain, to prioritize the collective tide instead.
You’re Invited to the Table
If you believe in what we believe, there’s room for you here. If you want to change things, you’re invited. You’re not too late, you’re not too early, you’re right on time. We need all the voices, visions, and “Oh yeah?” energy we can get.
Are you ready to be loud and proud about the future you want to see?
Are you ready to link arms with a coalition of people just like you?
Are you ready to change the paradigm?
The future is no longer waiting, my friend. It has arrived.
What will you do?
Quick Ways to Get Started in the NonDē Film Movement
Subscribe to FilmStack Daily Digest and start getting your analysis and breakdown from thinkers on this platform with independent voices.
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. A way that can actually nurture audiences and filmmakers alike. Start with: Charlotte Simmons, Decarceration, The Long Take
Join the NonDē 50 Films Project by signing up here and checking out the dashboard here.
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.
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.
Share about the NonDē Film Movement far and wide. A better world is inevitable if we make it so.
Read the entire NonDē series:
You’re invited to the table
This is a lovely piece. Thank you for writing it, Courtney! We need to start a Moneyball club. It was on every single day during 2020 and absolutely rewired my brain. "First one through the wall gets bloodiest."
Great job on this piece! Is there a way to have a graphic created that we could all use for posts on our social media to reach out to Non-Substack filmmakers? (Just a thought.)