Why Indie Filmmakers Should Still Consider and Value Cinema as Part of a Film’s Release
In late November we attended the Zagreb Film Festival. We had booked tickets to see the A24 film Lamb weeks in advance, and I eagerly waited for the date to arrive. It felt surreal going to the movies for an event and I can’t remember the last time I was in a cinema for an actual organised film festival. Besides the guy without a mask coughing in the seat somewhere close behind us, it was an enjoyable experience to have my eyes glued to a big screen again. Immersed fully in a story playing on a huge screen. The cinema was less than half full, but it was a film event during a pandemic!
Cinema was back and I was excited. I carried forward this excitement to watch our own films, Cats of Malta and Machination, in the cinemas in Malta for a series of preview screenings only a short time later.
As a filmmaker, one of the most rewarding parts about the gig is seeing all your hard work up on the screen with an audience. There are butterflies in your stomach, they won’t stop. Mixed in with them is your inner critic who is wondering if this is a good film, how will the audience react, will people enjoy it, and also wondering how your cast will feel after seeing it for the first time. When people laugh on cue, applaud enthusiastically, approach you to ask questions afterwards, you feel joy. Even if you watch your own film multiple times in the cinema as we did with Cats of Malta, the experience is still unique and unforgettable. It’s also an experience that is really valuable to you as a filmmaker. You feel the energy of the audience, you can sense the emotion in the room, but technically you see what works about your film and what doesn’t on a screen that is not your laptop or desktop computer.
Kino Europa, one of the venues from past editions of the Zagreb Film Festival.
Watching Cats of Malta was a blast with an audience and we found which parts worked and got the most attention and laughs. The audience feedback afterwards was very much appreciated. I guess that’s why some filmmakers show their films to a select few in their audience when they have a cut of the edit. To see what the audience enjoyed and loathed and what needs to be added, cut and improved on or enhanced to please the wider general public.
Many film cuts have been amended after these test audience screenings and I know of a few Hollywood films which had alternative endings after test screenings. If you have the time and resources to do it I recommend it, although I have never attempted this myself. Still, I see the immense value.
After watching Machination, Ivan and I noticed the tension was unrelenting (which was what we wanted) and the flashbacks were jarring and a big part of the film that drove the narrative forward.
What we didn’t expect was a realisation that the film needed a bit of a slower pace. We had an inkling prior that we perhaps needed a scene to break up two intense back to back confrontation scenes. But seeing it on the big screen, the sudden intensity of Maria’s (the main character) downfall floored us. We noticed that perhaps we needed a slower build, just like Lamb, which caused me to nod off at the start as the routine on the farm the characters went through was so repetitive and slow. But the Lamb twist and payoff was worth it. This could have worked for Maria in Machination, whose mental illness is worsening because of a stressful situation. But it took us watching the film in the cinema to notice this.
Marketing wise, I was seeing Machination in a completely different way from the synopsis I originally wrote. Looking closer and digesting thoughts laid out by the lead actor Steffi Thake during the Q&A and through feedback during the back-and-forth chat, I realised that Machination works best as a punchy educational piece on how we shouldn’t treat someone with mental illness and how we shouldn’t have to suffer alone. It’s a glimpse into a swift decline in health because of mental illness, showing the consequences of symptoms left untreated and warning signs ignored. My marketing plan totally shifted. This is great as I continue to seek the audience.
The previous time I saw a film I’d directed on the big cinema screen was all the way back in 2018 when we screened Friends, Foes & Fireworks at Malta’s only arthouse cinema Spazju Kreattiv.
Cats of Malta screening at Spazju Kreattiv Cinema
Since before the pandemic, Ivan and I have been learning about how to sell our films through online streaming platforms using an aggregator. Our choice was FilmHub which is a mix of both a marketplace and aggregator. They take your films and place them online for you through different streaming platforms such as Amazon, Tubi, Vudu, and Plex, just to name a few of the big players. This is what a lot of indie filmmakers have been doing of late, more so during the pandemic. Even Hollywood blockbusters were forced to take risks and place selected titles online for streaming in the absence of cinema.
For those who remember and followed along, the results for Hollywood were mixed. For indie filmmakers, what happened was an oversaturation of indie films on platforms, especially on Amazon. This popular ‘go to’ platform, which is also known as being the lowest paying per hour streamed, later purged short films and documentaries from their library. This left indie filmmakers eager to self distribute their films with no option but to seek other avenues.
One such alternative avenue to streaming and cinema is virtual screenings.
Virtual screenings through platforms like Show & Tell (which we are looking into for Cats of Malta) allow you to charge audiences a fee to watch your film, just like you would for a physical cinema screening. The filmmaker remains in control.
The good thing about using Show & Tell or other virtual screening platforms is that your screening can feel like a proper event. It’s a live screening, the filmmaker sets times and dates and people pay and join online to watch. You can even pop on later for a Q&A. With virtual screenings the risk of privacy diminishes and in most instances, you can secure the viewer's email address. Both elements are super important to the longevity of your film and your career as a filmmaker.
Still, it’s not the same as seeing it on the big screen. Which is what I prefer as I am an old school film goer who sees a chance to sit in a cinema as one of my social highlights. I’ve stopped getting overly dressed up for these events like when I used to go see classic movies at St Kilda’s iconic Astor Theatre, but despite that, the excitement remains. And when it’s your own film on the screen, the emotions you feel are like a bucket of rainbow sauce thrown at your face — it’s intense and incredibly wonderful, like a blessing you didn’t know you needed.
Cinema is still sexy. The communal experience of watching a film on the big screen is second to none, especially for filmmakers evaluating their own work. It’s not backwards to hold on to the traditional way of watching films and as long as cinemas remain open we need to embrace the experience.
Yes, I accept progress and I know we have to adapt our craft to the times, just the way Agnès Varda changed up her filmmaking to suit modern cinema and embraced digital to stay relevant and keep creating. Filmmakers need to do the same to sell films and get seen by a wider audience. That’s totally okay, but we shouldn't shun the original way we watch films because it’s a powerful medium filmmakers can utilize to engage with audiences.
Cinema brings people together in a way that we need now more than ever, and you just can’t beat the feeling of watching films with strangers in the dark. It’s intoxicating, valuable, it’s an event. It is the way films are meant to be enjoyed.
Written by Sarah Jayne Portelli