Distributing a Documentary Through PBS: What I Learnt from the Unconventional Film Distribution Process

While contemplating how to distribute my documentary Cats of Malta, I had some big decisions to make regarding the most profitable way to approach the release. My partner and I figured we had two clear options — go at it alone, or hand the film over to film distributors. 

At the time we had discovered a platform called Show&Tell, run by documentarian and distribution strategist Keith Ochwat. Keith and the platform members believe that filmmakers, particularly documentary filmmakers, should be making money from their films without handing over a large sum of that profit to a distributor. 

I wholeheartedly agree because, even though not all distributors are dishonest, the work filmmakers put in to make these films is endless and filmmakers deserve to get paid, like all artists. A documentary can take many years to plan, produce, shoot, and edit. With most documentaries there can be large costs involved to obtain rights for images, music, extra footage, deliverables, marketing and so on, and Cats of Malta was no exception.  

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How Losing 30 Hours a Week Made Me Value My Creative Time

Last night I signed up for a 100 days of writing challenge with my writing group. However, the challenge began the night before a 6am work start at my day job. The irony was not lost on me. I finally committed to writing daily, something I had been telling myself I wanted to do for a long time, but the night I committed was the night I badly needed to sleep so I could be rested for work.

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Breaking The Silence in Brussels: A Maltese Documentary Joins the Fight for Women's Rights

Malta is the only country in the EU where a woman will be arrested for having an abortion. Here, the path to a legal abortion is fraught with barriers: it demands a consensus from not one, but three separate doctors, all agreeing that abortion is the sole measure to save her life. Abortion is illegal even in cases of rape and incest, making Malta one of the strictest anti-abortion nations in the world. 

So when No Woman is an Island was invited to screen in front of the EU Parliament in a bid to help change Maltese law, I was honoured. To screen in Parliament, where MPs advocate, deliberate, and enact laws to foster positive change across all member states, including Malta ... Well, that was precisely one of the motivations driving my documentary work.

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Are Film Festivals Worth Your Time & Money?

In 2022 we have been paying attention to an aspect of film distribution we have largely ignored for several years beforehand: film festivals.

We have had rejections of course. With many festivals receiving thousands of entries, there will always be rejections. But we have also found some success. Machination has picked up several awards at film festivals for Acting, Directing, and Sound Design. Cats of Malta has been selected for the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival, New York Cat Festival, and other festivals we cannot reveal quite yet. Our latest Life Improvised film, The Dance, screened at Kinemastik International Short Film Festival in Malta last night.

But this handful of success has come at a cost of almost $1000USD so far in festival submission fees. Could this money have been better spent elsewhere? Like running Facebook ads for the release of Machination? Have we gotten enough return for our funds? In short: are film festivals worth the cost and effort?

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New Year's Resolutions are Fleeting; Long-Term Planning is Key

The concept of the New Year resolution started around 4000 years ago with the agricultural Babylonians. During their ancient annual Akitu festival, which included crop harvesting and appointing a new king, the Babylonians focused on pleasing their gods. Over twelve days they made promises to their gods that they would pay debts and return borrowed tools. Keeping this promise would gain them favoritism from the Gods in the coming year.

Other cultures adopted a similar belief around New Year's resolutions. In ancient Rome 46 B.C, the new calendar was introduced by Emperor Julius Caesar, making January 1st the start of the year. Caesar named the month after the two faced God Janus. Similar to the Babylonians, the Romans offered sacrifice and made promises to Janus to show good behavior in the new year.

UNDER PRESSURE

It’s these traditions that we have to thank for the reason most of us feel the pressure around mid-December to be better versions of ourselves in many aspects of our lives once January 1st rolls around.

Which brings us to today. Why does our society still hold on to variations of these ancient traditions?

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What I’ve Learnt from Directing my First Documentary

I've been in this indie filmmaking community for over a decade, and I’ve been directing since 2013, yet it always amazes me how there is always something more to learn in this industry as a director with each project.

This year I fell into directing my first documentary, Cats of Malta, and man did I learn a lot as I researched the topic and subjects that make up the Maltese cat community. Right now as we edit the project I'm becoming even more knowledgeable on how producing docos work, thanks to Google.

I have watched a few docos this year too, standouts being Tiger King, which showed me a lot about how to interview subjects and that true to life characters exist, you just have to find the interesting and sometimes kooky parts of their story. Another Netflix doco, High Score, was entertaining from start to finish. Even though I am not a gamer, High Score was so well put together as a series, each episode explaining a different shift in the industry, that even I as a novice on the subject was hooked.

One of the first things I learnt from the process of directing a doco is that I had to know what I could legally film. People in the background, peoples faces as they interacted with our interviewees on the street, and I will confess that I was reading about the legalities as we were filming.

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