{"id":1795,"date":"2026-05-17T07:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T07:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/2026\/05\/17\/the-indies-are-dying-long-live-the-indies\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T07:15:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T07:15:00","slug":"the-indies-are-dying-long-live-the-indies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/2026\/05\/17\/the-indies-are-dying-long-live-the-indies\/","title":{"rendered":"The Indies Are Dying. Long Live the Indies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\tLet\u2019s be honest: Business is slow. At this point in a typical Cannes Film Market<\/a>, there would usually be at least a handful of big deals, a bidding war or two. Instead, crickets.<\/p>\n

\tThe hallways of the Palais des Festivals are busy enough \u2014 there are plenty of packages <\/a>on offer and buyers and sellers are making the rounds. But the deals aren\u2019t coming, at least not at the pace or the scale the market once reliably delivered. <\/p>\n

\tThe independent film industry, to put it plainly, is in transition \u2014 and nobody has quite figured out what it\u2019s transitioning into. \t<\/p>\n

\tThe old model, the one that sustained the indie ecosystem, is visibly fraying. At its center was the pay-one television window: a predictable, lucrative revenue stream that allowed distributors to take risks on projects at the presale stage, backing films before a frame was shot based on talent attachments and a promising pitch. That window has largely collapsed, squeezed out by streaming platforms that negotiate their own deals directly and on their own terms. What\u2019s left for independent distributors is a landscape stripped of the financial cushions that once made risk-taking viable.<\/p>\n

\tWithout the pay-one window, distributors simply aren\u2019t willing to pre-buy the way they used to, especially at the high end, for $50\u202fmillion plus projects, unless they are obvious, mainstream theatrical plays with big, bankable stars. The kind that are few and far between at the Cannes March\u00e9 this year.<\/p>\n

\tFor producers, says David Garrett of Mister Smith Entertainment, who has been navigating these markets for decades, \u201cthat means relying more on equity financing and soft money to get movies financed.\u201d \t<\/p>\n

\tThe result, at the Cannes March\u00e9, is a buyer\u2019s market without enough buyers \u2014 or at least without buyers willing to commit large sums up front. Films that would once have sparked competitive bidding are screening to polite attention and noncommittal follow-up meetings. Producers are waiting. Sellers are waiting. Everyone is waiting.<\/p>\n

\tBut here\u2019s the thing about a vacuum: Something always fills it. And this year in Cannes, you can start to see the outlines of what that something might be \u2014 not one model, but several, each built around a different answer to the same question: How do you finance a film and find its audience when the traditional infrastructure has cracked beneath you?<\/p>\n

\tOne answer, increasingly convincing, is community. Watermelon Pictures<\/a>, the Chicago-based production and distribution company co-founded by brothers Badie and Hamza Ali, has built its entire operation around the idea that a deeply engaged, underserved audience is a more reliable foundation than any presale agreement. Named for the fruit that has become a symbol of Palestinian resistance, Watermelon has co-produced and\/or distributed a remarkable run of Palestinian-focused films \u2014 including Annemarie Jacir\u2019s Palestine 36<\/a><\/em>, Kaouther Ben Hania\u2019s The Voice of Hind Rajab<\/em> <\/a>and Cherien Dabis\u2019 All That\u2019s Left of You<\/a><\/em> \u2014 all three of which made the Oscar shortlist for best international<\/a> feature.<\/p>\n

\tRather than relying on traditional advertising or mainstream media coverage \u2014 often lacking for the films and subjects the distributor wants to highlight, Watermelon deploys WhatsApp groups, local community leaders and social media influencers to drive audiences to cinemas. The film industry calls this \u201cgrassroots marketing.\u201d For Watermelon, it\u2019s simply how you talk to the people your film is made for. \t<\/p>\n

\tA faith-based variant of the same logic has produced even more dramatic results. Angel Studios, the Utah-based company behind Sound of Freedom<\/em> and King of Kings<\/em>, has been scaling rapidly<\/a>, adding international output deals across Europe, Latin America and Asia. Another striking example of community-driven film and television is The Chosen<\/em>, the multi-season drama about the life of Jesus of Nazareth<\/a> that has become an underground phenomenon of staggering proportions.<\/p>\n

\tThe Chosen<\/em> creator Dallas Jenkins is in constant contact with the show\u2019s fans and maintains a direct text chain with 3.5\u202fmillion followers, a form of direct engagement that Mark Sourian, president of production at 5&2, who make The Chosen<\/em>, argues is key.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cIn the 21st century, if you are not in direct connection with your audience, if you are just letting your film \u2018speak for itself,\u2019\u202f\u201d Sourian says, \u201cyou are going to lose control of the conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tThat lesson has been absorbed \u2014 instinctively, if not always consciously \u2014 by a generation of online creators now moving into feature filmmaking with their audiences already in tow.<\/p>\n

\tThe most striking proof of concept is Iron Lung<\/a><\/em>, the sci-fi horror film written, directed and self-distributed by YouTuber and gaming personality Markiplier<\/a>, which has now grossed more than $50\u202fmillion worldwide.<\/p>\n

\tThis year at Cannes, the model is advancing. Club Kid<\/a>,<\/em> arguably the festival\u2019s hottest title<\/a> in terms of commercial potential, comes from Jordan Firstman, a comedian who built his following through viral Instagram skits during the pandemic before crossing over into features. The film has generated the kind of heat that has been missing elsewhere in the March\u00e9 this week, and a deal for domestic rights is all but certain (there are rumors A24 has already snatched it up). \t<\/p>\n

\tNone of these models is a clean replacement for what the independent film industry has lost. Community-driven distribution is hard to scale. But taken together, they suggest something important: The audience for independent film hasn\u2019t gone anywhere. It\u2019s just waiting to be reached in new ways, on new terms, by filmmakers willing to meet it where it lives \u2014 whether that\u2019s a church network, a WhatsApp group or a comment section on YouTube.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s be honest: Business is slow. At this point in a typical Cannes Film Market, there would usually be at least a handful of big deals, a bidding war or two. Instead, crickets. The hallways of the Palais des Festivals are busy enough \u2014 there are plenty of packages on offer and buyers and sellers are making the rounds. But the deals aren\u2019t coming, at least not at the pace or the scale the market once reliably delivered. The independent film industry, to put it plainly, is in transition \u2014 and nobody has quite figured out what it\u2019s transitioning into. The old model, the one that sustained the indie ecosystem, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[307,1073,1138,2,116,1139,1140,27,60,1014],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cannes-2026","category-cannes-film-market","category-club-kid","category-hollywood","category-international","category-iron-lung","category-markiplier","category-movie-news","category-movies","category-palestine-36"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}