Finding distribution for independently produced documentaries was a hot topic of discussion at the 20th Camden International Film Festival in Maine, which kicked off on September 12.
John Sloss, founder and CEO of Cinetic Media, which sold Christopher Reeve’s “Super/Man” documentary to Warner Bros. Discovery for $15 million at Sundance earlier this year, admitted that finding homes for some of the most popular documentaries at festivals, including “No Other Land,” has been tough.
“No Other Land,” a documentary about Palestinian activists’ resistance to forced displacement and settlement expansion in the West Bank village of Masafer Yatta, was part of the Cairo International Film Festival’s program. The film recently screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and Telluride. The IDFA-supported documentary premiered in February at the 74th Berlin Film Festival, where it won the Documentary Award and the Panorama Documentary Audience Award.
Sloss didn't go into detail about why the film hasn't been distributed yet, but it's not entirely surprising given platforms' recent aversion to controversial documentaries about politics and current events.
At a panel at the Cairo International Film Festival on September 14 titled “The Bottom Line: Social Impact Storytelling and the Documentary Market,” Brett Storey, who co-directed the 2024 Sundance documentary “Union,” said that despite successful screenings at 50 festivals around the world, including Camden, “Union” has not been picked up by a major distributor. Storey and fellow director Stephen Maing have decided to release the film theatrically in October.
“By any measure that matters to a filmmaker, we've been a huge success,” Story said.
The film follows a group of current and former Amazon workers who are trying to form a union for Amazon employees working at a facility in Staten Island, New York. “Union” is the latest documentary to be self-distributed due to the changing market. Over the past few years, documentary filmmakers have increasingly had to create a budget not only to produce their films but also to distribute their films. Service deals, where a filmmaking team pays a distributor like Abramorama to release their documentary while retaining the rights to their film, have become increasingly common. Recent examples of documentaries that have secured service deals include “War Game,” which premiered at Sundance 2024, and “Join or Die” at SXSW 2023.
The story did not specify details of the upcoming release of “Union”.
“We came away from Sundance so happy to have been there,” Story said. “We were so happy that the film was so well received, and we were hoping that someone would say to us right away, ‘We want to show this film to as many people as possible.’ That would have made our lives easier and more enjoyable. But we were also prepared for that not to happen because we certainly see so many amazing, wonderful, urgent films that don’t have that kind of platform.”
Story explained that she and the “Union” team have spent the past few months raising funds to facilitate the distribution of the film.
Director Bonni Cohen, who served on the jury, has two documentaries at festivals this year—“In Waves and War” and “The White House Effect.” Both political films premiered at Telluride and are seeking distribution. (“The White House Effect” screened at the Cairo International Film Festival.)
Whether or not her documentary finds buyers, Cohen said, she will make sure both films make an impact.
“We still hope that the documentaries will be shown to the world in some way,” Cohen said. “In the meantime, while we wait for the sale to close, we are developing our impact plan, which includes, perhaps more than ever, physical screenings. We are making it a priority to plan these screenings on campus and in local communities before we even know about the sale.”
Film producer and financier Marie-Therese Guirgis also served on the CIFF jury. Guirgis works for Play/Action Pictures, a documentary production company founded by Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie. Play/Action Pictures produced and co-presented the Academy Award-winning documentary “Summer of Soul” and most recently Petra Costa’s “Apocalypse in the Tropics,” which screened at CIFF and premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September.
“Apocalypse in the Tropics,” an investigation into the influence of evangelicalism on contemporary Brazilian politics, is seeking distribution. While Play/Action Pictures has not pursued self-distribution in the past, the current landscape may force the company to do so, Girgis said.
“In this case, ‘Tropical Apocalypse’ is about the fragility of democracy and the threat to democracy around the world,” Girgis said. “If it doesn’t get distribution, I don’t think Lowery will close the company overnight, but I think that’s the dilemma that a lot of people in this philanthropic space are in. They want movies to be accessible, and what they consider accessible is that you can turn on the TV and it’s on a platform. That’s the challenge I’m facing now.”
The in-person Cairo International Film Festival concluded on September 15. Online screenings will be available from September 16 to September 30 to audiences across the United States.
