Distribution Advocates Presents: The Truth About Sales Agents (Episode 1)
What exactly do sales agents do, and why do they matter?
Host Avril Speaks and her guests demystify the role of sales agents, and explore one filmmaker’s journey in finding distribution without one. This episode features conversations with Pat Murphy, Orly Ravid, Alece Oxendine, Set Hernandez, Abby Sun, Efuru Flowers, and Kaila Sarah Hier.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and iHeartRadio.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Pat Murphy:
My sales agent wrote a book really encouraging filmmakers to think creatively about distribution and not treat it as an afterthought, but to really get your hands dirty and get involved in the distribution of your film.
Orly Ravid:
There are so many companies out there that are very happy to take all the rights, and so you really have to be thoughtful.
Alece Oxendine:
I’ve been on a crusade making sure emerging filmmakers understand the process, so when you get to that negotiation table, you’re not a stranger to that conversation. You’re not a stranger to terms and agreements and long-form, short-form contracts. You’re not dizzy.
Avril Speaks:
Hello out there and welcome to Distribution Advocates Presents. I am your host, Avril Speaks, producer, filmmaker, and co-founder of Distribution Advocates. Our team has commissioned this series of conversations where we delve into concerns about the current landscape of independent film distribution. We’ll chat with folks who are navigating these spaces, debunk some outdated myths, and look to innovative, sustainable, and equitable solutions for distributing films to their waiting audiences.
Today’s episode explores the world of sales agents. I’ll be joined by entertainment attorney Orly Ravid, Columbia Film School’s Alece Oxendine, distributor Efuru Flowers and publicist Kaila Hier. We’ll discuss the roles of sales agents navigating rights deals and whether or not agents are truly necessary for film distribution. To start, we’ll hear from filmmaker Set Hernandez, who spoke with fellow Distribution Advocates co-founder Abby Sun about their recent interactions with sales agents as they prepare to distribute their feature documentary unseen. Let’s jump into it. Here are Set and Abby.
Set Hernandez:
My name is Set Hernandez. I am a filmmaker and community organizer. I am the director/producer for the film unseen, about my friend Pedro and his journey to become a social worker, which is making its way into the world this year.
Abby Sun:
Yeah, it’s a beautiful feature-length documentary. It had a festival premiere earlier this year [2023]—and has been traveling the festival circuit. Can you tell us about your experience with sales agents for your film?
Set Hernandez:
My experience with sales agents is very new to me, to be honest. I didn’t even know if the film was going to get made, particularly because of my immigration status being undocumented, that identity that is shared with Pedro. When Pedro and I started making the film, we had no expectations, to be honest. It was already difficult to make the film because of citizenship requirements for a lot of opportunities. So from the get-go, we weren’t sure how the film would get finished, but seven years later, somehow it ended up being finished.
About two years ago, when more and more people started paying attention to our project, that’s when we started learning more about distribution because I think just getting a film made is already difficult. Getting a film seen, I feel like I, as an emerging filmmaker, never really thought of, and I also have a feeling that maybe not a lot of first-time filmmakers really understand what it means to have distribution.
No one really says much about how you should think about distribution. I started learning more about sales agents when we got a grant from Sundance because they share this press release, and all of a sudden that’s when people start paying attention to your project, for better or for worse. When these institutions share press releases, there are actually people that track you and your film’s journey. And the more concrete experience that I’ve had around sales agents was when I started attending markets. Ultimately, we didn’t have a sales agent. We actually still don’t have a sales agent, but the experience made me feel like a toy at a toy shop that somebody grabs, looks at, inspects and then decides, “Uh, you know what? I don’t want this toy. Let me put it back,” and then they just leave you. That’s what it feels like to interact with sales agents, only to not be brought on.
Abby Sun:
Basically, I’d like to just dig a little bit deeper into this process that made you feel like the film and you were a toy in a toy shop that was discarded. So it sounds to me like before the film was done, after the first grant, you were approached really early on by sales agents emailing you. Is that what you were expecting? Had you been prepared for that?
Set Hernandez:
No. I should say that when sales agents started approaching me, I actually had no idea who these sales agents were, so I had to ask my executive producer, Diane Quon. During the course of the seven years, I would be attending these webinars and a lot of my focus was just on production, but never really thought about distribution, sales agents. This side of the process feels the most opaque. With production at least, one can watch a video online on how to use a camera, how to edit. It’s easy to Google and find things online to help you find production support and skill sets, but when it comes to distribution, you can’t Google, “How do I find the right kind of distribution for my film?”
Avril Speaks:
In our teach-ins for Distribution Advocates, we’ve found that Set’s lack of access and knowledge for what comes after completing a film is all too common, especially for emerging filmmakers and filmmakers without producers experienced in sales. So what are sales agents? What exactly do they do? Film distributor, Efuru Flowers was able to give some clarity.
Efuru Flowers:
Hi, my name is Efuru Flowers. I am a film distributor and a producer.
Avril Speaks:
I know for Distribution Advocates, we used to do teach-ins about sales agents versus distributors. Sales agents are the intermediary between filmmakers and bigger distributors. Domestic sales agents usually take a percentage, about 10% to 15% of the sales advance. More and more sales agents are asking for higher percentages, a percentage of gross receipts in perpetuity or a minimum fee payable by filmmakers in the case of no sale. International sales agents, on the other hand, deliver to distributors on the film’s behalf, and they represent the film at festivals and at markets like European Film Market or the Cannes Marché, and they take a higher percentage usually of about 25% to 35%, in some cases 50% to 75% on festival fees.
Efuru Flowers:
So there are sales companies, international sales companies whose job it is to find films or TV projects to sell to distributors, in essence. They can do presales. They are in charge of selling all the rights to different territories where distributors live. For example, they’re selling to the distributor who will then place the content with a streamer, with a TV outlet, with an exhibitor, a theatrical exhibitor. That’s the distributor’s job is to actually place it directly with the buyer. The sales agent’s job is to place it with the distributor, but even the distributor is doing a bit of selling because they’re selling directly to the outlet and even studios themselves have teams where they’re selling their content that they make to different outlets. So like if Paramount Pictures made a film, they’re going to sell rights to that picture in different territories. Now, they don’t call themselves sales agents, but that is part of their job to do as well. The sales agent’s job is to place a film with a distributor.
Avril Speaks:
I also sat down with Columbia film school’s Alece Oxendine, director of industry and festival outreach. Her work guiding students through facilitating connections and partnerships with industry contacts gives her a unique vantage point between emerging filmmakers and the systems of industry at play. Here’s what Alece had to say.
Alece Oxendine:
I think where we are right now with sales agents is not as accessible for smaller projects. If you have a microbudget film, people are like, “Well, I got to find a sales agent.” They’re not going to talk to you. There’s no guarantee on investment for them. It’s not viable for them to work with you. It doesn’t make any sense for them. So I can’t guarantee we’re going to make any money. It’s not like the days of yore where I can actually go and talk to a platform and make sure we got that money.
Now, that’s completely different for international sales agents. They are still extremely valuable. If you have a film that you want to sell in international markets, building relationships with international sales agents is the way to go. Most of the time as distributors, we would work with international sales agents to sell off in other territories like, “Oh, we’re going to work with levelFILM in Canada. We’ll sell this film for Canadian rights for $50,000.”
Avril Speaks:
Well, let’s dig into that a little more. How did sales agents function in the past and what value did they offer back then that is no longer really the case?
Alece Oxendine:
So I think there was a time of the sales agent a couple of years ago when it was the heyday of buying and selling films. That’s when you made an independent film that was maybe a million dollar budget and you had a cast member or two that was kind of well known. Your independent film was going to go on Netflix. This is like from 2015 to ’17, and a lot of people have based their entire strategy on this time period that does not exist anymore. So sales agents usually take that 12.5% on average in perpetuity.
Avril Speaks:
That’s an average of the percentage range that I mentioned earlier, the 10% to 15% of the sales advance. But as I said, more and more sales agents are looking for a percentage of gross receipts in perpetuity, and this is how sales agents make their money. They pick up independent films and by leveraging their relationships, they’re able to place the films with specific distributors that pay for licensing of the film’s distribution rights. Sales agents then take a cut of whatever price these distribution rights sell for. So all you filmmakers, beware of sales agents that charge an upfront fee. That is not standard. Also, beware of sales agents charging a mandatory flat fee as a floor even if no sales are made.
Alece Oxendine:
Yes. So if they got you that distribution deal when we’re doing our filmmaker statements, that 12.5% went to the sales agent and that worked because you had guaranteed money from these streaming platforms. Not just streaming platforms, but from these subscription-based VOD programs. Even most recently, Hulu had a direct output deal with distributors. They offered a minimum guarantee, which is basically the advance they pay you to buy your film. It was guaranteed money. It was easy to do. So sales agents call up Hulu and say, “Hulu, you want to go in on this movie?” They’re like, “Sure, we’ll spend 200K.” “All right, let’s go.” As a sales agent, it was a good business model. So that’s how a lot of people were able to get guaranteed work, especially with sales agents. But that’s usually at festivals. But when Netflix changed from buying these independent films to being kind of their own studio, they’re producing the content that they’re distributing, it kind of makes sales agents irrelevant to a certain extent.
You look at A24, Neon, Annapurna is doing it now. More and more of these smaller distribution companies are producing their own content. They’re like, “Hey, we’re just going to source our own films.” It’s actually cheaper. It’s less people they have to do accounting for. So it just makes a lot of sense for them to do that. That changed everything for sales agents. So I think now if we’re negotiating at Sundance, it starts at seven figures plus, a lot of small distributors can’t participate, sales agents are overwhelmed. So sales agents struggled to find their space in the marketplace for a couple of years. It’s not that they reign supreme anymore. Agents help you get into festivals more so than they help you get distribution deals. It’s still a relationship-based business, but I don’t see the same heyday of guaranteed success that sales agents offered in the past.
Most people are getting distribution contracts through the connections that they make on their own. So it’s through maybe they worked on another film, maybe they went to a market, maybe they went to a festival and just randomly met people standing in line for the bathroom, standing in line for tickets, standing in line to get into a party—just standing in line, insert any scenario at a festival. So I would say every distribution company has worked with sales agents, but more so they’re going to festivals, top festivals to look for films.
Avril Speaks:
As Set’s film began to travel on the festival circuit and gather more recognition, they experienced a lot of what Alece pointed out firsthand.
Set Hernandez:
When I was making the film, sometimes I was in conversation with certain sales agents over the course of a couple of years, sometimes the correspondences with sales agents would end. They were like, “Oh, the market is too difficult right now. We don’t think your project would be a fit for us.” The emails ended. After that, there was no more conversation. That’s just the end of it. Some of them ended actually when we had a world premiere. I was emailing them. They don’t respond. I’m trying to figure out whether a lack of response is the “no” or whether they’re just waiting to see something else. But when one of our supporters offered to reach out to some of the sales agents that I have been constantly emailing every other month, they actually responded to that individual and they were saying, “Oh, we wish this filmmaker would’ve told us because we tend to bring on projects before their world premiere.” I felt gaslighted. I had been. And I’m like, “Is this the norm here, you know, like to be gaslit about your experience?” That really is what made me feel so upset and really used.
Abby Sun:
Yeah. That’s very disappointing to hear. That’s something that could have been a simple “no.” That’s a pretty common story Set, I’m sad to say, because another thing that’s rather common is this myth that you must have a sales agent in order to acquire distribution. But you still don’t have a sales agent, so how did you acquire distribution without a sales agent?
Set Hernandez:
Abby, I appreciate you naming that it’s a common experience, what I’m describing to you right now. Thank you for that validation. I feel like in the opacity of this whole industry, there’s no one-size-fits-all. We are led to believe that you get into Sundance, you get a sales agent, you get into Hulu or HBO, and then you get these awards and then that’s the path to your film. We found distribution without a sales agent because of relationships started years and years and years ago before I even attended a single market. For example, the way I got introduced to POV actually was in 2018.
Abby Sun:
For those who don’t know, POV is an award-winning PBS docu-series. They source independent documentaries showcasing contemporary social issues and exhibit them via national broadcast on PBS.
Set Hernandez:
Yes. So in 2018 at IDA’s Getting Real, when I met you also, Abby, for the first time, there were round tables happening at the IDA that year. I submitted unseen, but unseen ended up getting passed on. But one of the people who were reviewing the project was from POV. So during the mingling session, that person approached me and was like, “Your project is not in the round tables, but I would love to chat with you nonetheless.”
During the pandemic, that same person and I have been just in touch emailing each other. When I started sinking my teeth a little bit more in the film, I reached out to them saying, “Oh, hey, I have this sample here. Would you be interested in checking it out?” That’s when they brought on other colleagues from POV and from then on, 2018, 2020, our film ended up in POV 2023. So that’s like a span of five years. So that’s what I mean by being tenacious. If you don’t get a sales agent, I hope that filmmakers don’t feel discouraged that it’s the end of the story for them, not allowing impatience and the lack of instant gratification to discourage you from moving forward with the path for your film—watering your own garden.
Abby Sun:
Yeah. This reminds me of something that an industry colleague said in the Q&A portion of the very first panel that I ever sat on, which was also for Getting Real 2018. I was one of four “industry gatekeepers” on the panel, and I was the only millennial, which was at that time young people in the field, plus the moderator, who was Iyabo Boyd. Somebody stood up in the Q&A and essentially said all of these institutions, gatekeepers, funders, film festivals, we—because she was also a gatekeeper—we are nothing without filmmakers. You, as filmmakers, you actually have all the power to change based off of who you value, so on and so forth.
Avril Speaks:
We heard similar sentiments from many of the people we spoke with regarding dealing and negotiating with sales agents.
Alece Oxendine:
Some of the things I try to impart in the next generation of filmmakers is definitely knowing your audience’s actual currency.
Efuru Flowers:
Befriend a salesperson or a distributor, have someone like that who is part of your circle to kind of help you to navigate where the industry is at a particular time. If you don’t have access to a salesperson, educate oneself, reading the trades and listening to podcasts about the business.
Alece Oxendine:
You need a lawyer, you need help and there’s help out there for you.
Avril Speaks:
I sat down with entertainment attorney and film producer, Orly Ravid, who was able to provide insight and guidelines for dealing with sales agents and rights negotiations, but she also spoke heavily to the same notion of taking distribution into one’s own hands and not allowing middlemen services to dictate the life cycle of a film.
Orly Ravid:
I am Orly Ravid. I founded and I’m the co-executive director of The Film Collaborative, and I’m also an entertainment attorney. I have a baby firm called Creative Arts Legal. I’m also a law professor at Southwestern Law School that houses a pro bono law clinic and I head up our Entertainment Media Institute there. All that’s to say I live and breathe independent film, entertainment law.
Avril Speaks:
You’ve seen many facets of this industry. I’m curious from your perspective and your understanding, can you share any advice that you might have for filmmakers who are trying to navigate this space of distribution? Any advice on dealing with sales agents?
Orly Ravid:
I think filmmakers typically romanticize distribution in a place of avoidance or willful blindness with respect to the whole industry business side. I get that filmmakers are creatives and it would be wonderful if they could avoid having to deal with some of the nuts and bolts of film finance and distribution. I think that filmmakers see a distribution company offer, a sales company offer as if they’re talent being discovered, but I think at their own peril, when they don’t pay closer attention to it or at least have someone on their team who’s really skilled in that category.
A sales agent, typically back in the day when I started, was a company that would take all the rights and then resell them to different buyers in different countries around the world, and there’s plenty of companies that are still doing just that, but at the same time that business has really gone down, that business model does not work for many, many, many independent films. There are sales agents who function like true brokers where they are just taking a commission of the deal but not actually taking your rights. In my opinion, that’s always a safer way to go. There are also sales agents who are treating the global streaming services as part of the sales process, and that’s important to think through when you’re also looking at what’s happening in different territories in terms of your distributor.
There’s a little bit of an overlap now between distribution and sales. Sales agents can be very challenging if you do go with a more traditional model of they take all your rights to resell your rights around the world. If they’re not a US-based company, that can be very challenging to have a remedy. If you can’t reach them legally easily. It’ll be massively expensive. Always do your due diligence and your homework and work with companies that are trusted where you’ve spoken not just to somebody who thinks that the people are nice at a cocktail party but rather have worked with them and things worked out okay. It’s worth doing your homework and films are different, so it’s just important to sort of get advice that is current and actually targeted to your type of film and not others because it’s a very different marketplace out there for different films in terms of sales potential, when you speak specifically about sales agents. I mean, they’ll be a company that’ll take your rights. There’ll always be companies that’ll take your rights, but what they’ll do with them to your advantage is not often much.
Avril Speaks:
Right. Do you have any examples about action that you’ve seen filmmakers take that are empowering?
Orly Ravid:
Yeah. I mean, I think filmmakers have been splitting their rights for a really long time, doing their own theatrical, doing their own festivals, doing their own educational, doing their own merchandising, doing their own public speaking about the film, whatever it is. I think splitting rights is very empowering because it’s saying, “Hey, I’m not giving you everything. I’m reserving a bunch of rights because if you’re not going to use them correctly, I’m going to use them and I’m carefully vetting, I’m picking the right fit for different rights.” I think there’s a lot of that. I’ve represented films that have done seven different deals just in the United States.
Avril Speaks:
Can you expand on that? Do you mean splitting a film’s rights beyond, say, educational versus theatrical, or how have you seen filmmakers carve out rights within the U.S. domestically?
Orly Ravid:
You could have one entity do festival distribution, another do educational distribution, another do theatrical, and then another do video on demand, a separate airline deal. So that’s what I mean where you’re splicing and dicing the rights because the film actually has potential in every category of rights. That’s not every day that there can be that much splitting, but for some films there can be, and I think not every film is going to have the same potential for distribution. I think the filmmakers need to get real about who their audience really is so that they can also make educated choices about how to get to those audiences and how those folks will come to know about the film and want to see it, because that will help decide what kind of people and services to work with, and it’s important to know where your film sits in the landscape in terms of the audience and how that audience consumes cinema.
Some people just really are not oriented to go to the theater and they’re not even oriented to pay any money. They’re just going to see it if it’s on their streaming service or on AVOD. So I think it starts with that and then walking backwards. It’s easier for some films, it’s impossible for others. I just want to be clear.
Avril Speaks:
I think it’s important also to point out with everything that you’re saying, filmmakers do have the right to push back. Even when you are in that negotiation phase, you do have the ability and the right to say no to any deal. I think for a lot of filmmakers, if someone approaches you, it’s like, “Ooh, shiny, we’d have to take it.” And I think it’s important to note also that you can look for these things and you can advocate for yourself and for your team and for your film and push back.
Orly Ravid:
Exactly. It just means somebody’s got to do something, right? It is not just going to happen. Somebody’s got to find the money, find the right service providers and go from there. Also, make sure that you’re not going to a predator. I mean, there are so many distribution companies that are either full-on predatory or if they’re not full-on predatory, they’re just not going to do more than aggregate your rights and throw your film up onto VOD platforms but not actually do any sort of thoughtful publicity or marketing or grassroots work or any of that stuff, and the same is true for sales agents.
Avril Speaks:
The marketing aspect of positioning a film is another piece of the sales puzzle that often gets minimized. My colleague, Abby Sun, actually spoke with publicist Kaila Hier about just that.
Abby Sun:
Kaila, you mentioned that sometimes films come to you through sales agents. Can you describe the people that filmmakers rely on in this situation? Who are you working with on the film team? Who are you communicating with?
Kaila Sarah Hier:
Yeah, so I, for a large chunk of time, was essentially the publicist on retainer for a sales company, which was a really amazing experience. I don’t think a lot of sales companies do that. The company is Yellow Veil Pictures. They now do distribution, but then it was just sales. Typically, in these situations, either the sales company will be the one to scout and start reaching out to publicists directly saying like, “Hey, we’ve got this film that’s premiering here. Do you want to watch it and put in a proposal?” Or it’ll be a filmmaker or producer who will reach out to me and be like, “Hey, we’re so excited, we got into this festival. Do you want to come on as a publicist?”
In the situations where it’s the latter, my response is always like, “This is great. Send me a link and then talk to your sales agent and see if they want to take a meeting.” Since my philosophy is always that if you have a sales agent, you shouldn’t be paying for any of that stuff on your own. The best case scenario is everything’s by the book and we have the sales agent that brings you on, pays you.
Abby Sun:
Yeah, so basically how sales agents set up their contracts usually equate to a percentage of any sales that they make, plus the cost that go into generating that sale. If it’s at a festival, that might include the publicist that is hired.
Kaila Sarah Hier:
But you would be surprised, Abby, how many sales agents, even if it is at a meaningful festival, depending on what they’re guesstimating they’re going to get for any movie, they will say, “Sorry, we have no budget for this.” So I have on occasion been paid by directors and producers for work on their movie at a film festival versus the sales agent.
Abby Sun:
Yeah. Even filmmakers with sales agents or with distribution might sometimes hire someone like you, an independent PR agency or a single publicist to help supplement what’s happening with the festival premiere or theatrical release or VOD release and so forth. I’ve witnessed that to be a common practice at film festivals especially. Film teams have to hire the publicist themselves and pay out of pocket. There’s a common complaint from filmmakers that their sales agents and distributors are not doing enough, that they’re never doing enough when it comes to marketing and publicity.
Kaila Sarah Hier:
I have had a lot of filmmakers come to me after the fact and be like, “Hey, this company picked up our movie. They made it seem like they were going to support it with marketing and press, but we’re coming out in like two weeks and we’re starting to realize that that’s not true. Is there anything you can do?” Earlier in my career, I took on a few of those roles because I really felt for these filmmakers. It’s an uphill battle in a landscape that isn’t really supportive of films that don’t have a wide window for audience engagement. But a publicist, by definition, I think is their relationships outside of even just in film. I think that’s how we see that role is the publicist having relationships and leveraging those relationships to benefit their client.
That is the reason you hire a publicist because they bring relationships to the game. But then at the same time, you are also creating a version of a relationship for that filmmaker. That filmmaker in a few years is going to have another movie and hopefully by then, you’ve already kind of gotten rid of one of the many hurdles in this industry.
Avril Speaks:
Relationships are a huge cornerstone of the industry, and as previously mentioned, they are the leveraging power on which sales agents operate, those relationships to distributors. Filmmaker Set Hernandez also offered their thoughts on the various ways to build fruitful relationships for the circulation of a film.
Set Hernandez:
I wish that this industry could be less transactional, more relational. I also wish that this industry that we work in isn’t so hung up on the clout of certain institutions that you only get attention when a certain somebody lifts you up. I’m grateful for all the sales agents that reached out to unseen. The fact that they were even interested, I truly do appreciate it.
While those sales agents that we were in touch with ultimately didn’t work with us, my mentor Grace Lee always says it’s a “no” now, meaning that maybe it could be a “yes” in the future. But I feel like also what’s important is that as an independent filmmaker, I should also not put so much pressure on sales agents because I feel like it’s kind of unfair on them. Getting a premiere on a certain somewhere should not be the end all be all. Getting a partnership with a certain somebody should not be the end-all be-all, but really understanding that me, my community, my collaborators, we’re the ones that are going to do it for ourselves.
I know that this podcast is a public podcast and part of me is like, “What if I say the wrong thing here? Will I be blacklisted and no one would want to work with me anymore?” But part of me wants to take a step beyond that feeling because I feel like if all filmmakers are afraid to talk about their experience, how are we going to learn from each other? Especially with such an opaque system as distribution in film. If I will let this feeling in me prevent me from speaking with you openly, I can only imagine how another emerging filmmaker in the future might not have someone to process their feelings with, and I feel like for me, listening to podcasts with other filmmakers has been really helpful. So I just want to name that for me.
Abby Sun:
I really appreciate you naming that specifically because even that is an answer in and of itself why things can feel not relational, because there’s this fear, there’s this power dynamic that’s potentially happening. Everything that your mentors and executive producers told you that this might not work out here, but potentially something can grow out of maybe not this project, but the next project, but that’s not the way that it’s feeling received on the other side. I think that’s a really valuable lesson. That reminds me of your community organizing work and the work that you’ve done also as an impact producer for other people’s films. I’m curious if you can talk a little bit more about that. How do you think that your experience doing that work has helped you in your understanding of the film, specifically the independent documentary field?
Set Hernandez:
I really hold on to that part of my life. Everything that I do ends up being community organizing. I am all about building relationships over a long period of time and building relationships in an ongoing way. My work with the Undocumented Filmmakers Collective—the impact that we ended up creating over the years didn’t start in the span of one month. There was one year where we were just meeting and discussing things. I feel like that energy of being curious enough to know how things will pay off, that really instilled in me a certain kind of characteristic to be able to see how our film would end up getting distribution.
And I think the other thing too, as an organizer who’s undocumented and as an undocumented individual in general, I have always known that the status quo systems and structures that exist, they’re not meant to serve people from my community, especially with unseen. Unseen is a film that we hope will be watched widely by all audiences, but in my heart of hearts, my most priority audiences are undocumented people and audiences with disability, particularly blind and low vision audience members who are often overlooked as primary audiences for our films.
When films are made about our communities, we’re never thought of as the primary audiences. Audiences for films about blind people are often sighted people. Audiences about undocumented stories are often citizens. If that is my desire to reach those kinds of audiences and this infrastructure already does not cater to them, I can’t wait for the system to change before I find distribution for the film. I have to really think outside of the box, and that outside-of-the-box thinking has already been in me having been an impact producer and a community organizer. But I forgot that I had those perspectives in me because the film industry makes me feel like there’s a certain path that I have to tread in order to get distribution, when in reality I should continue to remind myself that it’s already been in me. Instead of waiting for this industry to save me, I got my community instead that I should lean into.
Abby Sun:
Yeah, I think even the ways that we talk about distribution, like receiving distribution, they’re really passive, right? It’s all things that other people give to you as opposed to something that you create for yourselves and your collaborators.
Set Hernandez:
I feel like I was led to believe that distribution is a passive thing, almost like winning the lottery. It’s almost like being saved by somebody else. I want to live in a world where I’m not expecting anybody to save me. There’s this quote by an aboriginal organizer named Lilla Watson who says, “If you came here to save me, you’re wasting your time, but if you came here because you understand your liberation is tied to mine, then let us work together.” I need to remember that our film is just one film. It’s not going to lead to the liberation of the world, but what I’m saying is I need to work with other people who understand that maybe they find something in this film that they know audiences will also feel. If they believe in this film the way I believe in it, then that’s when we can work together.
Abby Sun:
That’s an amazing sentiment. I think you have a really great view of the structures of our field also as an individual filmmaker because of your work between Undocumented Filmmakers Collective, this film that you are the director of, and your mentors and other friends who have worked on the project as well. What, in your opinion, are some of the things that need to happen infrastructurally to fix this system for independent documentaries or for independent films in general?
Set Hernandez:
Maybe my answer is a little bit outside of the box. What I’ll start off with is how can we not buy into this mythology that there’s a one-size-fits-all distribution? Because I think the moment we start not buying into a myth, then we start divesting from it, and then that’s when we reimagine a new system altogether. If we are stuck in believing there’s a fairy tale approach to distribution, and if we’re all trying to one-up each other so that we can live inside that fairy tale, then we’re all going to continue feeding into that system, and that system will continue to thrive.
But if we all start understanding that the answer is not in some powerful institution to save us, the power of these institutions are there because we have confidence in them and we put our faith in them, but the moment we start reframing how we understand the structure and invest that power somewhere else, and that somewhere else could be with each other, with ourselves. I think the way to change the system is by changing each of our mindsets as filmmakers. It reminds me of this poem by Joy Harjo called “I Release You,” pretty much addressing fear, and she says to fear that, “You have gutted me, but I gave you the knife. You have choked me, but I gave you the leash. You have devoured me, but I laid myself across the fire. I take myself back, fear.” I feel like those sentiments, that’s what a filmmaker is also going through.
We gave this industry the knife to gut us. When are we going to start taking ourselves back? These institutions, these other people in power, I believe in them so much that I forgot my power. How can we stop buying into the myth that a certain somebody, a certain sales agent will bring us to a path that we want for our film? We will make our own path for our film instead of continuing to buy into this myth. That allowed me to take myself back.
Avril Speaks:
Sales is a structural issue of access. The truth is that you still need the relationship. The broadcast sales Set made came from his relationships. Whether it’s the filmmaker or the sales agent, the sales system is access driven. What we can do is reimagine new relational roles. It is important that we all get paid for our work, but instead of a purely transactional role as sales agents can be, can we imagine a different kind of middle person, someone with access who is interested in operating as more of a liaison between filmmaker and film distributor, someone who is also invested in the mission of the film rather than simply the monetary potential? Can we make it relationship driven as opposed to transaction driven?
That’s all for this episode of Distribution Advocates Presents. Tune in for our other series installments discussing the landscapes of film school, film festivals, distribution, awards, and exhibition. This episode is produced by Moso House. Our producer is Nacey Watson Johnson. Our supervising producer is Ivana Tucker, and our production manager is Samiah Adams. Sound design is by Emily Crain. Special thanks to the team at Distribution Advocates, Abby Sun, Carlos Gutierrez, Karin Chien, Amy Hobby, and Kelly Thomas, as well as this episode’s guests, Efuru Flowers, Alece Oxendine, Kaila Hier, Set Hernandez, Orly Ravid, and Pat Murphy. And of course, a heartfelt thank you to our funders, Ford Foundation, Perspective Fund, and Color Congress. Until next time, I’m your host, Avril Speaks, signing off.
Y’all must’ve known I was waiting!
Bravo, this is an incredible episode and a vital conversation. Thank you to everyone involved!