Its acquisition and release by Netflix also proved advantageous for the film’s producers.) With a glut of studio “product” and changing viewing habits, it’s remarkable that so many indie films were pushed as aggressively as they were in theaters. (CORRECTION: The 2015 competition film Advantageous was commercially released in theaters in New York and San Francisco for one week. Frankly, it comes as a surprise that nowadays the numbers aren’t worse. (The former was released by Netflix, and Stockholm, Pennsylvania was bought by Lifetime.) Based on past years, this 20 percent to 25 percent success rate has remained fairly consistent. Of the remaining films, five received limited theatrical releases in the hopes of propping up digital sales ( I Smile Back People, Places, Things Results Unexpected Z for Zachariah) and the rest ( Adv antageous Stockholm, Pennsylvania Songs My Brother Taught Me) didn’t receive any commercial play in the marketplace. Two other big acquisitions, The Witch and The Bronze, will be released in 2016. Half of those films have received or will receive meaningful theatrical releases: One film broke out ( Dope, which earned over $17.5 million) two disappointed in wide release ( Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, which made an impressive sounding $6.7 million, and The D Train, which earned just $700,000) and another three performed modestly in arthouses, with earnings ranging from high six figures to just over $1 million ( The Diary of a Teenage Girl The Overnight The Stanford Prison Experiment). Dramatic Competition is a good place to start. So what can the films of Sundance 2015 clarify about the state of American indies, now and in the future? Some trends can be attributed to random cycles and one-time events, but there are also some concrete takeaways.
Of course, indie film exists far beyond the limits of Park City in January, but the festival gives the nebulous American indie sector a test sample - and as any scientist will tell you, that’s the first step in making an accurate hypothesis.
The health and identity of American independent cinema has always been difficult to gauge and define, but Sundance is our default arbiter and explainer. In Columns, Distribution, Filmmaking, Issuesĭope, Meru, Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival 2015, Tangerine, The Diary of a Teenage Girl, The Overnight, The Russian Woodpecker, The Wolfpack, Winter 2016
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