The Future Film Coalition

How I got started down the path to help create a new think tank and advocacy organization to promote the economic sustainability of independent film. Announcing our first Town Hall.

The Future Film Coalition is a new think tank and advocacy organization to promote the economic sustainability/viability/flourishing of independent film in a time of massive media consolidation and predatory practices. I am proud to be one of the founding members of what we hope will be a wide ranging coalition of filmmakers, non-profit organizations, distributors, exhibitors, marketers, funders, agents, lawyers etc who all make up our fragile ecosystem.

We are having our first Town Hall on February 27th. Here is the announcement/invitation. But if you are ready to sign up you can do that here:

Whether or not you attend, I recommend taking a look at this brief written introduction. If you have any questions feel free to comment on this post or one of the FFC’s posts.

How I Got Started Down This Path

As you may know, over the past year, I’ve been writing/commenting about the economic systems problem that our field faces. However, this was not always the case. In fact, about 16 months ago Abby Sun (IDA) tracked me down and asked me point blank if I was interested in how our field was being crushed by systemic forces. Surprisingly, considering my radical economic background, I told her that I was not interested. At the time, I didn’t believe that anything was possible in the face of the power of tech companies to shape policy.

Then I happened to pick up Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow’s Chokepoint Capitalism which not only laid out the systemic ways that large tech companies were laying waste to the possibility of a sustainable living for artists, but educated me in how it is essential to create “plans lying around” for the critical moment when those plans are able to be acted upon. They provide a number of compelling historical examples.

Abby and I went out to lunch and she schooled me for three hours laying out the scope of the problem and solutions, ultimately saying, “someone (like you) should create a systematic look at how other countries have combated the encroachment of large, predominantly American media conglomerates.” I thought that I could start this but quickly became overwhelmed by the enormity of the project. (Abby is now spearheading that research as part of the FFC).

Over the following months I was increasingly inspired by the WGA Whitepaper published during the strikes, Brian Newman’s writing, discussions on hikes with Ted Hope, until finally on one of the Distribution Collective’s regular zoom meetings I went on a rant about the need for collective action and Keri Putnam (former CEO of Sundance for many years) suggested a new organization to advocate for our field. Within a few months a core group formed including Abby, Keri, Brian, Sanjay Sharma (Marginal Mediaworks), AJ Christian (Northwestern professor and co-founder of OTV), Barbara Twist (Film Festival Alliance), Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte (filmmaker and former board chair of IFP) and Austin Lee Brown (Sundance Institute) with early counsel from Ted Hope to create the framework for the Future Film Coalition.

However we cannot do this work alone, in fact our goal is to create a structure for the entire field to become involved. I hope you will join us on February 27th and that some of you will be inspired to roll up your sleeves with us.