By: Kerry Liethen

At one point, in grad school, one of my peers turned to me and said, “what exactly is an independent film?”  He was not from the States, so I imagine he was looking for some sort of insight into what an Indie film is considered in the U.S. and since I’m slightly opinionated and have a relatively good sense of humor he felt comfortable enough to ask my thoughts on the matter.  As it just so happens at that time I was reading Christine Vachon’s book, Shooting to Kill (Christine Vachon is a producer who runs Killer Films along with her partner, Pamela Koffler), and my immediate gut reaction was the budget.  If the film can be made for under X amount of dollars then it is an independent film, but then I stopped myself, because at one point an Indie film came down to the dollar amount and, often, the subject material, so I looked at him and said, “damned if I know anymore.”  And now with studios, such as, FOX, and Paramount having their own boutiques I have to say, “damned if I know what the hell an independent film is anymore.”

When I would watch films in the 1990’s Indie films were made by maverick’s who were outsiders, as far as I was concerned, to the studio system.  They were the nonconformists  I related to and whose films I enjoyed time and again on VHS – Rodriguez’s El Mariachi, McCall’s Lewis & Clark & George, Ander’s Gas, Food, Lodging, Solondz’s Welcome to the Dollhouse, Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs.  These films looked like gritty Indie films and their budgets were low ($800,000 (estimated) Welcome to the Dollhouse, $220,000 (after post-production) (estimated)/$7,000 (original) (estimated) El Mariachi, $1.2M (estimated) Reservoir Dogs), which reinforced my idea that Indie films had a budget under $5M.

In today’s film market, I’m still rather perplexed as to what is considered an Indie film.  Little Miss Sunshine, Juno, and Babel have often been referred to as Indie films, but are they really?  If you take a look at the budgets and dig a bit further into the company information these films are all somehow related to the studio system, which is not a bad thing, but then I begin to wonder does Indie film really exist anymore even if the subject material in these films might be considered Indie.  And if the picture is shot on digital, can you even call it an Indie film?

In retrospect, I guess what I long for most is when Indie film was still independent, but with the changes in the studios this is becoming much more difficult to come by and the world of Indie film is becoming extinct as the industry continues to shift.

-K.L.