Her comments came during chat on “The Independent Film Ecosystem and Production in the Changing Industry,” in which Vachon was joined by Jason Ropell, chief officer of arthouse streaming Mubi.

“Disruption creates opportunity, and it creates evolution,” Ropell argued. Vachon echoed that: “Out of great disruption comes great opportunity. I have seen people dance on the grave of independent film so many times.”

My Indie Cinema Book

Vachon: “There’s lot of doom-saying because there’s so much disruption. There were the strikes, which were difficult. I am not going to put an optimistic spin on that. They definitely changed the business in a lot of ways.”

Instead, she highlighted the positive signs: “Every month I see evidence of people flocking to truly original stories, and I see them going to the theater”.

She touched on the disruption to the film industry caused by COVID: “It almost seems like a fever dream now how we made movies during COVID, but we did.”

Ropell: “Talk of death of indie film was premature. The independent sector is remarkably resilient. There have been challenges before, disruptions before. And the business has come through, and it’s survived and thrived. The current disruptions that are affecting the business feel daunting, they always feel daunting.”

Ropell: “Things evolve. And the best time is always the present time. Optimism is warranted, based on what we’ve been seeing in the very recent past, Cannes an example. The mood at Cannes was positive, it bodes well for the future. The positive kind of viewpoint for evolving into the future is something that’s necessary for us to do that.”

Auteurship and Originality

Vachon: “It’s really combination of script and its originality. Is it zeitgeist? Is the filmmaker somebody who has reputation? Are they somebody new, young, audacious, that we really believe in and can attract cast of a certain caliber? All those things go into that sort of hopper, and then we start to see the path. And that path is all about what makes something commercial, something financeable, what will attract financiers, what kind of financiers, what is the price for something like this, because it’s also part of the commerciality of what we make, maintain that sense of auteurship and originality.”

Industry changes in streaming age

Vachon: “When we first started making movies, theatrical was all there was. And in fact, even some of the ancillary markets that were typical for movies being made in those days, such as cable TV, didn’t want our movies. Our movies lived and died by their theatrical success.”

Options: Theatrical Vs. Streaming

Vachon: As this has changed, young filmmakers have really started to have some kind of nuanced idea. They’re like, “I have an idea for  theatrical film, or an idea for TV series, I have an idea for miniseries, for something that I think would play well on streamer. That kind of nuance is something that we discuss all the time. A key question is whether a film is theatrical and what makes it theatrical. What is going to give you that urgency to go to the theater to see it instead of waiting for it to come to your home.”

“There is more demand and familiarity and fans of this type of cinema that have been fostered by early streaming. A lot of negative things come from the disruption that that technology has created, but a lot of positive things as well.”

It’s “an evolved, modern globally scaled studio. It has all of the components that modern studio should have, from development through production, distribution, agile distribution through to a platform, as well as foreign sales through Match Factory. It has the entire ecosystem of a film from conception through distribution 10 years down the road. That’s meant to aggregate the demand globally for all independent film and be able to have multiple ways of saying yes to being involved in a project we’re interested in.”

Key Current Projects: Celine Song’s Materialists

“We just wrapped Celine Song’s new film, Materialists. She made the Oscar nominee Past Lives, and getting to work with her for the second time and seeing how she grew as filmmaker was great. I’m looking forward to post-production on that film and getting it out into the world.”

Todd Haynes

Vachon is about to shoot Todd Haynes new movie with Joaquin Phoenix: : “Todd is a filmmaker who never makes the same film twice. Each one is an adventure. This one will be as well. I don’t think much further ahead than that.”

State of indie cinema

“I’m really anti-nostalgia. I am certain there’s group of young filmmakers, storytellers, whatever word we want to use who are doing incredibly exciting things. My generation didn’t invent it, and we don’t own it. I know those stories are out there, and they’re not always making their way to me, because I’m not 25, but I know they’re out there.  I’m excited that they are.”