Long live Indie Cinema!

Express Tribune

01-03-2025

"Indie film is struggling right now, more than ever," said Sean Baker during his speech after he won the best director for Anora at the Film Independent Spirit Awards 2025 on February 23.
Known for indie gems such as The Florida Project and Red Rocket, Baker spoke at length about the lack of artistic freedom in cinema and making independent films because of their worth and not to use them as a calling card to land studio projects. He touched upon casting issues, unreliable back-end revenue, and the difficulties in financial survival while working on one film for years on end.
Watching the American filmmaker reminded me of my conversation with Madari filmmaker Seraj us Salikin, whom I interviewed for a book published by Busan Asian Film School in 2023. "Independent filmmaking in Pakistan is like going on a never-ending war," he had told me.
Gearing up to release my directorial debut, Indus Echoes, a Sindhi language feature, later this year, I believe my war has just begun. From film financing to production and distribution, an indie filmmaker is supposed to cross all hoops and hurdles for years just to see his film play in cinemas. This is not a complaint; no one ever said filmmaking was easy. This is about the broken system in which an independent filmmaker is supposed to survive and keep making films.
Death of DVD
"Gone are the days of DVD sales that allow for greater risk to be taken on challenging films. That revenue stream is gone, and the only way to see a significant back-end is to have a box office hit with profits that far exceed what any of our films will ever see," continued Baker at the award show. "If you are a writer-director trying to break in right now, there's a good chance you're making a film for free or making next to nothing on production or sale. How do you support yourself with middle or no income for three years?"
Baker brings up multiple points here. With little support, indie filmmakers keep on keeping on. I, for one, write and teach and exploit all my skill sets. If I weren't able to leverage my parallel careers, it would've been almost impossible to finish making Indus Echoes. Ask Salikin and he'd tell you the same about Madari, and so will many other indie filmmakers.
Until recently, films which didn't have a banger opening weekend at the box office could still recover money and even make profits due to DVD sales. It took the pressure off, and that meant filmmakers could experiment and innovate, which benefited the entire industry in the long run. With streaming and a limited (if any) theatrical run, all the profits must be made right now. If not, a film is considered unsuccessful.
However, low and mid-budget indie films are equally important for a successful industry. If an industry only produces big budget spectacles, it's bound to crash and burn. Even in Pakistan, we tend to only focus on big-budget, star-driven romcoms or action comedies, and stubbornly refuse to offer anything new. And the result for the past decade has been a slow loss of audiences' trust in local filmmakers, which often results in even films with better storytelling, characters and production suffering at the box office.
Similar to what Baker remarked, landing a big studio project isn't the sole reason we make independent films. "Some of us want to make personal films that are intended for theatrical release with subject matter that would never be greenlit by the big studios," he said. "We want complete artistic freedom and the freedom to cast who is right for the role, not who's [been] forced to be cast, considering box office value or how many followers they have on social media."
In Pakistan, if a film isn't supported or distributed by a major TV network and doesn't include the top stars in the lead cast, it becomes even more difficult to finish and release. Recently, an interviewer asked me why I didn't cast well-known stars in Indus Echoes and opted for theatre actors like Vajdaan Shah, Ansaar Mahar and Samina Seher. My response was along the same lines. It has to do with the actors' abilities, and whether they fit the roles, and not how big their social media following is.
A need, not luxury
A successful film industry has room for all kinds of films, be it commercial blockbusters, mid-range dramas, and even arthouse and experimental cinema. To disregard indie cinema is a deadly sin that disrupts the entire ecosystem of the industry.
Independent cinema is not a luxury for filmmakers indulging in their own obsessions, it's essential to the growth and evolution of culture, for us to tell stories important to us and the people. Countless all-time great films, and entire film movements started off with independent films. The filmography of Jim Jarmusch, Charlie Kaufman, Noah Baumbach and many more would be quite different if they had chosen the popular path. And it's not far-fetched to say that a new kind of Pakistani cinema, a new film movement is taking its root in local indie films, despite or perhaps because of the quagmire of the mainstream industry. New, unique filmmakers like Seraj us Salikin, Ali Sohail Jaura, Kainat Thebo, yours truly and dozens more are gathering to build an indie film scene and showing up and showing out; it's up to the system now to expand and adjust accordingly to become sustainable.
"The system has to change, because this is simply unsustainable," Baker concluded. "We are creating a product that creates jobs and revenue for the entire industry. We shouldn't be barely getting by. Creatives that are involved with projects that span years have to begin getting much higher upfront fees, because back-end simply can't be relied upon any longer. We have to demand that. If not, indie films will simply become calling card films. I know that's not what I signed up for. So, let's demand what we're worth."
Long live indie cinema!