■ Film Festivals

Before engaging a distributor, there is usually a period of self-distribution where you start to market your film yourself. The first area you will likely tackle is film festivals. Festivals are an important place to generate press, build “buzz,” and even find a distributor. There are literally thousands of festivals globally, and the number is growing all the time. Just visit a website like withoutabox.com or filmfreeway.com and you’ll get a sense of how overwhelming (not to mention expensive) it can be to submit your film to festivals. It is important to create a festival strategy before submitting blindly to hundreds of festivals you may know nothing about.

If you plan to submit to the most prestigious festivals, do it before submitting to smaller or more regional festivals. Examples of high-end festivals for documentary in North America are Sundance, South by Southwest (SXSW), the Tribeca Film Festival, and the Toronto International Film Festival. There are also documentary-specific festivals that have very good reputations, including Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, DOC NYC, and Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. This is by no means an exhaustive or even moderately inclusive list. The point here is that these festivals will not take your film unless it is a North American premiere, so if your strategy calls for a premiere at one of these festivals, don’t show it anywhere else first! The same is true for international festivals. Some, like the Berlin Film Festival, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), or the Rotterdam International Film Festival (The Netherlands), will likely require a world premiere. Others may be comfortable with a European premiere. In the United Kingdom, the most respected documentary-specific festival is Sheffield Doc/Fest, which generally requires at least a UK premiere.

Most films, however, are not going to premiere at one of these A-list festivals. There are many smaller festivals that are excellent at drawing audiences, and getting press to write about the films they program. Talk to other filmmakers to find out what festivals they think are worth submitting to. Research where other films similar to yours have played.

Many festivals are organized around themes. For example, there are many documentary film festivals you should consider. There are human rights festivals, Jewish film festivals, women’s film festivals, LGBT film festivals, environmental film festivals, festivals for films by and about specific ethnic identity groups, and many more. Research festivals whose mission fits your film, and submit!

in practice

■ Maximizing Festival Impact

Iva Radivojevic was a graduate student in the Integrated Media Arts (IMA) MFA program at Hunter College when she completed her documentary Evaporating Borders (2014) (Figure 23.1). The film, a meditation on the experience of asylum seekers in Cyprus, had a festival run worthy of any top documentary filmmaker. It premiered at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, had its US premiere at South by Southwest (SXSW), and showed at more than 45 other festivals including Hot Docs and the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York. Here is how Iva explains her success¹:

Independent Film Week [organized every year by the Independent Film Project (IFP)] was huge. I applied with a work-in-progress and got in, and they arranged meetings with distributors, producers, funders, and festival programmers. That’s where I made my first contact with programmers from Berlin, Rotterdam, Sundance and so on. And from there you create a relationship. They give you a fee waiver, they know about your film, they are expecting it when you submit it. And some festivals even have specific sections that your film might fit into. Rotterdam, for example, had a special section that year they called “The State of Europe.” So Evaporating Borders was perfect for that.

Once I was accepted at Rotterdam, I had to worry about the US premiere. Because the film had such European subject matter, I was terrified nobody would want to show it here. I submitted to SXSW on a whim, the night before the deadline. Then when I got into Rotterdam I called SXSW and asked them “I just got into Rotterdam, do you guys need a world premiere?” I guess that put it on their radar, and they accepted me. From there, because I had two festivals with a lot of credibility, people started contacting me instead of me reaching out to them.

Are festivals important to distribution? For Iva, the answer is an unequivocal “Yes!”

Festivals were critical for the visibility of Evaporating Borders. I didn’t have money for a publicist, but SXSW sends you a list of press people who are going to be at the festival, including all the industry press. So I wrote them all, really emphasizing that I had been in Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 filmmakers to watch,” that (filmmaker) Laura Poitras was the Executive Producer, anything I could say to get their attention. I would wait for them to respond, and then I would send them a link to preview the film. A few of them did respond, and that’s how I got into a few “Top Five” lists for the festival. Hollywood Reporter wrote about it, Film Threat, Hammer to Nail—all of them wrote about it just because of the festival circuit. The Washington Post wrote about it based on festivals, and also it got into the educational sphere too, because educators would come to see it at a festival, and they would contact me about screening it, and maybe coming to speak.

■ Figure 23.1 Evaporating Borders, which focuses on the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, owes much of its success to its director’s determined efforts to get the film shown and talked about.

Iva’s advice for students and emerging filmmakers?

If at all possible, attach somebody with credibility to the film. I met Laura Poitras at a workshop in the Hunter College MFA program in Integrated Media Arts, and she consulted on my first short film. When I was making Evaporating Borders, I asked her to be a consultant again, and she offered to be the Executive Producer. That gave me a lot of credibility, and she also connected with me Jason Springarn-Koff, the editor of the New York Times’ OpDocs. If you have a social issue film, that is a great way to get the word out about it. I knew Jay Rabinowitz, who is Jim Jarmusch’s editor, because I used to have a job scheduling workshops for editors. I got to know him, and asked if he would be a Consulting Editor on Evaporating Borders. He said yes. These people are accessible. Even if you don’t meet them directly, they are accessible in some way. I’m a big fan of workshops—any kind of workshop. I take them in editing or directing, even acting. And whenever I do these workshops, I make sure to connect with people and stay in touch (I use Facebook a lot for this). Not because I’m trying to get something out of them, but because I’m really interested in these relationships and connections, and I think we can make great things together. My point is that you stay in touch with all these people, and they become your supporters, and your community. But you have to love to do it. I really feel at this point like I have an incredible, supportive community of beautiful people around me.

This idea of support is critical. People who ask me to consult on their films, or edit their films, even if I don’t have time, I will take some time to at least look at it, don’t take any money at all, just to keep that relationship going, or to have somebody feel supported. And it’s come back to me so many times. Somebody recommends me for a job, or nominates me for an award, or suggests me for a festival. I really feel that things come back around in a circle, and so the more you give and support, the more that support comes back to you.

As a filmmaker you not only create your audience. You also actively cultivate a community of other film makers and people who care about the issues in your film. Even if you are not in a major metropolitan area, you can find people and organizations who will connect you with audiences and help catalyze a conversation around your film and the issues it raises. And while the Internet hasn’t made us a global village quite yet, it can be useful in connecting people of like minds and interests throughout the world.

If you are a student, take advantage of the “student” categories in the major festivals. The competition will be lighter, often the entry fees are less expensive, and you might end up getting up into a great festival! Also, be aware of what each festival can do for you. Some are good for getting industry press, while others are known for attracting distributors. Still others will help connect you with the grassroots educators, activists, and others who may give your film a long life in community and educational settings. All of these objectives, or only some, may be important to you. Design your festival strategy with your own priorities for your documentary in mind.

Finally, while most smaller festivals won’t have resources to bring in and house filmmakers, many will pay a screening fee if asked. Don’t be shy.

■ Theatrical

Theatrical distribution can be tough for documentaries, though over the past two decades, beginning with Michael Moore’s Roger and Me (1989), they have had a consistent but small presence in the theatrical world. In general, you need a distributor to undertake a theatrical campaign.

The value of a theatrical release goes beyond prestige and getting films to local audiences. A review in The New York Times, for example, is almost impossible to secure unless you have a national television broadcast or a theatrical release.

Because of the value of reviews in major newspapers, some filmmakers pay for their own theatrical releases by renting a theater to promote the film themselves. This is known as four-walling and can cost upwards of $10,000 for a week in New York or Los Angeles. A theatrical run also makes a film eligible for the Academy Awards^®, and many documentarians do it for that reason as well.

■ Case Study: Diy Semi-Theatrical Distribution through tugg.com

In the semi-theatrical market, Tugg.com and Gathr.us are examples of the ways the Internet and crowdsourcing are converging to meet the needs of both filmmakers and audiences (Figure 23.2).

With Tugg, the first step is to submit your film. If it is accepted, you reach out to individuals and organizations in various communities and ask them to push for a screening in their area. Tugg has an exhibitor network that covers many screens in the United States, including nationwide chains such as AMC, Cinemark, and Carmike as well as hundreds of regional and independent cinemas around the country. They handle the operations, logistics, and customer service. You receive 35 percent of ticket sales, and your primary community supporter receives 5 percent for getting it going and turning people out.

Gregorio Smith’s Truth Be Told (2012) is a documentary about growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness. Smith four-walled the film four times in three cities (New York, Denver, and Boston) but felt the process was inefficient. “The screenings were well-received and well-attended,” he says, “but scouting theaters, inspecting facilities, determining deliverable requirements, delivering content, performing picture tests/ soundchecks, securing contracts, setting-up ticketing, waiting for reports/payments . . . doing this for each location became an interminable and uncertain process.”² Within the first four months of joining Tugg, Truth be Told had 10 well-attended screenings in 10 different cities. According to Tugg’s website, the film grossed $12,645 at 13 events, and drew 1,077 people.

While this is still a very new strategy, and not all filmmakers are making a healthy return on these sites, the convergence of crowdsourcing and non-theatrical distribution seems like it will be around for a while.

■ Figure 23.2 Tugg.com is one example of a site that allows filmmakers to crowdsource audiences for theatrical screenings.

■ Semi-Theatrical

A semi-theatrical release refers to single screenings in a theater, museum, school, community center, religious institution, or even a community garden or bar (see My Brooklyn case study on p. 385).

Special “one-off” screenings have always been popular for documentaries, largely because these films often take up issues that people in institutions or at the community level want to learn about and discuss. They can also be an important revenue stream for filmmakers, depending on the size and budget of the organization sponsoring your screening. You should be up front and feel free to negotiate screening fees and honoraria for yourself (or any other speakers) if you are appearing with the film. Most filmmakers balance the desire to have their film seen with the need to recoup expenses or generate income. Many of us allow our films to be screened for free when a sponsoring organization is underfunded. Sometimes a group can “pass the hat” and collect contributions for the filmmaker. A museum or university may be able to pay $500 to $1,000. Screenings can also be a good place to sell home DVD copies and spread the word about the film in general.

At special events, be sure to pass around an e-mail sign-up list so you can develop a database of contacts. Many filmmakers send out newsletters about future events, updates to the stories in the film, awards won, future projects, and so on. Also, encourage people to connect with your project’s social media pages (Facebook is popular, but there are other ways films maintain a presence on the Internet).

■ Broadcast and Cable

Broadcast and cable TV are lucrative possibilities for documentary, but they can be difficult to secure. We recommend that you work with a sales agent who knows American and European programmers, as well as those in other parts of the world, and understands what kind of documentaries each is looking for. A sales agent differs from a distributor in that they represent the filmmakers’ interest, often when selling to distributors. The sales agent will negotiate the contract and conditions of the sale of the film. A sales agent generally takes about 25 percent of the acquisition fee, which can range from a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars.

In the United States, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) has served as an exhibition platform for many documentaries. On the national level there are two major independent documentary PBS strands: POV and Independent Lens. In addition, there are programs like American Masters, Frontline, and The American Experience that work with producers on shows for broadcast on their series. Individual PBS stations also program documentary content. In Europe, major buyers of documentary include the BBC and Channel 4 in Britain, Arte and Canal+ in France, and ZDF and Canal+ in Germany.

Broadcast also includes Cable TV. Channels like National Geographic, the History Channel, A&E, HBO, Al Jazeera, and others acquire documentaries. The competition for all broadcast is stiff, however, so proceed with reasonable expectations.

■ Educational

The educational market—colleges, universities, K-12 schools, and public libraries—has since the 1970s been a major source of revenue for many documentary filmmakers. Because educational institutions pay more for films than individuals in the home video market, it is not unusual for a documentary to gross upwards of $20,000 or $30,000 over a lifetime. There are many distributors that address niche educational markets, including Women Make Movies, Third World Newsreel, California Newsreel (African-American subject matter), Bullfrog Films (environmental subjects), and others. Some educational distributors have a broad selection that touches on many subject areas, like Icarus or Cinema Guild. These distributors take a commission of anywhere from 50 to 75 percent of net or gross income for creating a catalogue, maintaining a website, creating promotional materials, marketing your film, and fulfilling orders.

With the Internet, self-distribution has become more popular with documentary filmmakers. Some filmmakers purchase mailing lists of pertinent educational departments and programs, librarians, and professors. They also harness the power of social media and the Internet to sell directly to the educational market. An alternative that bridges the two models is New Day Films, a collective of more than 100 filmmakers who market their films individually but participate in collective curation and volunteer to perform most of the duties related to being a distributor—from finance to collection-wide promotion to website development.

■ Home Video (DVD)

DVD and Blu-ray are still viable ways of selling your films, especially in the home video market. The traditional video rental store may be a thing of the past, but people still buy DVDs on the Internet and at retailers. To make a healthy profit in this market, you will likely require the upfront expenditures and relationships that a home video distributor can offer.

■ Streaming/Video on Demand

Internet streaming and video on demand (VOD) are areas that are changing fast. Every day new platforms emerge and others disappear. Some get revenue through advertising, like Snagfilms or YouTube, others through viewer subscriptions (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime). Still others charge per transaction, like iTunes or Vimeo on Demand. This area is undoubtedly the future of film distribution and promises huge audiences, but it will also require crafty marketing and promotion to direct viewers to your specific film.

Historically, filmmakers have had to find a distributor to get their films onto VOD Platforms. The range of DIY options is expanding, however, and currently include such sites as Vimeo on Demand, CreateSpace (for Amazon only), VHX, and Distrify. Services like Quiver and Distribber can help you get on to the major VOD platforms like iTunes, Hulu and Netflix.

■ Impact: Engagement Campaigns

Since its inception, documentary has been concerned with questions of audience engagement and social change. While not all documentaries make an explicit case for a particular kind of change, the genre’s relationship to the real world makes it necessarily bound up with intentions of changing people’s thinking about a pressing social issue or problem. Recent documentaries have fueled public debate and action on global and local issues, from the wars in the Middle East to global democracy movements, from droughts to healthy eating, from government surveillance to school bullying.

Over the past decade, there has been an explosion of interest in the kinds of social impact documentaries can have. This is partly spurred by funders, who want evidence that their investments in documentary are paying off in terms of measurable social change. The emergence of the BritDoc Impact Award, which gives five filmmakers $15,000 for their outreach campaigns, is evidence of this increased interest. In 2014, Hot Docs, a major annual documentary festival, market, and conference based in Toronto, released the report Documentary Impact: Social Change through Storytelling. In the introduction, they ask the question:

These are compelling ideas, but how do we translate these audience reactions into concrete change? And how do we measure that change? Is a change of attitudes or way of thinking the goal? Is change reflected in participation in political action, like a letter-writing campaign or appearance at a demonstration? Or is specific policy change the goal? All of these are related, of course, and different filmmakers will answer these questions differently. The Fledgling Fund’s 2009 report Assessing Creative Media’s Social Impact⁴ presents a diagram that maps out a possible relationship between compelling storytelling and social change (Figure 23.3).

There are at least two organizations that specialize in crafting engagement plans for films. Working Films, based in North Carolina, builds partnerships among non-fiction media makers, nonprofit organizations, educators, and advocates to advance social justice and environmental sustainability, and support community-based change. The staff trains and consults with filmmakers and works with NGOs (non-governmental organizations) to use documentaries to enhance their programs, extend their reach, and move their missions forward.

■ Figure 23.3 The Fledgling Fund has created this diagram to illustrate their understanding of the “dimensions of impact” creative media can have. The model shows that there are many steps between a compelling story and social change.

in practice

■ Diy Audience Engagement

My Brooklyn (2012), coauthor Kelly Anderson and Allison Lirish Dean’s documentary about the redevelopment of Downtown Brooklyn, shows how an engagement campaign can be done on a shoestring budget. The film reframes the gentrification debate to expose the policies and players behind seemingly natural neighborhood change. Anderson says,

Audiences flocked to the film when it had a three-week theatrical run (organized by the Independent Filmmaker Project, or IFP) at a small theater in Brooklyn. After the film’s premiere, many people and organizations reached out to us to ask if we could screen it for their constituents, so we knew there was a public out there that was hungry for the information in the film. This was 2012, and New York City was about to hold a historic mayoral election that would determine whether the city would continue with the real estate development policies of the previous 8 years, or embark on a new path with a more progressive mayor, Bill de Blasio. It was a political moment that provided an opportunity for the film to reach many people, and contribute valuable education about how cities change and why, but we weren’t sure how to best translate the interest in the film into social change.

The first step we undertook was to pull together some of the organizations we had come to know through the making of the film. There were activist organizations, not-for-profit affordable housing developers, and community planning experts. We held several meetings, during which we came up with the idea of My Brooklyn, Our City. The campaign essentially offered the film free of charge to any individual or organization who could commit to getting six people or more together to watch it, and to have a discussion using a resource guide we created to help guide them towards whatever action they felt would be most useful in their neighborhood context. We publicized the campaign through a list of local blogs we had compiled, through Facebook, and through an email list we had generated by asking people to sign in at the screenings we had held to date.

The campaign was a huge success. During the summer of 2013 more than 50 screenings were held, without us organizing a single one of them. They ranged from a small showing in someone’s apartment, to a 200-person screening in a café in Bedford-Stuyvesant, to screenings in parks and community gardens (Figure 23.4). Our expenses, beyond our time, were the cost of a few DVDs and some postage.

Focusing on impact doesn’t necessarily mean you are sacrificing monetary gains. While My Brooklyn, Our City had the immediate political and social impact the filmmakers were seeking, the engagement campaign also raised the film’s visibility and undoubtedly led to future sales in the educational and VOD realm.

■ Figure 23.4 My Brooklyn’s DIY engagement campaign. Screenings were organized by community members all over New York City, including Mark’s Burgers (Clinton Hill, Brooklyn) and Freddy’s Bar (Prospect Heights, Brooklyn).

Active Voice is another organization that develops strategies for audience engagement. The organization recently launched a new website to help filmmakers, funders, and social change agents measure the impact of their strategies. The site, howdoweknow.net, presents a set of horticultural metaphors to help categorize the various ways films contribute to change. The categories include⁵:

• Rakes, which scratch the surface of an issue to engage people with different perspectives around common values
• Trowels, which dig in deeply and deliberately to plant a seed of advocacy
• Wheelbarrows, which transport audiences through a strong narrative structure, but refrain from offering simple solutions
• Trellises, which help movements grow by telling a story that affirms, directs, and heightens the visibility of existing efforts
• Shovels, usually investigative in nature, dig for the truth and expose alarming information

Which type of impact can your documentary have? Not all films have to act in all of the ways outlined above. If you are doing an investigative exposé, you might not have to also include all the solutions to the problem you are unearthing. Audiences can find their own way to appropriate actions by going to your website, perhaps, or connecting with an organization working on the same issue.

There are also individual consultants that filmmakers work with to craft engagement campaigns for their films. These campaigns cost money, as they require research and staff to implement. Even if you don’t have a budget for engagement, however, you can still extend the impact of your film with some smart thinking and the involvement of community partners.

in practice

■ Skylight —Three Decades of Documentary Impact

Skylight is a New York-based company committed to producing artistic, challenging, and socially relevant media to strengthen human rights and the quest for justice. Their films include When the Mountains Tremble (1983), about the genocide of the Guatemalan Maya during the 1980s, Granito: How to Nail a Dictator (2011), which shows how When the Mountains Tremble was used as evidence in a Spanish trial to convict General Efraím Ríos Montt, and Dictator in the Dock (2013), about the 2012 Ríos Montt genocide trial in Guatemala. This last film is unique because it was released as short webisodes during the trial before being released as a full film. Skylight is known for the impact its films have had, and for its use of innovative technologies and strategies to get its films out to a broad range of audiences, from indigenous people in Guatemala to politicians and educators worldwide.

■ Figure 23.5 The process of recording indigenous language versions of Granito: How to Nail a Dictator (2011). Photo by Pamela Yates / http://skylight.is.

We spoke with Paco de Onís about how he and his partners Pamela Yates and Peter Kinoy think about impact, and about the models they are using.

Documentary Voice and Vision (DVV): How do you think about audience?

Paco de Onís (PdO): There are different audiences. For example, there’s the indigenous Guatemalan audience, and then there’s the whole Guatemalan audience, and then there’s beyond that. One thing we do is make indigenous language versions of many of our films. In Guatemala, there are 22 languages. The biggest group are the Quiché, so we made a Quiché version. The group that was the most affected by the violence of the state were the Maya Ixil, so we made a version for them too. That process of making the indigenous language version actually became a big outreach initiative, because first we had to work with somebody who is from that region and has the language, then we had to cast the voices (because it’s not subtitled), and we went through a process of recording the voice-over translations (Figure 23.5). We discovered that the process of recording can become very emotional, because the people who are doing the recording actually lived through the events in the film. They become very invested in having people see it when it’s done. The community radio stations also announced that anybody who came with a blank DVD could get a free copy of the film. That way we distributed a lot of copies of the film. Distribute is not really the right word—it’s more disseminating, making it available.

■ Figure 23.6 Skylight gives masters to bootleggers in Guatemala to reproduce and sell their films on DVD in marketplaces throughout the country in order to increase dissemination. The bootleggers create their own unique artwork for the DVDs. Photos by Pamela Yates / http://skylight.is

DVV: That goes against the idea many filmmakers have that you should never give your film away for free.

PdO: We give our films away for free all the time. We would never sell the film in Guatemala, because it’s their story, and it would feel wrong. In fact, we even identified the biggest bootlegger, he goes by the nickname “El Buki,” and he really gets the film out there. In the Guatemalan markets, they have what look like curtains of DVDs in soft plastic cases—they clip them together. And they each have an image—the bootleggers actually create their own artwork for the DVDs. And it’s culturally appropriate, it’s artwork that speaks to their customers (Figure 23.6).

And then we sell to educators through New Day Films, we sell DVDs from our website, and we use Vimeo on Demand. And that’s very steady.

DVV: What is the social impact of screening the film in Guatemala?

PdO: On a very basic level, it’s the recovery of their historical memory. This history is not taught in the Guatemalan school system. Also, what the screen does is it puts the Maya activist on the same platform as a dictator or powerful people. That has a very strong effect because they become powerful too. We often do public screenings in the plazas, and you can just see it on people’s faces. It’s very powerful (Figure 23.7).

■ Figure 23.7 A screening of Granito: How to Nail a Dictator in Nebaj, Guatemala. Photo by James Rodríguez / mimundo.org / http://skylight.is.

The younger generation over the last few years has really become more and more empowered, and they tell us all the time that these films are very important for meetings they have, workshops, getting other people to understand what’s happened, why the problems of today are related to the problems of before. It opens up a safe space to talk about what happened in the past.

DVV: What about the companion website?

PdO: That’s called Granito: Every Memory Matters (www.granitomem.com). It is a space to share memories about the armed conflict in Guatemala, so that through our collective memory we can open a dialogue about the past. We built it, and we really tried to work it within the Guatemalan diaspora here in the US. It’s a website, but people can access it from a smartphone. We thought of using some apps that are out there for phones that are just text-based. It was a big learning experience, and this is a lesson for every site: you should really have the users involved in the design. Not all the users, but people who represent that sector. After about three years, we’re now migrating that site to a Guatemalan organization that was formed over the last couple of years to seek reconciliation among the parties: the Right, the Left, businessmen, politicians, the victims. It was always our goal to have somebody else take the site over—we don’t want to run these sites forever because we don’t think that’s our role, and we don’t really have the capacity to do it.

DVV: How did you come up with the idea of releasing Dictator in the Dock as webisodes?

PdO: We did that as a reaction to what was happening in the courtroom. The trial began 4 or 5 months before it was supposed to begin. The judge got a death threat, and she said “I’m just going to start the trial now.” So we all had to scramble to get down there. And nobody knew if the trial was going to proceed because the defense lawyers for General Ríos Montt had succeeded for 15 years in stopping every attempt at a trial. But this one kept going, and it became very dramatic. Also, the mainstream media, controlled by the elite, was really making it look like the trial was a farce, there were hugely misogynistic comments about the judge, and the Attorney General, and (Mayan activist) Rigoberta Menchu, who was also in the courtroom a lot of the time. We decided to start putting up short episodes to kind of open up the doors of the courtroom to the world. We felt a responsibility to show a straighter version of what was happening. It got embedded all over the place, on alternative news sites, and episodes were embedded on many blogs.

DVV: And then you made a film by putting the episodes together?

PdO: Once we finished, we had 24 episodes in English and in Spanish. For the English version, we put 7 up for free viewing and the rest behind a paywall. And then we created a whole resource page around it, and it has sold well. We give away the Spanish version. Even in the US, you don’t have to pay for that.

■ Conclusion

Whether you are distributing for financial return, for impact, or both, you are in a world where more and more documentaries are being made every day. In a changing distribution landscape that is being transformed by technological developments faster than anyone can keep pace with, you can’t rely on any one avenue of distribution for all your success. You might find success in a place you never imagined. All markets have their value, and their importance. Stay nimble, keep on top of new developments, talk with other filmmakers, and keep in touch with the people who care about your issue. All of these, together, will ensure your film has a long life. After all, that’s why you made it.