On the Power of Collective Work
By Eboni Zamani, SIFTMedia 215 Collective
I have been making films since I was a teenager and in all these years distribution remains the most elusive part of the process. What is it exactly? How do you get a film distributed? Who should you reach out to for help? How do I maintain the rights to my work during the process? These are questions that I and many other independent filmmakers I know in the Philadelphia region have discussed again and again. These are questions and discussions that I am now having as a member of SIFT Media 215 and that we are having with fellow members of the Color Congress.
Color Congress is a coalition of POC documentary organizations that consists of filmmaker collectives, film festivals, youth creative educational organizations and more. It continues to be an evolving and accessible space for POC film and media nationwide. Last year the member organizations of Color Congress were broken up into committees to work through and push forward ideas for the most pressing issues facing member organizations. The committees ranged from a retreat space to distribution. We met and worked for months on these issues and the viability of the ideas to resolve them. These ideas all had the potential to be resourced over the next couple of years via the Color Congress Field Building Fund. In January, we voted on which one of the Field Building Fund ideas would be our coalition’s focus for the next two years. And in one of the most democratic processes I’ve ever been a part of, our distribution/marketing experiment was chosen. I was elated and so were my fellow SIFTers.
Since SIFT (Sisters in Film & Television) began in 2019, distribution has been one of our collective’s most pressing challenges. In our region, media arts wasn’t well funded for a very long time. In many ways, distribution in particular is not well supported. The typical grant that indie filmmakers had access to ranged from $1000 to $4000. It was not until the founders of SIFT — including Tatiana Bacchus, Yolanda Johnson-Young and Nadine Patterson — started to actively talk to funders and regional film office advocates for funding — that the support started to increase. Independence Public Media Foundation (IPMF) was the first local foundation to fund filmmakers in the $10K to $75K range.
I spent time during my tenure as a member of Councilmember Isaiah Thomas’ Arts and Culture Taskforce trying to make sense of why media arts was underfunded and/or unsupported in our region. I discovered that this was due in part to the belief that indie filmmaking could be commercially supported (and therefore did not need funding) in a way that painting or dance or sculpting could not be. I was surprised to learn this but happy to inform many influencers via our conversations that if any major Hollywood studio was just handing out production and distribution deals to indie filmmakers, Philly might be one of the last places they’d do so. Our city is synonymous with blue collar work, sports and certain foods, not necessarily art. We’ve also never been considered an (film) industry town and therefore are passed over by companies for NY. I, along with other Taskforce members then focused our attention on getting funders, influencers and advocates to see filmmakers and other artists as small creative businesses and/or individuals in need of support to sustain their careers locally.
Nadine and I spent time during several SIFT Media 215 meetings discussing the Field Building Fund and our work on the Distribution committee. We also gave a fair overview of all the issues raised and why they were important. SIFT Media 215 is a collective of independent media artists in the Philadelphia metropolitan area coming together to champion socially conscious women-identified filmmakers, particularly from Black and Latinx communities. Our mission is clear: to amplify the voices and creations of these talented individuals while creating opportunities for their growth and recognition. The current paths to distribution for indie filmmakers in our region are murky at best. These are often costly deals that don’t allow artists to retain the rights to their work. These paths also often require making connections and pricey moves to other cities for “better opportunities.”
Members of our organization opted to move forward with distribution (although the retreat space was also favorable among our members). The work that we do at SIFT to support each other as members as well as bring our work and workshops to other artists and to our audiences in the Philadelphia region needs and deserves the kind of boost that a solid, alternative distribution model will bring. An alternative model that is attentive to the needs and contributions of organizations operating outside of mainstream media hubs would also allow SIFTers and other filmmakers to remain in our region, sustain their work and reach and build audiences nationally without giving up so much.
Currently, the alternative distribution model Color Congress will be working on testing out via the Field Building Fund is a grassroots initiative that will center 12–14 films from our overall collective. We may have the opportunity to test run partnerships, in-person gatherings, virtual viewing options and more. The hope is to expand this distribution model into an equitable ecosystem that sustains and builds up member organizations and the documentary field as it grows.
As a Black woman creative, I am particularly excited about the possibilities that a large, alternative distribution model that is POC-led, created, operated and resourced will create for the future of documentary filmmaking and independent filmmaking as a whole. We are in need of people of all backgrounds and walks of life working from their cultural centers and identities moving their stories and creative work out to the masses as the ongoing inhumanity in Palestine, Haiti, Sudan and the Congo is proving. To understand and resolve crises we must hear and learn and see from those who are experiencing them.
I believe that our collective work at Color Congress on this distribution model will be monumental. POC from all backgrounds coming together to build, question, experiment, debate, create and recreate collaboratively, what we all need and desire is the light I need in these tumultuous times. Our alternative distribution model will move us forward in ways we have yet to imagine. For this work and this coalition, I am grateful.
Eboni Zamani is a collective member from Philadelphia-based, Color Congress member organization SIFTMedia 215 Collective.
