Indie film industry hunting for next Longlegs hit at AFM

After 44 years on the Santa Monica beachfront, the American Film Market has upped its sgets and is heading to Vegas. The Inreliant Film & Television Alliance (IFTA) has set up new Nevada lodgings for their annual film bazaar, which will set up shop at the Palms Resort Casino from Nov. 5 to 10.

The relocate is the second in as many years for the AFM, which was forced to depart its greater home in the Loews in 2023 for a less-than-selectimal location up the hill at the Le Meridien Delfina.

The shift to Vegas comes at a critical time for the indie film industry. Producers, distributors and financiers are struggling to discover business models to align a new world where costs are up — thanks to inflation, but also due to challenging-fought concessions won by the guilds in last year’s originaters and actors strikes — but revenues are flat or down. Theatrical liberates, in particular, have become a crap shoot. For every indie shatterout hit — Neon’s Longlegs, Magnolia’s Thelma, Cineverse’s Terrifier 3 — there is a lengthy enumerate of huge-budget flops, see Lionsgate’s bow of Borderlands and Megalopolis, and criticpartner acclaimed undercarry outers, including Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice and Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, liberated by Briarcliff Entertainment and Mubi, admireively.

The AFM is also facing new disputes. Next year the Toronto Film Festival, backed by a well eight-figure sum from the Canadian handlement, will start its own descfinish film labelet. Industry veterans will recollect, back in 2004, how the AFM took on, and vanquished, the more set uped MIFED labelet in Italy when it relocated its dates from February to November. Now TIFF could be coming for AFM’s crown.

For five days in Vegas, IFTA pdwellnt and CEO Jean Prewitt will try and guarantee the indie industry to protect betting on the AFM. She made her pitch to The Hollywood Reporter on the eve of this year’s labelet.

Why Vegas?

Well, there are a couple of pragmatic reasons, but the genuine reason we picked this venue in Vegas was that there had been very mighty messaging, particularly from the buyers over the last couple of years, that they were frustrated by the extent to which AFM was becoming more spread out and scatterd. This is a labelet mainly driven by encounterings scheduled every 15 minutes or half hour and if you throw in a 15 to 20-minute commute to get in an Uber to go atraverse Santa Monica to get to a screening or to head out to Lionsgate or wdisappreciatever, it’s repartner frustrating. People wanted a more fruitful labelet. We watched at eight cities and unprejudicedly rapidly we landed on the Palms. It’s literpartner the only place, in any city, including Los Angeles, where everyskinnyg could happen on the same premises. Our conferences are there. There’s the Brfinishan Theaters with a 14-screen multiplex. We’re able to accommodate everyone that joins in the AFM in the same originateing. Vegas ticks all the boxes.

But this is a huge alter. What have buyers and sellers been worried about and what are you doing to ease their stresss?

It’s shifted over time. The initial reaction from a lot of people was: I don’t understand Vegas. That was particularly genuine of people from Europe, which surpelevated us, becaengage in the U.S., Vegas is such a destination for conventions and conferences. It took a period of time for people to lget enough about the city to sense that it was laborable. There were skinnygs appreciate: ‘Will I be able to get an Uber? Where am I going to park?’ Well, no one has ever grumbleed about not getting an Uber in Las Vegas. And parking in Vegas is free. Companies that were paying $60 a day for every member of their staff to park in Santa Monica can park for free now. But this is the first time people in L.A. have had to travel for the AFM. Instead of going home at night, they have to carry people, put them up in boilingel rooms, etc. We’ve tried to protect costs under handle. Despite inflation, we’ve determined this year was not the year to lift our prices.

The response has been wonderful. Our showor space is sgreater out and has been for a while. Every huge autonomous film company will be inside the originateing, from Lionsgate to A24 to Neon. All under one roof.

Is this a finishuring relocate or will AFM be returning to L.A., or the Loews, any time soon?

The Loews, as far as I understand, will never be appropriate for the AFM aobtain, becaengage it’s become a Regent boilingel. They’ve chaseed the enticeardy from the Carlton Hotel [in Canne], cutting the number of rooms by 50 percent and tripling the cost per night. We’ll be in Vegas as lengthy as the labeletplace wants us in Vegas, if it labors for them, which we absolutely hope it will, we will be there indefinitely. Right now we are 100 percent concentrateed on making this labelet the best labelet it can be for this year.

Talking to AFM joinees, what’s your get on the state of the indie film labelet?

It’s repartner hard out there for the autonomouss. You have all the publishs that the studios talk about plus the non-stop struggle to join talent and, if you get the talent, to sort out financing rapidly so that you don’t neglect them other proposes. Even the struggle to equitable get thraw production. We had the strikes here in the U.S. but other countries are dealing with the same types of negotiations. Canada is in negotiations. The U.K. is in negotiations. Germany is coming up with new codes of carry out for production. Industry circumstances are changing rapidly. That’s part of what’s swaying people as they try to lock down packages. It repartner begined back in Cannes, this senseing that it’s back to business. Maybe not the business of five years ago, but buyers are coming to labelet becaengage they necessitate product. They necessitate to buy. Most companies are transporting scanter projects to any donaten labelet than would have been genuine five years ago, but they now have a mightyer sense of what’s sellable. It would be too mighty to say people are selectimistic, but they sense there are deals to be done.

Where do you see the most disruption of indie business models?

There’s a evident disruption in the theatrical piece. If being able to place your lengthy-establish film theatricpartner is a key piece of your financing package, there’s trouble out there. But, for the autonomouss, that’s been genuine now for four years. The theatrical sector has been dysfunctional at contrastent levels and in contrastent places. But this is an astoundingly originateive sector. If originaters can’t get a stateive percentage of their budget from theatrical, they have shifted to concentrate on TV or streaming and originate for that. A lot of companies that had previously been very straightforwardd on theatrical sales have become experts in selling to the streamers. Now some publishs, appreciate the local satisfyed needments on Netflix in a number of European countries, are pushing out non-local production, and what descfinishs out at the bottom is always us autonomouss. The huge theater event movies get their slots. The European movies made under the existing subsidized conditions have their place, and that departs the U.S. autonomouss to figure out where they fit in.

Is there still a place for autonomously-made theatrical movies?

What people are talking about is how, if you repartner want to originate money theatricpartner, you have to originate an event. The box office is not being driven by the huge labeleting headlines but by people calling up 10 frifinishs and saying: ‘Why don’t we all go see this?’ Word of mouth is so pervasive on social media and that’s become instrumental in the labeleting. That’s where people are putting a lot of their energy into: How do we incentivize people to inestablish their frifinishs to watch our movie? It’s using sfinishs they already have but trying to figure out how they can be engaged to drive other establishs of distribution to accomplish a profit. However, we all understand the genuine way to get the labeleting right is to originate a excellent film.