“We Need To See A Change Of The Guard:” WME Independent’s Alex Walton & HanWay’s Katie Ellen Headline Keynote On State Of Indie Film Biz — Locarno
deadline.comPositivity was the guiding principle of this morning’s industry keynote at the Locarno Film Festival, but you wouldn’t have guessed that listening to the discussion that ensued. “The bullseye for success has become much smaller,” Katie Ellen, Head of Production at HanWay Films began in her assessment of the keynote’s central topic, the current difficulties in financing independent films.
Ellen was joined on the panel by WME Independent co-head Alex Walton and Romanian producer Ada Solomon of Hi Film Productions & microFILM.
Solomon’s credits include Toni Erdmann and Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn. “You have to be able to demonstrate creative excellence and that there’s a possibility that a film will break out and audiences will be interested,” Ellen continued. “I don’t think there’s still the luxury of making films that aren’t quite good enough and don’t have any audience.” She added: “Getting films off the ground that are 6/10, which was maybe possible before, aren’t anymore.
And I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing.” According to Ellen, the crux of this change in the ecosystem is that “production budgets have gone up and there’s not enough money or value to cover that.” As a result, much of the work on a production “is about trying to work around how you can overcome that situation.” This often falls, she said, to the “ingenuity” of experienced producers.
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