About three months ago now, on the 18th October 2019, the search for distribution for the film finally came to rest in one of my favourite on-line streaming services for documentary films, Films for Action. Fun fact about FOA, it home to what I consider one of the best documentaries of all time: Human. You Can’t Evict an Idea is in good company and I am totally chuffed.
I am deeply grateful for the financial support given to me to enable me to enter this film into various film festivals (FF). The 125 fund * granted me £900 and individual donations collectively added up to another £650.
Thank you 🙂
Apart from a few local screenings, the film was not accepted into any of the major film festivals. This riddled me with a mixture of disappointment, guilt and shame because I had no success to show for the funds entrusted in me for my work. I wish I could give it back but I can’t. All has been spent on FFs, ffs!
The film was entered into more film festivals than the password protected link had views/downloads which begs the question “Are the films judged or are the synopses judged?”. More films each year are entered into FFs but I suggest that it would be more fair if they tiered the process. First, one applies with only their synopsis and treatment and pays significantly less. On average the price is £50. If the synopses-judges want to consider the film for the FF the filmmaker needs to pay a further fee for the privilege. This way we can delete the facade that each film is judged on its value as a film and not its value based on who made it, who is in it, and the synopsis.
Tim Hjersted, the Director of Films For Action gave me the choice to place You Can’t Evict an Idea on the Films For Action site either for free or to ask for a small charge and I chose the latter.
This small fee is because my craft in and of itself is expensive. For the sake of sustainability, and principle I need to be tenacious about asking for a small fee. The hours and the money spent on the making of the film are not considered as something I “need’ payment for… but to come out of four years of this work and notice that I need to buy new equipment (to maintain a professional standard) strikes me as well and truly time to do a pay-per-view. I say all the above because of a few emails I have received admonishing me to not “earn an profit” the idea of which makes me giggle. Profit is as far from this film as the Tory government is from stopping tax avoidance.
Funded and salaried content creators can be generous but many of us are neither and we need to learn how to support each other if we want to build the world we need which includes the existence of independent filmmaking, news outlets, and educational videos. 🙂
*The 125 fund is available for students of the University of Westminster.