Celebrate Texas Independents

Ryan Long, co-founder of the Texas Independent Film Network and the Austin Film Society's new film programs manager

So you've made your first film, you've screened it at SXSW, the Austin Film Festival, Sundance, and Tribeca, but – woe is you – the serpentine line of potential buyers and distributors you hoped would appear out of the woodwork has yet to materialize. It's like someone turned on the reality lights and everyone scattered, leaving your film to gather dust while you frantically fill out submission applications to the Peoria Underground Film Festival, Riga Cinebang, and other exponentially lesser-known festivals. Distribution blows. So what's a filmmaker to do?

Well, beginning this February, if they're lucky enough to be from Texas, they might just find a savior in the new Texas Independent Film Network. Founded by Austin Chronicle Editor-in-Chief Louis Black and Screen Door Film's Ryan Long, the TIFN has grand plans to create its own self-programmed, self-distributed network of Texan films across the entire state from Nacogdoches to Abilene and beyond.

"Louis is co-owner of Watchmaker Films," explains Long, "and owns the rights to The Whole Shootin' Match and Tobe Hooper's first film, Eggshells. I approached him about trying to book those into some theatres, but he thought that was thinking too small. His idea was to use the skills and contacts I'd picked up while running Screen Door to try and solve this ongoing distribution dilemma that small, independent filmmakers are facing."

Sounds like a great idea, but are there really enough arthouse, academic, or alternative venues outside of Austin to create a statewide network of exhibitors? Like the song says, there's "miles and miles of Texas," but a helluva lot of that big ole spread is not exactly alt-cinema friendly.

Long: "The trick was finding the right venue and then finding the right organization that's already doing this work in whatever town you want to screen in. I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel here; I'm just trying to connect the spokes. Because there's a lot of organizations in the state that are doing great work."

To name a few: the Southwest Alternate Media Project; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Abilene's Paramount Theatre; the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center; and the Austin Film Society, where Long is newly installed as film programs manager. These and more local (or in some cases regional) film-friendly outfits already have the necessary skills to advance-promote, market, and generally get butts in seats. Long, Black, and a board of programmers (TIFN isn't accepting submissions) will then prescreen and select films by committee. If everything goes according to plan, TIFN will be one of the only state-centric film exhibition organizations going. And more importantly, it'll provide Texas filmmakers – and there's no shortage of 'em, as pretty much anyone in Austin can attest – with a unique new way to get their 24 fps pride-and-joys seen outside of festival screenings and the occasional Alamo Ritz one-off.

Presently TIFN is privately funded but is in the process of obtaining 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. Oh, and one more thing: The filmmakers get paid. Yeah, cash money, baby. Can I get a witness? Because, brothers and sisters in the digital filmmaking (or, heck, just plain old celluloid) revolution, that right there is some seriously righteous news.

"I can't disclose exactly how much we'll be paying the filmmakers," says Long, "but there's money in it for them. It's also a great marketing and promotional tool and a purely Texan way of getting their hard work seen throughout the state."

Amen to that.