CHAPTER 12

Beyond Indiewood: American Independent

Cinema in the Digital Age

Frozen River (Hunt, 2008) is a low-budget independent film that

achieved critical attention, if not commercial success, at the peak
of indiewood in the late 2000s. The first feature of writer-director
Courtney Hunt, Frozen River was released after a twelve-year develop-
ment period, during which Hunt struggled to raise the roughly USD $1
million budget from various investors (Lyons 2014, 202–205).
It is not surprising that Frozen River was a hard sell. The film’s ele-
ments had no appeal to any audience demographic, with the possible
exception of mature women. Television and bit part independent film
actor Melissa Leo headed a cast of unknowns. The film featured a mix of
genres, including family drama and thriller, and the story was about ille-
gal migration and the ways it is sustained by destitute women whose only
way to support their families is to work with human traffickers. Indeed,
even after securing the budget and shooting the film, Hunt still had to
work hard to find a distributor, managing to strike a distribution deal
with specialty film studio division Sony Pictures Classics just prior to the
film’s premiere at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival (Lyons 2014, 206).
Following this tumultuous production history, Frozen River had
a slightly easier ride. The film made an impact in several film festivals,
winning various awards and receiving critical praise. It attracted atten-
tion for being the debut of a promising woman filmmaker. It garnered
acclaim for Leo’s performance in the starring role of Ray Eddy, a white,
single mother of two, who in a desperate effort to support her family

© The Author(s) 2020 295

C. Baron and Y. Tzioumakis, Acting Indie,
Palgrave Studies in Screen Industries and Performance,
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296 C. BARON AND Y. TZIOUMAKIS

teams up with a young Indigenous woman (Misty Upham) to smuggle

illegal immigrants from Canada to the US via a frozen river on the bor-
der of the two countries. Hunt (as screenwriter) and Leo received Oscar
nominations, which gave the film much greater visibility than the aver-
age low-budget independent film. With Frozen River also receiving the
award for Best Dramatic Feature at the Sundance Film Festival, the film
had a chance of becoming a crossover success, despite the absence of
conventional selling points.
The film’s potential was boosted by an almost unanimously positive
critical reception, with some critics focusing on its status as an inde-
pendent film that consciously avoided getting too close to Hollywood
and as a film that could reinvigorate the indiewood-dominated sector.
Commending the film for “resist[ing] all temptations to turn this plot
into some kind of a thriller and keep[ing] it grounded on the struggle
for economic survival,” Roger Ebert called Frozen River “one of those
rare independent films that knows precisely what it intends, and what the
meaning of the story is” (2008). Angie Errigo of Empire saw the film
as “the kind of work that helps independent American cinema retain its
good name” (2009). For Ryan Gilbey of Sight and Sound, Frozen River
“exemplifie[d] US indies’ new concern with the lives of the poor,” and
he praised the film for “bringing to the forefront a previously obscured
underclass whose membership [was] ballooning” (2009) in the after-
math of the subprime mortgage crisis. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles
Times wrote, “as the summer heats up, let ‘Frozen River’ wash over you;
let its bracing drama and the intensity of its acting restore your spirits as
well as your faith in American independent film” (2008).
As these remarks suggest, critics saw Frozen River as exemplifying
what independent cinema in the US should be: low-budget, gripping,
dealing with difficult subject matter, inclusive of minorities, grounded
in realism. All these elements have often been considered founda-
tional to American independent cinema, especially in its relationship to
Hollywood, as highlighted by Emanuel Levy’s definition: “ideally, an
indie is a fresh, low-budget movie with a gritty style and offbeat sub-
ject matter that express the filmmaker’s personal vision” (1999, 2).
This definition reflects Levy’s study of productions from the late 1970s
to the 1990s, before the arrival of indiewood, and when the majority
of films reflected the low-key, low-budget model associated with the
1980s independent film scene or the more commercial but still relatively
low-budget indie cinema of the 1990s.
 12 BEYOND INDIEWOOD: AMERICAN INDEPENDENT CINEMA … 297

The advent of indiewood in the late 1990s, with its increasingly

expensive, star-studded productions, prompted critics to see independ-
ent cinema losing contact with this “ideal” as production values, generic
frameworks, demographic appeal, and other commercial elements took
precedence, especially in films produced and distributed by studio spe-
cialty film divisions. By the mid-2000s, indiewood was firmly established
in industrial and critical discourses of American independent cinema.
Meanwhile, many smaller films featuring gritty style, unusual subject
matter, and filmmakers’ uncompromised vision continued to be made.
Yet they received little attention, since only a fraction of them secured
exhibition in the film festival circuit (and from there critical responses
and distribution within a few markets) and an even smaller percentage
played in theatres (to garner mainstream critics and industry and public
attention). Under these circumstances, the visibility, reviews, and awards
that Frozen River attracted were impressive for a USD $1 million pro-
duction, even if they did not translate to a commensurate box-office suc-
cess (USD $6 million worldwide gross).1

The Expanding Implications of Digital Production

and Distribution

Equally important to its perceived return to a specific ideal of American

independent cinema, Frozen River was celebrated for its digital cine-
matography, which, according to Turan, served “to make poetic use of
bleak winter landscapes” (2008). Frozen River features an aesthetic of
an unflinching realism. This approach contrasts with larger indiewood
films about the impact of the financial crisis such as Nebraska (Payne,
2013), whose crisp black and white cinematography invited audiences
“to understand its symbolic character and … admire its prosaic beauty”
(Tzioumakis 2014, 297).2 Assisted by digital video’s ability to record
details of the pro-filmic space with great clarity, aesthetic choices in
Frozen River emphasize the punishing environment that surrounds the
main characters in the upstate New York borderland and provide inti-
mate access to actors’ portrayals.
For instance, the film opens with a close up on Ray/Leo’s face, which
is wrinkled, rough looking and marked by signs of exhaustion. As she
smokes a cigarette, the camera, positioned close to her body, records
everything from her irritated skin to the fading color of her hair to her
298 C. BARON AND Y. TZIOUMAKIS

chipped nails, all of which convey her desperate situation. These images
are followed by various shots of the environment, which is characterized
by mud, slosh, grey skies, small ugly buildings, trailers, and an increasing
volume of snow covering everything in view. The drab, dingy surround-
ings make the character and the audience recognize that the prospect of
improving one’s life in that environment, particularly within the limits of
the law, is highly unlikely (Fig. 12.1).
The opening sequence is a blueprint for the actors’ performances,
which achieve a level of neo-naturalism reminiscent of independent films
of earlier times (and are removed from the faux realism that character-
ized many indiewood titles that dominated the sector around the same
time, e.g., Juno and Up in the Air). Moreover, the performances’ natu-
ralistic style coordinates with the narrative’s focus on characters’ mate-
rial conditions. The film grounds the characters’ motivations and actions
in specific social and political problems. These include the difficulties
of securing affordable housing, management’s refusal to reward work-
ers for their labor, an immigration problem that suggests that working
class jobs for US citizens are under threat by illegal labor, and the com-
plete lack of community and/or state support for people who desperately
need it. Leo is fully convincing in the role of a character led to act in a

Fig. 12.1 Melissa Leo in Frozen River (2008): showing the significance of the
connotations carried by actors’ bodies, Leo’s unadorned face reveals the charac-
ter’s circumstances and temperament
 12 BEYOND INDIEWOOD: AMERICAN INDEPENDENT CINEMA … 299

certain way due to the impact these severe socio-economic circumstances

have had on her. Leo’s performance includes choices such as her slightly
bending posture to convey fragility and exhaustion. Her changing vocal
and physical choices also communicate her character’s decisive turn from
a soft-spoken store employee and purchaser of a trailer home with instal-
ments to a determined law-breaking mother who undertakes physically
demanding tasks like towing a car in the snow or resorting to extreme
actions like threatening a human trafficker with a gun. Praising her act-
ing skills, Hollywood star Dustin Hoffman noted that Leo’s performance
had a “documentary feel” that suggested she knew [the experience] and
lived that life” (qtd. in Variety Staff 2008). The filmmakers’ use of digital
video enhanced this documentary feel, which some American independ-
ent cinema scholars have equated with “a low-key social realism” (King
2014, 169–170), which among other things, suggests a strong kinship
with independent films of the 1980s.
Despite the awards, positive reviews, and other accolades, Frozen
River was not a crossover success. At the North American theatrical box
office, the film grossed just over USD $2.5 million, despite playing for
33 consecutive weeks (August 1, 2008–March 31, 2009) and reaching
a maximum 96 playdates on the eighth week of its release. Outside the
US and Canada, the film recorded another USD $3.5 million playing
in a few territories, making for a total of slightly over USD $6 million in
theatres worldwide. Taking away the exhibitors’ cut, print and advertis-
ing costs, and distribution fees, the film made no money. The “high six
figure” advance Sony Pictures Classics paid to secure distribution rights
(Zeitchick and Fernandez 2009) might have come close to paying back
the USD $1 million raised through various investors, but everyone else
involved in Frozen River worked for whatever small fee was determined
by the film’s shoestring budget.
Frozen River’s performance in the theatrical marketplace represents
the norm for many independent films that are not indiewood produc-
tions with big budgets, auteur directors, strong generic registers, partici-
pation of Hollywood stars, and clear selling points. Despite its decidedly
low-key, low-budget aesthetic, Frozen River was actually released by
a studio specialty film division, Sony Pictures Classics, the only studio
subsidiary that continued distribution practices associated with smaller
films (grassroots marketing, involvement of local communities, and a
slow release pattern) in the late 2000s. During that period, non-indie-
wood productions that secured distribution deals were generally handled
300 C. BARON AND Y. TZIOUMAKIS

by a collection of thinly capitalized standalone distributors. Numbering

approximately 120–130 companies, these distributors specialized in a
range of product, including non-US films, exploitation/genre films, and
quality independent films that had a difficult time attracting an audi-
ence. These companies have been perennially in financial difficulties,
struggling to survive at the bottom of a highly structured three-tier US
theatrical film market, with the major studios and their specialty film divi-
sions occupying the top two tiers (Schatz 2009, 46). Indeed, First Look
International and Oscilloscope, standalone companies firmly located in
the industry’s third tier, respectively released the female-directed, low-
budget independent films The Dead Girl (Moncrieff, 2006) and Wendy
and Lucy (Reichardt, 2008). These films are often discussed together
with Frozen River as examples of films made by women and focusing on
women’s experiences through the use of neo-naturalism or, as Badley put
it, “neo-neorealism” (2016, 121).
However, the limited theatrical success of Frozen River and other low-
key, small-budget films reveals only part of the story about their finan-
cial performance and larger impact on the independent film scene. This
is because for the vast majority of independent films in the twenty-first
century—indiewood and beyond—a theatrical release has only been a
stepping-stone to an expansive world of ancillary markets in which many
films have the potential to attract significant audiences. Films can gain
commercial success through DVD sales; this was especially true in the
first decade of the twenty-first century when the DVD sell-through mar-
ket was a major contributor to the financial success of a film. They can
earn income through exclusive and non-exclusive licensing deals with
cable television, including channels specializing in independent film such
as IFC and Sundance TV. A film’s economic success might emerge from
streaming licensing deals with major online platforms such as Netflix,
Hulu, and Amazon Prime or with more dedicated on-demand platforms
such as SnagFilms and Fandor.
Despite the fact than none of these markets regularly report viewing
figures or publicize sales numbers, case studies of films have confirmed
that having a limited theatrical box-office gross does not necessarily mean
that a film would be a financial failure. For instance, while becoming a
crossover success by grossing USD $24 million at the North American
theatrical box office, Christopher Nolan’s challenging indie film
Memento (2000) made almost triple this amount in the home video mar-
ket (Molloy 2010, 21). In a case closer to Frozen River, Donnie Darko
 12 BEYOND INDIEWOOD: AMERICAN INDEPENDENT CINEMA … 301

(Kelly, 2001), a low-budget film that mixes family drama and science fic-
tion, made only USD $500,000 at the North American theatrical box
office but over USD $10 million in DVD sales (Barker 2015).
Although the ancillary market success of Memento and Donnie Darko
is arguably exceptional, the reality is that the majority of US independent
films in the twenty-first century have focused their marketing strategies
on and circulated primarily in the home entertainment market, since this
shifted from video rental to DVD sell-through, cable and pay-cable, and
on-demand/streaming. This trend became particularly prominent from
the late 2000s onwards, when high speed broadband and other techno-
logical developments enabled online distribution and video sharing, and
on-demand/streaming services emerged as viable exhibition sites with
the potential to offer remuneration to independent filmmakers with an
understanding of business models in an increasingly converged media
landscape. The concurrent advent of social media enabled filmmak-
ers to advertise their films, and locate, cultivate, and communicate with
audiences that might be small in number but sufficiently large to turn
small-budget films into commercial successes. Social media also allowed
filmmakers to finance their productions through crowdfunding initiatives,
and thus led independent cinema into a new era.
Twenty-first-century filmmakers have the opportunity to navigate
the whole film value chain—from production to exhibition—with a rel-
atively small investment if production costs are in check. Marketing costs
can be minimal because filmmakers are able to design and implement
advertising and publicity campaigns through social media. Distribution
costs can be limited as there are no print costs, theatre-booking fees,
or other expenses related to theatrical releases. The increasing afforda-
bility and accessibility of digital video production and distribution is an
important development for American independent cinema. There was a
substantial volume of digital production in the US from the beginning
of the twenty-first century; Geoff King suggests that by 2003 as much
as 30% of all films submitted to the Sundance Film Festival were shot
on digital video (2005, 53). Yet the real increase occurred in the late
2000s, as social media was becoming established and online/on-de-
mand/streaming started taking off as exhibition windows. Taking the
number of feature submissions to the Sundance Film Festival as a barom-
eter, the number rose by more than 100% between 2002 (1740 features)
and 2008 (3624 features), with the vast majority made by digital means.
302 C. BARON AND Y. TZIOUMAKIS

This compares with 815 features in 1997 and just 250 features five years
earlier in 1992 when the indie film phase was in full swing.3
Trends in producing extremely low-budget digital productions, and
succeeding both critically and financially by eschewing theatrical film dis-
tribution, made their presence felt through the emergence of production
practices that privilege a less hierarchical form of collaboration, distinct
from the formal and structured mode of production that has historically
characterized the majority of film production in US cinema, whether
independent or mainstream. Of course, the independent film scene has
had many examples of productions that grew organically from collabo-
rative practices, especially between filmmakers and actors, from John
Cassavetes’s films all the way to The Blair Witch Project (Myrick and
Sanchez, 1999) and Richard Linklater’s “Before” film trilogy (1995,
2004, 2013). However, many of these productions tended to be isolated
instances instigated by filmmakers’ strong personal practices or enabled
by specific circumstances or experiments, as in The Blair Witch Project
and the second and third “Before” films.
On the other hand, as this book has demonstrated, independent film-
making associated with the Hollywood Renaissance often questioned
hierarchical modes of production, opting instead for production prac-
tices that encouraged hyphenate filmmaking and genuinely collaborative
approaches to the production of films as was the case with the BBS films
(see Chapter 4). Similarly, independent filmmakers have often taken part
in collaborative projects to support younger filmmakers. For instance,
Quentin Tarantino supported the early work of Robert Rodriguez and
other filmmakers in the mid-1990s, making portmanteau or anthology
films. One example is Four Rooms (1996), a film with four distinct seg-
ments, each directed by Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, Robert
Rodriguez, and Quentin Tarantino. Directors also work as part of small
filmmaking communities in which they contribute to each other’s work,
as in the case of Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach, who have scripted
and/or produced several of each other’s films.
However, few of these examples are underpinned by the scale and
scope of collaborative practices and exchanges that have characterized
particular instances of low-budget, digitally made independent cinema in
the new millennium. With most of this cinema grounded in miniscule
budgets that are often limited to a few thousand US dollars per picture,
it is clear that such production cannot take place unless collaborators are
willing to work for free, which questions the extent to which hierarchical
 12 BEYOND INDIEWOOD: AMERICAN INDEPENDENT CINEMA … 303

modes of production can be applicable in this sub-field of independ-

ent cinema. Equally important, this type of filmmaking is taking place
within a US society and culture increasingly networked and connected
through social media. Given that this development coincides with the
huge expanse of digital filmmaking in the 2000s, it is also clear that both
the nature of collaboration and the material conditions for it are differ-
ent compared with the past and to films with higher budgets, such as
indiewood films. Indeed, the qualitative differences of such collaborative
practices from ones associated with the past examples have helped them
extend more broadly to video- and media-making, locating independent
cinema within an increasingly converged media landscape.

Collaboration and Digital Filmmaking in Mumblecore

By far the most widely discussed and examined of the twenty-first cen-
tury collaborative productions are the body of films included under
the “mumblecore” label. Although there is not always agreement as to
what constitutes “a canon” of mumblecore films, with critics “stak[ing]
out slightly different set[s] of films and directors” (Johnston 2014,
69), there have been several efforts to identify its key characteristics. As
James Lyons explains, the label came into prominence in the second
half of the 2000s “to describe a range of DIY, character-based, pre-
dominantly (often acutely) naturalistic films detailing the conversational
minutiae and relationship dynamics of drifting twenty-somethings, and
largely populated by non-professional actors” (2013, 164). Rather than
seeing a coherent aesthetic and a “homogenous group of films,” crit-
ics have used mumblecore as an “umbrella term” (Murphy 2017, 280)
for certain films that featured a combination of “low-key naturalism,
low-fi production values and a stream of low-volume chatter,” with the
last element reportedly responsible for giving the group its name (Lim
2007). Notably, mumblecore also became the first set of American inde-
pendent films to receive visibility specifically “as a digital-era filmmak-
ing movement” (Johnston 2014, 74), which defined itself against both
Hollywood and other independent film movements.
Mumblecore’s digital productions and extremely low budgets, often
just a few thousand dollars, became entry points for critics’ engagement
with films such as The Puffy Chair (Duplass, 2005), Mutual Appreciation
(Bujalski, 2005), Four Eyed Monsters (Buice and Crumley, 2005), LOL
(Swanberg, 2006), and Hannah Takes the Stairs (Swanberg, 2007). The
304 C. BARON AND Y. TZIOUMAKIS

films also garnered the attention of critics due to the creative collabora-
tion among the filmmakers associated with these and other titles. Indeed,
the collaboration and “interconnectedness” (Van Couvering 2007) of
the mumblecore filmmakers is so strong that Lyons suggests that they
represent “a clustering and patterning of networked individuals who
are constituted as intertextually and paratextually legible through their
connectivity” (2013, 165). The various filmmakers identified with the
label tended to use different approaches to filmmaking: improvisation
versus more structured plots; amateur performers versus trained actors;
and even digital video versus film (for Andrew Bujalski). Still, the col-
laborative spirit running through this work is as responsible for giving
this group an identity as any aesthetic component. Mumblecore film-
makers often co-authored, co-directed, co-produced, co-starred, and
served as crew members on the films’ production to the extent that this
became one of the central tenets of their work and how it is “tracked”
by their audiences (Lyons 2013, 168). Some indiewood and other film-
makers have developed firm connections with particular groups of cre-
ative individuals, including actors. Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola, Noah
Baumbach, Bill Murray, Jason Schwarzman, and Scarlett Johansson
is one such group; Paul Thomas Anderson, David Mamet, William H.
Macy, Ricky Jay, and Philip Seymour Hoffman is another. Still, these
groups are more akin to ensemble groups clustered around filmmakers
rather than the loosely structured but well-networked collaborators of
mumblecore films.
The most important aspect of mumblecore for a discussion of acting
is that the movement takes its name, at least in part, from the actors’
mode of dialogue delivery. Writing about “what puts the ‘mumble’ into
mumblecore,” Nessa Johnston identifies “a casual and improvised tone
of inarticulate dialogue” and the ways that dialogue, and sound more
broadly, is recorded as “low-fi,” “low-volume,” or even “neglected” in
the production process (2014, 69). While the films’ dialogue recording
has often been criticized as poor, a by-product of the films’ low-budget,
semi-amateurish production, it nonetheless set the films in opposition to
Hollywood and its professional standards, and confirmed their status as
true examples of independent cinema (Johnston 2014, 68).
In addition, the dialogue and its “mumbled” delivery dovetailed
with the naturalism aimed for by the mumblecore films. Critics saw it as
underlining an effort by the characters to articulate a sense of sincerity,
complete with pauses, hesitations, and inarticulate sentence formulation.
 12 BEYOND INDIEWOOD: AMERICAN INDEPENDENT CINEMA … 305

This effort could be seen as a response “to an increasingly ironic, post-

modern world” (Johnson 2014, 70; see Horton 2011) that lacks con-
nection and togetherness. One can take this argument further and see
this constructed sincerity as a response to arguably the most prominent
“movement” in contemporary independent cinema, the pre-digital
“smart cinema” of the 1990s, which was characterized by an empha-
sis on irony, nihilism, and distance, and an embrace of a postmodern
approach to life and the world (Sconce 2002). Thus, mumblecore not
only contrasts with Hollywood but other examples of independent cin-
ema, carving its own place in American independent cinema history.
Co-opted by the mainstream by the late 2000s/early 2010s (Murphy
2017, 295), the mumblecore movement proved short-lived, and its
overall impact on the indie film scene might have been overstated.
Nonetheless, it helped to legitimize digital video and integrate this sort
of low-budget, low-key, and low-fi production into a progressively con-
verging media landscape. Perhaps mumblecore’s most important role
was to pave the way for other collaborative-driven efforts, especially by
women filmmakers, in the broader field of independent cinema increas-
ingly linked to other media. Mumblecore’s legacy would include the
work of filmmaker-artist Miranda July, who, as McHugh has argued, is
“communally rather than self-styled,” and “understands indie filmmak-
ing as and through social networking” (2016, 245–246). More broadly,
its legacy would also include women and other groups marginalized by
the American film industry, whose work as part of “collectives, collabora-
tions, transmedia and interfaces” takes place in an increasingly open and
diverse “independent media arts ecology” that, among other things, ena-
bles a redefinition of feminist media (Pederson and Zimmermann 2016,
305). The trend toward media-facilitated collaboration confirms that
American independent cinema continues to regenerate with the constant
evolution of digital technology.

Late Indiewood and American Independent Cinema

in the Twenty-First Century

As the digital era continues to evolve in the second decade of the twen-
ty-first century, making its presence felt both in terms of quantity of
films and in terms of importance in the sector at large, indiewood has
started to feel the strain. This is to such an extent that arguably American
306 C. BARON AND Y. TZIOUMAKIS

independent cinema has entered a new phase, one that can be labelled
“late indiewood.” With the Hollywood studios having closed all but
three of their specialty film divisions, and television series and other
long form narrative formats experiencing a golden age in cable televi-
sion and streaming platforms, indiewood filmmaking has started mov-
ing further from “indie” and closer to “wood.” This is especially true as
several foundational independent film figures have found a home with
the Hollywood studios, making films that adhere to indiewood for-
mulas. These filmmakers include Jason Reitman, director of Up in the
Air (2009), Young Adult (2011), Labor Day (2013), and Men, Women
and Children (2014), all released by Paramount. Alexander Payne’s
Nebraska was also released by Paramount. Warner Bros. distributed Spike
Jonze’s Her (2013) and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice (2014).
Paramount released Joel and Ethan Coen’s True Grit (2011), while
Universal released their film Hail Caesar! (2016). Columbia distributed
George Clooney’s The Monuments Men (2014), and 20th Century Fox
distributed David O. Russell’s American Hustle (2013) and Joy (2015).
Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Django Unchained
(2012) were released by the Weinstein Company in partnership with
Universal and Columbia, respectively.
The critical and commercial success of most of these films suggests
that indiewood continues to be the dominant independent filmmak-
ing practice in the second decade of the twenty-first century. However,
despite the strong presence and continued visibility, by becoming
increasingly ensconced in the Hollywood studios, indiewood films’
hegemony in the sector has been questioned. Indeed, even before this
trend emerged in the 2010s, indiewood films by specialty film s­tudio
divisions such as Juno (Reitman, 2007) and Little Miss Sunshine (Dayton
and Faris, 2006) drew criticism for manufacturing a particular type of
“indieness” that could fit within a well-established and institutionalized
framework of contemporary American independent cinema. Geoff King
identifies the “artificially confected or commodified version of indie cin-
ema” as one iteration of “Indie 2.0” (2014, 5). More broadly, he also
uses the term to explore other types of productions by “a second gen-
eration of indie … filmmakers coming to fruition [in the 2000s] some
20 or so years after what is now established as the ‘classic’ indie break-
through period of the 1980s and early 1990s” (2014, 5). In many
respects, late indiewood’s accommodating of both indiewood films
(made by the Hollywood majors, their studio divisions and standalone
 12 BEYOND INDIEWOOD: AMERICAN INDEPENDENT CINEMA … 307

companies) and small digitally produced and often distributed films rep-
resents the next step in King’s conceptualization of Indie 2.0. It also pro-
vides these recent developments with a timeframe, suggesting the arrival
of a new phase in the history of American independent cinema.
Indiewood’s increasing affiliation with the Hollywood studios,
together with the migration of the generally white, male, and mid-
dle-aged auteurs to Hollywood, facilitates the evolution of American
independent film under the auspices of a filmmaking model that increas-
ingly relies on digital means and does not require a significant invest-
ment. This development might be a positive, grassroots response to the
“commodified version of indie cinema” (King 2014, 5) or a continuation
of independent and indie film practices temporarily out of the limelight
due to indiewood productions’ dominance that have found new oppor-
tunities to assert themselves in the quickly converging media landscape
(Tzioumakis 2013a, 38). In either case, the future of American inde-
pendent cinema could very well take place away from the theatres. In
addition, strongly collaborative practices will certainly continue to be
prominent, which, among other things, will enhance the role of actors in
the production process and beyond.

Notes
1. All figures for the film were obtained from The Numbers, www.the-num-
bers.com.
2. For a lengthy discussion and comparison between Frozen River and
Nebraska as examples of American independent cinema dealing with the
impact of financial crisis, see Tzioumakis (2014, 295–297).
3. All figures for Sundance Film Festival submissions were obtained from the
festival’s website, http://www.sundance.org/festivalhistory.

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