Indie IV is Finding its Roots at Film and TV Festivals

By Jill Michelle Williams

Photo Credit: Jonbilous - stock.adobe.com

More and more creators are pushing back against the heavy-handed creative process used by big studios to push out cookie-cutter content preferring to forge cost-effective paths to showcase compelling stories. Thanks to film and television festivals they’re catching the eyes of studios and networks as execs realize viewers are craving fresh content.

When executive producer and actor, Mark Duplass (Room 104, Togetherness, and The Morning Show) wrote a young adult series (Penelope) during the pandemic, he knew there would be a bidding war. But there wasn’t a single offer. The pacing was intentionally slower than other flashy series’ where there’s a murder or a dramatic incident in the first few minutes. Duplass described Penelope as “the story about a young girl who absconds into the woods leaving behind the trappings of modern life to find something deep inside herself that’s hidden.” Can you imagine development executives wrapping their heads around a series featuring a teenager without their phone?

Ultimately, Duplass doubled down on his creative vision and made the series under the Duplass Brothers Productions shingle putting up his own money. When he took the six-episode series to Sundance there was a lot of interest and ultimately it landed on Netflix. His deal consists of short-term U.S. rights where Netflix was absolved of the responsibility to make it a tentpole show just to see how it did on the platform. This afforded Duplass the ownership rights to relicense it globally and to make a season two for the territories that want it. 

Their next indie television success came from the adaptation of The Creep Tapes through a deal with AMC+ and Shudder. Now, they’ve got three other six-episode series (two narrative and one music doc-series) they’re taking out in the same way. And they’re not the only ones. 

Creator Michael Polish wrote in an essay for MovieMaker Magazine that he “knew there had to be a way to produce an episodic series without the politics and the responsibilities of a studio-produced show” and he did just that with Bring on the Dancing Horses (2023). The run-and-gun neo-noir Spaghetti Western starring Kate Bosworth premiered in 2022 at Sundance, and the 10-episode series ultimately found a home on Apple TV+ and Prime Video. Now he’s doing the same with another Montana-set series called Heebuck, which premiered at SeriesFest.

Both he and Duplass were at Denver’s SeriesFest where Jesse Toledano’s Broken Toilets won the drama prize. Toledano wanted to get away from the straightjacket nature of the traditional development process, which can drag on and on, but with the indie television model, creators can actually execute their vision instead of revising it on repeat. 

All of these producers and writers are looking to make either a series that can go straight to air or a proof of concept to generate momentum to secure a studio-backed deal. 

Writer Matt Pfeffer premiered his post-apocalyptic drama pilot Neo-Dome at SXSW (where it won the Audience Award) while Katie Locke O’Brien (A.P. Bio and Ghosts) and her producing partners made six short episodes for their comedy series Dick Bunny. Locke O’Brien told Deadline that her “experience of motherhood was not one she saw on television.” When she partnered with creators Susie Mendoza and Kim Griffin, she “knew there would be a ton of women who would relate,” but they didn’t want any of the crucial elements cut out, so the indie television proof of concept route was their way forward.

Mark Duplass believes that audiences are “going to rebel against the monotony and homogenous nature of what they’re fed.” That married with the success of compelling small-budgeted storytelling in series like The Bear and Baby Reindeer illustrates there’s not only a demand for this type of television, but it’s also good business where an entire series can be made for the price of one big-budget episode. 

The festivals drawing the most attention from indie television creators thus far are Sundace, SeriesFest (Denver), ATX TV Festival (Austin), and SWSX (Austin) and it seems likely more festivals will get in on the action of this burgeoning genre.