Just a few days before my latest article for Filmmaker Magazine, about the rise of new independent film distribution companies, was going to publish, one of those very companies, Row K, was revealed in multiple reports to be facing financial troubles and its top executives heading for the exits. For a story that was supposed to be about the “fertile ground for new opportunities,” as one executive told me, it was not a good look.
But while Row K’s shifts, and its pivot to more “commercially viable titles” (read “genre films”) perhaps doesn’t paint the rosiest picture for the indie distribution landscape, it reveals some wider rifts that are taking place right now that have less to do with that company and more about the tensions in the marketplace—between easily-marketable product vs. arthouse cinema; between distribution companies vs. filmmaker-led distribution.
The fact is Row K’s first release, Gus Van Sant’s lean and decently entertaining “Dog Day Afternoon”-inspire…
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