The Best City for Indie Filmmakers Is Wherever You Start Making Movies

I saw an IndieWire article recently titled “The Best U.S. Cities for Indie Filmmakers in 2026,” and naturally, as a filmmaker, it caught my eye and I wondered: should I be living elsewhere???

For decades, there were two places: LA and New York. Austin was a bit of an alternative for those drawn to the indie scene (thanks to the likes of Richard Linklater and Robert Rodriguez). Atlanta’s more of a hub (mostly because of Marvel). Those are the places I knew about… At least US-wise.

But IndieWire’s argument is that the map isn’t nearly as simple anymore. The internet, affordable digital tools, remote work, tax incentives, and decentralization of the industry made it ever more possible to build a filmmaking life elsewhere. So IndieWire looked at American cities, weighing factors like affordability, production infrastructure, tax incentives, paid work, and local creative culture. Their final list wasn’t ranked because, as they say, every city offers something different.

Among their highlights were:

• Albuquerque, New Mexico — Best Tax Incentives for Indie Films. New Mexico’s refundable film credit can begin at relatively low production levels, while Albuquerque combines an established production ecosystem with comparatively affordable living.

• Baltimore, Maryland — Best Place for Microbudget Productions. IndieWire points to its relatively accessible small-film incentive, affordable production possibilities, distinctive locations, and long tradition of filmmakers doing a lot with very little.

• Chicago, Illinois — Best Place to Build an Indie Film Career. Its theater, comedy, music, film institutions, schools, screenings, and professional productions create an environment where you can make movies with friends while also developing a larger career.

• Cleveland, Ohio — Best Overall Value. Affordable living meets a legitimate film culture with festivals, repertory cinema, developing crews, and increasing production activity.

• Denver, Colorado — Best Emerging Indie Film Scene. The Denver-Boulder corridor already has a substantial arts and film community, and Sundance’s move to Boulder beginning in 2027 could strengthen it considerably.

• Las Vegas, Nevada — Wild Card for Working Crews. Beyond movies, the city’s conventions, entertainment, sports, hospitality, and commercial industries give production professionals other ways to earn a living with many of the same skills.

• Los Angeles, California — Best City for Content Creators. Traditional production has struggled, but the overlap between filmmaking and the broader creator economy—from YouTube and podcasting to comedy, screenings, and short-form content—remains difficult to replicate.

• Minneapolis, Minnesota — Best Home Base for Documentary Filmmakers. A strong documentary culture, important contemporary stories, local institutions, and year-round film programming make it especially appealing for nonfiction filmmakers.

• New Orleans, Louisiana — Best Muse for Genre Filmmakers. Gothic architecture, swamps, religious imagery, music, local culture, and production incentives can give horror and fantasy filmmakers production value that would be expensive to manufacture elsewhere.

• New York City — Best City for Film and TV Critics. The density of filmmakers, distributors, publicists, festivals, repertory theaters, publications, and screenings keeps cinema in constant conversation.

• Savannah, Georgia — Best Hub for Indie Artists in the South. Savannah combines Georgia’s broader production infrastructure with local incentives, SCAD, working crews, stages, festivals, and a visually distinctive city.

• Seattle, Washington — Best Local Indie Film Community. SIFF, Scarecrow Video, repertory film culture, critics, and the filmmaker-run Seattle Film Society give people actual places to meet, learn, collaborate, and screen their work.

All of that is useful, especially if you’re deciding where to move or trying to know where filmmaking communities are spreading. But after reading the piece, I kept coming back to a slightly different conclusion: I don’t think there is one best city for becoming an independent filmmaker. I actually think the best place is wherever you can find—or build—a community of people who actually want to make movies together.

If you’re an aspiring filmmaker, one of the most valuable things you can do is find a handful of people who are as excited about making things as you are. You don’t need a massive crew or access to some sprawling professional network. It might be five people. It might be a director, an actor, a cinematographer, an editor, and somebody producing, with everyone inevitably doing two or three other jobs because you’re all figuring it out together. That’s fine. In fact, that can be part of the fun.

Start making movies. Make a three-minute short and see what happens. Then try something a little longer or more ambitious. Eventually you’re going to screw something up, which is also fine, because now you get to figure out why it didn’t work and carry that lesson into the next thing.

Over time, somebody gets better at sound. Another person learns how to light a scene without taking four hours. One of your actors becomes more confident. Maybe somebody who was convinced they wanted to direct discovers they’re actually much better at producing. Without necessarily realizing it, you begin developing a shared language and learning how each other works.

Eventually, that same little group that spent a Saturday cobbling together a three-minute short might be capable of making a feature.

That’s how communities get built, and it’s also how filmmakers grow. Not by waiting until somebody declares that they’re ready, but by working together often enough that everyone slowly becomes better at what they do.

There’s something else I think indie filmmakers need to protect: the sense that this is supposed to be an adventure.

Part of being an indie filmmaker is being blind to restraints. I don’t mean being irresponsible. Obviously, you should understand budgets and schedules, keep people safe, get the necessary permits, read your contracts, and operate within reality. But creativity also requires a little unreasonable ambition. There has to be some part of you that looks at an idea slightly beyond your current abilities and thinks, Why couldn’t we do this? After all, there’s plenty of people available to tell you why you can’t.

Common things I’ve heard from nay-sayers about my projects: You don’t have enough money. You don’t know the right people. You’re not in Los Angeles. You can’t afford a recognizable actor. You’ve never made a feature before, so why would anyone trust you to make one now?

Fine. Make something anyway.

James Cameron has a quote I love: “If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.” There’s a useful mentality in that. You should occasionally attempt something slightly beyond what you’re certain you can accomplish, even knowing that it may not completely work. Maybe the finished film doesn’t match what you imagined. Maybe you make mistakes you can’t fix in post. But if attempting something difficult forces you to become capable of things you couldn’t do before, the experience still has value.

Every movie should teach you something about how to make the next one.

Of course, telling someone to “find your people” isn’t particularly helpful if they have no idea where those people are. If you don’t already know filmmakers where you live, I’d start with local film festivals. And I don’t just mean submitting your work and hoping you get accepted. Actually go.

Watch the screenings and stick around for the Q&As. Then, talk to filmmakers afterward and find out what else they’re working on. Attend a panel even if the subject isn’t perfectly aligned with whatever you think your career is supposed to be. Volunteer if you have the time. Take the time and look through the festival program and see which filmmakers actually live near you.

More importantly, don’t enter every conversation wondering, How can this person help my career? That kind of networking is exhausting for everyone involved. I’d rather ask someone what they’re making, find out what they hope to make next, and see whether there’s any way I can be part of it. Relationships built around actually creating things together tend to become far more meaningful than exchanging business cards and promising to “keep in touch.”

And festivals aren’t the only option. See what nearby colleges are doing, even if you’re not a student. Check out 48-hour film competitions, acting communities, screenwriting groups, theater companies, comedy scenes, photography meetups—anywhere creative people are gathering and making things.

You may discover that a filmmaking ecosystem already exists around you and you simply haven’t tapped into it yet.

And if it genuinely doesn’t exist, start something.

You don’t need anyone’s permission to organize a monthly filmmakers meetup or invite a few people over to read scripts. Find a bar willing to screen local shorts. Put together a tiny writers group. It doesn’t have to begin as some grand organization with branding, sponsors, and a five-year strategic plan. Sometimes community starts because five people consistently decide to be in the same room.

Make the community you wish existed.

There’s another reason I think geography matters less than it used to: your filmmaking community no longer has to exist entirely in the city where you live. Production itself is obviously still physical. If you’re shooting two actors eating dinner in a restaurant, eventually the actors and crew who needs to capture that scene have to show up at the restaurant. But huge portions of filmmaking don’t require everyone to live within driving distance of one another anymore.

You could have a producer in Los Angeles working with a writer in Albuquerque while a storyboard artist in Manila starts visualizing scenes. Your composer might be in Bogotá, and six months later your editor could be working from somewhere entirely different. None of that feels particularly unusual anymore.

Development meetings can happen remotely. So can writing, budgeting, casting conversations, storyboarding, previs, and much of the logistical side of pre-production. Then, when everybody who actually needs to be physically present has to come together, you concentrate that part of the process into the production window.

Maybe that’s a week to three. Obviously, the scale and needs of the movie dictate the schedule.

Then everyone disperses again, and editing, music, sound, color, and VFX can happen wherever the right people happen to be. That changes the question. Instead of asking, “Where does my entire filmmaking team need to live?” it becomes, “When do we actually need to be in the same place?” Those are very different production models, and for filmmakers, that distinction can be enormously useful.

I’m working in animation right now, so my circumstances are admittedly different from those of someone making a traditional live-action feature. Animation makes remote collaboration particularly natural because so much of the filmmaking process doesn’t require everyone to occupy the same physical space. Artists can be scattered across cities, countries, and continents and still contribute to the same movie. The production can move between departments and collaborators without everybody relocating to one centralized studio. But I don’t think the larger lesson is exclusive to animation.

As mentioned, live action can operate as a hybrid too especially if you’re trying to make ambitious work. Doing this keeps eliminates most overhead of a traditional productions and having that flexibility changes what’s possible. It also means that choosing where to live doesn’t necessarily mean choosing where every part of every project you ever make has to happen.

That’s ultimately what the IndieWire article made me think about. Living somewhere like Albuquerque, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, New Orleans, or Baltimore may absolutely create opportunities that don’t exist somewhere else. But none of those cities can do the most important part for you which is to say they can’t make you make movies.

You can move to Hollywood and spend ten years waiting for somebody to give you permission. Or you can live somewhere nobody has ever described as a filmmaking capital, find six people who are excited about creating, and decide that every few months you’re going to make something together.

I’d bet on the second group (partly because it also allows you to tell stories NO ONE else is telling… a lesson for another day).

Indie filmmaking has always been about looking at your circumstances and figuring out what you can do with them. What resources are available to you? Who do you know? Is there a location somebody can get you for free? Is your friend’s cousin an actor? Does somebody own a van? What story could you make using all of that?

Then you make the thing.

Maybe eventually you move because another city genuinely offers opportunities that make sense for you. Or the community around you keeps growing and you decide there’s no reason to leave.

The goal isn’t to find a mythical city where becoming a filmmaker suddenly becomes easy. It’s to find people who want to create, keep growing alongside them, and remain ambitious enough to occasionally attempt something you’re not entirely sure you can pull off. Wherever you happen to live, that’s a pretty good place to start a film career.