When “Anora” (2024) director Sean Baker took the stage to accept the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2024, he had a message to send — an urgent message. “Right now, as filmmakers, we have to fight to keep cinema alive. This means making feature films intended for theatrical exhibition,” Baker said in his acceptance speech. “The future of cinema [is] where it started: in a movie theater.”
Fast forward to March, and Baker has added even more gold to his trophy case. Between heartfelt thanks to his wife and Neon during this year’s awards run, the 54-year-old seized his moment in the spotlight to champion the cause of preserving independent cinema. At the Independent Spirit Awards, he outlined the lack of financial stability for filmmakers chasing their dreams. Later, while accepting the award for Best Director at the Oscars — where his film collected four trophies — Baker’s “battle cry” was focused on the struggle of independent theaters, especially after the pandemic.
While Baker may be one of the louder voices on the topic, the struggles of independent film weigh heavy on the minds of many in the industry. It was a problem exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic — more than 2,000 screens were closed during the lockdown period, according to a 2022 National Cinema Foundation study — but many factors continue to plague filmmakers and theaters alike.
One theater grappling with these challenges is the Somerville Theatre, a landmark in Davis Square that has stood since 1914. Larger chains like AMC and Alamo Drafthouse — which was recently acquired by Sony and marked the first studio purchase of a theater group since the 1948 Paramount Antitrust Consent Decrees were repealed in 2020 — benefit from vast financial resources and numerous screens. However, the independently owned Somerville Theatre, with less financial wiggle room, is limited to showing only three films at once.
Sitting in the theater’s stunning main auditorium, the moviehouse’s creative director, Ian Judge, outlined the complexities of competing with the franchises. For Judge — who started his career as an usher at Loews Harvard Square theater as a teenager — being an underdog has both benefits and drawbacks.
“The major chains are really good at spending a lot of money on bells and whistles like projection and sound and comfortable seats and things like that, but then they don’t follow up with the customer service end of it,” Judge said. “If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. And so if you’ve got managers who aren’t incentivized to care about continuing the tradition of movies, of making the movie experience magical, then that kind of shorts it too.”
Naturally, such moviegoing experiences depend on high-quality films, but as independent theaters struggle to survive, many independent filmmakers face increasing challenges in bringing their films to the screen. As theaters disappear and audience attendance dwindles, distributors become less likely to invest in risky, low-budget projects.
Recently, this dilemma was faced by Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol, the Canadian duo behind the recent South by Southwest hit “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” (2025). Before their film — which is a spinoff of the duo’s mockumentary-sitcom “Nirvanna the Band the Show” (2017) — premiered at South by Southwest in March, Johnson told the crowd: “You may actually be the only people in the world who ever even see this movie.”
Thanks to Elevation Pictures, Johnson and McCarrol’s film has secured theatrical distribution in Canada. However, many other South by Southwest films have not shared the same fortune and are left still seeking buyers to put their work in front of audiences nationwide. Compounding this difficulty is the fact that many such audiences no longer exist.
“You get these little independent films [in the ’90s] that were in the middle and there was a market for them. There were theaters that showed them,” Judge noted. “Without those tertiary and secondary cities playing your movies, there’s no place to show them. You could play in New York and San Francisco, but you’re not going to make your money back. Then your movie isn’t going to be able to gain that national word of mouth.”
Nonetheless, festivals remain crucial spaces for filmmakers. The circuit not only allows aspiring directors to shop their projects but also to connect with and grow their own audiences.
“I think the thing that festivals provide that’s unique in this whole world is that we put filmmakers directly in front of audiences so they can see how things are working,” Brian Tamm, executive director of Independent Film Festival Boston, said. “It sometimes can be hard for an artist to grow if they can’t get a sense of how their films are being reacted to.”
Many recent films have gone on to be successful after securing distribution from a festival run. For Jesse Eisenberg’s “A Real Pain” (2024), it took Sundance Film Festival success to make a deal with Searchlight Pictures. Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine as Light” (2024) went from a relative unknown to playing in front of international audiences after it captured the Grand Prix and secured distribution with Janus Films and the British Film Institute.
For each success story, there are many pictures that fail to reach audiences. It’s well understood that the film industry is an inherently volatile and uncertain place — even Oscar nominees like Baker and “The Brutalist” (2024) director Brady Corbet claim their own personal financial struggles — yet it’s still clear that more can (and must) be done to allow independent filmmakers to continue to create.
Predictably, the best thing one can do to support indie cinema is to simply go to the movies. Without markets to play their movies, filmmakers will be forced to allow their work to go straight to streaming, if they’re lucky enough to secure distribution at all. Many theaters will continue to shut their doors, and big-budget studio films will be left to sustain those who remain.
As Tamm noted, the decline of theaters may not necessarily dictate the decline of the art form. “Festivals work for some people. YouTube works for some people. TikTok works for some people,” he explained. “If you’re passionate about making art, you’re going to make art.”
Though film may remain, the decline of independent cinema will undoubtedly lead to a loss of appreciation for the art form. Though Ted Sarandos may disagree — the Netflix CEO recently claimed that it is no different to watch “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962) on a cell phone than a big screen — there is a quality that can only be found in the theatrical setting, audience and all. As Judge put it, “No one’s going to say movies are saving the world, but being part of a community and experiencing something as a community is an integral part of being a human being.”
Perhaps it was David Lynch who put it best. “If you’re playing the movie on a telephone, you will never in a trillion years experience the film,” the legendary auteur said in a DVD bonus for “Inland Empire” (2006). “You'll think you have experienced it, but you’ll be cheated.”
No one wants to be cheated. So, go to the movies. Grab your popcorn, settle in and know that you’re doing some good for the world.
