Independent Film Has a Collaboration Problem Everyone Needs Everyone. But Not Equally.
Updated: Sep 25
There's something fundamentally mad about the way we finance independent films.
To get meaningful international pre-sales, you generally need recognisable talent.
To attach that talent, their representatives want to know whether your film is financed.
To finance the film, you need distributors and sales agents to establish its commercial value.
And to establish that value, they want to know who's attached.
Round and round we go. Everyone needs everyone, but nobody wants to move first. And here's the really interesting part. Not everyone needs everyone equally. An independent producer might desperately need a particular actor, distributor or sales agent to get a film financed. Those parties, however, have numerous other projects competing for their attention. They don't necessarily need your film. And that imbalance goes a long way towards explaining why an industry built entirely on collaboration can be so spectacularly bad at it. But it doesn't have to be this way.
Imagine Building a Car Like This
Imagine trying to manufacture a car using the independent film financing model.
You design the chassis, but the company supplying the brakes won't engage until you've secured the engine.
The engine manufacturer wants confirmation that dealerships will stock the finished car.
The dealerships want to see the car before committing.
And the bank won't finance production until everyone else has signed up.
You'd never build a car. Yet this is essentially how we expect independent producers to make films. The automotive industry approaches things very differently. Toyota, for example, has developed long-standing relationships with suppliers who become involved during the early stages of vehicle development. Rather than leaving everyone to operate independently, engineering, manufacturing, procurement and suppliers collaborate to establish practical solutions, manage costs and improve efficiency.
Of course, there's an important difference. Toyota has something most independent producers don't. The money. It can coordinate its suppliers because it has the financial resources and commercial authority to bring everyone together. And perhaps that's precisely what independent filmmaking is missing.
We're expecting producers to coordinate an entire commercial ecosystem without giving them the financial resources or leverage to make that coordination happen. The producer has the blueprint for the car. But nobody's willing to commit to building it.
Everyone Is Protecting Their Own Interests
Here's where things get complicated. It's tempting to blame agents for being inaccessible, distributors for being overly cautious or financiers for constantly moving the goalposts. And sometimes that criticism is justified. But consider things from their perspective.
An agent is protecting their client's career and earning potential. Why encourage an actor to commit to a film that might never happen?
A distributor needs films capable of reaching an audience and generating a commercial return. Why commit money to a project that hasn't established its market value?
A financier wants to protect their investment. Why provide substantial funding without evidence that the film has a realistic route to market?
And the sales agent needs films that international buyers actually want.
Individually, these positions make sense. Collectively, they create an almost impossible situation for the producer. Everyone is behaving rationally within their own business, while collectively creating an irrational system. And because the producer generally has the least leverage, they're the one left carrying much of the cost. Months of development. Endless packaging conversations. Expensive legal work. Cast approaches. Financing negotiations. All potentially leading nowhere. Meanwhile, everyone else moves on to the next project.
But there's a wider cost that often gets overlooked. Every film that collapses represents lost work for actors, crews, production companies, sales agents, distributors and countless associated businesses. An individual company might lose very little when one particular film fails to get financed. But an industry that consistently struggles to get commercially viable films into production is ultimately damaging its own future. That's the contradiction we need to address.
The Evidence: Being Connected Isn't the Same as Being Financed
An interesting example comes from Screen Australia. Its analysis of 119 Australian feature film funding applications found that 96% had an international sales agent attached. Yet only 48% of those sales agents were providing an upfront minimum guarantee and just 19% of projects included international pre-sales.
The research also highlighted the financing gaps that can emerge in mid-budget productions, even when various marketplace partners are already involved. These figures relate specifically to Australian funding applications, rather than the entire international film market, but they illustrate something worth considering. Clearly, establishing relationships isn't necessarily the problem.
Turning those relationships into meaningful financial commitments is. You can have your sales agent, your distributor, your cast wish list and a perfectly reasonable finance plan. But unless enough of those relationships translate into actual money, you still don't have a film.
The BFI recognised a related problem back in 2017, when it introduced full financing options for certain lower-budget productions. It acknowledged that projects were arriving with talent attachments that subsequently fell away because financing couldn't be assembled quickly enough. Providing greater financial certainty allowed producers to approach actors and agents with credible production dates rather than promises dependent upon further fundraising.
And that's the important distinction. Collaboration without commitment only gets you so far. If we want to improve the system, we need to give people commercial reasons to work together, backed by something more substantial than expressions of interest.
The Talent Bottleneck
One of the strangest consequences of the current system is that everyone ends up chasing the same relatively small pool of actors.
International buyers attach commercial value to recognisable names. Sales agents reflect those expectations in their estimates. Financiers build their models around those estimates. So producers approach the actors who appear capable of unlocking the money. And because everyone is working from similar commercial assumptions, the same names appear on practically everyone's lists. Those actors are inundated with offers, their representatives become increasingly selective and independent producers find it even harder to get through the door. It's a vicious circle.
The irony is that there are plenty of excellent actors who haven't yet established significant international sales value. But how are they supposed to establish that value if they can't get the opportunities that would allow them to do so?
We're effectively asking the next generation of commercially valuable actors to become commercially valuable before we'll give them the films that might make them so. And agents aren't solely responsible for this. They're responding to the market.
It's the collective reliance on a narrow definition of bankability that's creating the bottleneck. What we need is a system that recognises established commercial value while deliberately creating opportunities to develop new talent. Otherwise, we'll continue recycling the same actors until their fees become increasingly difficult to justify, while excellent performers remain largely invisible.
Other Industries Have Already Worked This Out
Look at pharmaceuticals. Developing a new drug is enormously expensive, complicated and risky. Different companies contribute specialist expertise throughout the development process. Yet pharmaceutical businesses increasingly establish strategic relationships with research organisations, manufacturers and suppliers rather than treating every interaction as an isolated transaction. McKinsey's (www.mckinsey.com) research highlights the importance of shared objectives, transparent planning, aligned incentives and, in some partnerships, shared financial risk.
Again, these partnerships are generally coordinated by organisations that have the money to fund the work. That's an important distinction. The lesson isn't simply that everybody should collaborate. It's that collaboration works when somebody has established the commercial structure and financial commitment to make participation worthwhile.
Independent film already has elements of this approach. We have conditional minimum guarantees, approved cast lists, first-look arrangements, output deals and slate-financing partnerships. So why are we still having this conversation? Because these arrangements don't necessarily solve the problem for the wider independent sector.
Many depend upon established relationships, proven commercial track records or access to financing that emerging production companies simply don't possess. And some conditional commitments merely recreate the original problem: the money arrives when the right actor attaches, but that actor wants the money in place before committing.
We've created solutions that frequently require producers to have already overcome the very obstacles those solutions are supposed to remove. What we need isn't necessarily another financing instrument. We need to change how the existing instruments work together.
What If We Built a Proper Independent Film Ecosystem?
Imagine a distributor, an international sales company, a group of talent representatives and one or more financiers agreeing to work with a small number of independent production companies across a slate of films. Not an exclusive club. Not another arrangement where producers surrender control in exchange for access. A properly structured commercial partnership in which everyone has a reason to participate. Let's call it the Independent Film Partnership Model.
Here's how it could work.
1. Establish the commercial framework first.
Before producers spend months packaging individual projects, the participating sales companies and distributors establish which genres, budget ranges and audience demographics they're genuinely interested in. Not vague statements about wanting exciting material. Real commercial parameters. A contained horror film might make sense at $2 million. A particular thriller might have a realistic market at $5 million. Another project might require significantly more financing than the available marketplace can support. The point is to establish these realities at the beginning rather than discovering them after months of wasted work.
2. Establish a properly funded development and packaging facility.
This is the critical part. The participating financiers establish a modest, ring fenced fund that allows selected projects to progress through development and packaging. That money pays for meaningful work. Script development, budgeting, schedules, commercial assessments, casting and the legal preparation required to assemble credible financing packages. It gives producers sufficient financial credibility to approach talent with realistic production plans. It doesn't guarantee that every film gets made. But it means we're no longer asking producers to manufacture commercial certainty out of thin air.
3. Bring talent representatives into the process early.
Participating agencies identify clients genuinely interested in independent film opportunities. That might include established actors looking for interesting material alongside emerging performers ready for more substantial roles. Crucially, we're not creating another approved list containing the same twenty actors everyone already wants. Market estimates remain useful, but they should inform commercial decisions rather than dictate every creative decision. Distributors and sales companies could also use this arrangement to develop a better understanding of emerging talent's commercial potential. The objective is to expand the pool of viable actors, not reinforce the existing bottleneck.
4. Establish meaningful conditional commitments.
Instead of endless informal conversations, the participating distributors, sales companies and financiers establish clear criteria for moving projects forward. If a film meets an agreed combination of script quality, budget, casting, market potential and financing requirements, defined commercial commitments become available, subject to appropriate approvals and contracts. Everybody understands what is required. And everybody understands what happens next. Projects that don't satisfy those requirements can be redeveloped, resized or rejected before everyone wastes another six months. This doesn't remove commercial risk. It identifies it earlier.
5. Build relationships that continue beyond one film.
This is where the model becomes particularly interesting. Successful partnerships continue across multiple projects. The producer develops a better understanding of the distributor's needs. The sales company learns which types of films the producer can deliver successfully. Agents see that the production company can actually finance and complete films. Financiers develop confidence in a team with an established working relationship. Knowledge accumulates. Trust accumulates. And each subsequent film should become easier to assemble.
That's how an ecosystem develops. Naturally, participating companies would need to remain commercially independent, with casting and distribution decisions open to genuine competition. The point isn't to create another exclusive network that shuts people out. It's to create a structure that gives more people a viable way in.
But Where Does the Money Come From?
This is the obvious question. And it's worth addressing because it would be misleading to suggest there's an enormous amount of money waiting to finance independent films. There's capital available in the wider investment market. Convincing investors that independent film offers an attractive balance of risk and return is another matter entirely. And we shouldn't pretend otherwise.
That's precisely why the model needs disciplined development, realistic budgets and genuine commercial participation. A financier shouldn't have to underwrite an entire production simply because a producer has a good script. Equally, an actor shouldn't be expected to commit indefinitely to a project that has no realistic route to financing. But what if the parties who ultimately benefit from successful films contributed to the process of developing commercially viable packages?
Instead of relying entirely on speculative producer expenditure, the partnership could establish a comparatively small development fund, with carefully controlled investment across several projects. Projects would move through agreed stages, with additional funding released only when predefined commercial and creative requirements were satisfied.
A substantial production investment would remain conditional upon a properly evaluated project. The financial commitment required to establish whether that project is viable would be much smaller. And because multiple companies have a commercial interest in the outcome, the investment could potentially be shared. The crucial difference is that financial commitment comes early enough to make collaboration meaningful. Not after everybody else has already taken the risk.
Why Would Anyone Agree to This?
Because it needs to make commercial sense. There's no point designing a model that benefits producers but asks everybody else to participate out of goodwill.
Agents would benefit from a reliable pipeline of properly financed opportunities for their clients, including opportunities to develop the careers of actors who haven't yet established major international sales value.
Sales companies would gain access to projects developed with commercial considerations understood from the beginning.
Distributors would have earlier input into the kinds of films they actually want to acquire, alongside a more consistent supply of potentially suitable product.
Financiers would have access to better-developed packages, more transparent information and a process designed to identify commercially problematic projects before substantial production investment is required.
And producers would finally have a more credible route from development to production.
Nobody is guaranteed success. But everyone has an opportunity to benefit from a more efficient system. That's the incentive. And if the partnerships prove successful, the participants have every reason to continue working together.
The Bigger Opportunity
There's another benefit that shouldn't be overlooked. This approach could help address the creative recession facing independent film. When financing depends so heavily upon a handful of established actors and narrow commercial expectations, originality becomes difficult to support. Filmmakers end up adapting their scripts to satisfy the package rather than assembling the right package to serve the script. And that's the wrong way round.
A functioning partnership model could create space for films that take genuine creative risks while maintaining sensible financial discipline. It could support emerging directors, introduce new actors to international audiences and give established performers opportunities to work on material they might otherwise never encounter. It could also allow production companies to develop sustainable slates rather than permanently gambling their existence on getting one film financed.
There will still be failures. There should be. Not every film deserves to be made and not every good script is necessarily a commercially viable proposition. But the current system can prevent projects from reaching production for reasons that have remarkably little to do with the quality of the material. That's what needs to change.
Conclusion: Stop Making It So Difficult
Independent filmmaking is never going to be easy. It's expensive, unpredictable and commercially challenging. Nobody should pretend otherwise. But there's a difference between the unavoidable difficulties of making a film and the entirely avoidable difficulties created by the industry's own business practices.
We're operating in an industry where almost everybody ultimately benefits from successful films being produced. Yet individual companies frequently have very little incentive to help get those films made. And it's the independent producer who carries much of the burden of bridging that divide.
Other industries have worked out that collaboration becomes commercially valuable when the participants establish shared objectives, meaningful commitments and long-term relationships. It's about time we did the same. We don't need agents to stop protecting their clients. We don't need distributors to stop making commercial decisions. And we certainly don't need financiers to start throwing money at projects without proper scrutiny.
We need to give all of them a genuine commercial reason to work together earlier, supported by financial structures that turn relationships into commitments. Because the future of independent film shouldn't depend upon endlessly chasing people who are waiting for somebody else to make the first move.
Maybe the future isn't about finding another way around the system. Maybe it's about finally joining the system up.
Sources & Further Reading
The following sources support the industry research and comparisons used in this article. The Independent Film Partnership Model is a proposed approach, not an existing programme evaluated by these sources.
Market and Audience Insights – Feature Film - Screen Australia
Screen Australia's analysis of marketplace participation, sales agents, minimum guarantees, presales and the challenges of assembling independent-film financing. The figures relate to 119 Australian funding applications, not a global industry census.
How and why we’re changing the BFI Film Fund | BFI
The BFI's 2017 explanation of how uncertainty surrounding production finance can undermine talent attachments and why greater financing certainty can help producers engage actors and agents.
Global Website | 75 Years of Toyota | Section 7. The Functions that Supported Globalization | Item 2. Reducing Cost and Ensuring Quality
Toyota's account of involving suppliers from the earliest stages of product development, illustrating how collaboration can reduce costs and improve manufacturing efficiency.
A new vision for pharma R&D–supplier partnerships | McKinsey
McKinsey's January 2025 analysis of pharmaceutical partnerships, examining shared objectives, transparent planning, aligned incentives and collaborative commercial structures.
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