Sometimes I wonder if indie filmmaking is worth the hassle. Every Monday I do accounting, updating spreadsheets, tracking the business expenses and sales. Almost every week there are columns marked in bold and red — money still owed. Sometimes these owed columns don’t change for months. Sometimes years.

As I write this, I have been emailing IndieFlix since October 2023, chasing payments owed since 2021. These payments are pennies, under $100, but since their policy is to payout every quarter if earnings are above a $1 threshold, I think it is fair to expect the license agreement we signed to be honoured.

IndieFlix is a funny one. We have two films with them, Friends, Foes & Fireworks and Daughter, going back to the start of 2019. In the beginning they reported and paid on time every quarter and our films would earn a small amount on their platform, barely over three figures. But then one year into the deal a funny pattern would begin to emerge: every quarter like clockwork they would still send the reports but always forget the follow-up part… actually paying the money owed.

Despite filmmaking being more democratized than ever before with readily available technology enabling almost anyone who wants to make a movie able to do so, film distribution remains somewhat obfuscated. They don’t teach you the business of selling movies in film school.

So many filmmakers are left naïve, confused on what to do with their completed film, and gullible to the sweet words and empty promises (and one-sided boilerplate contracts) of the many sharks out there also known as film distributors.

Here is a sad story we have seen play out time and again. Broke independent filmmaker finishes their first feature after many years of blood, sweat and tears. Broke filmmaker signs a contract with a shady distributor …

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