What's a Nothing Bogus?
Plus: How arthouse distributor Zeitgeist Films has made it 35 years!
Hello, and welcome to… another newsletter! I’m Max Cea, and if you’re getting this, it’s because you signed up. Maybe you don’t remember. I’ll refresh your memory…
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Nothing Bogus is an indie film hub for what you NEED & what you CAN OFFER. A place to list jobs, services, equipment, props; to find collaborators; to find community; to find that very specific haunted doll you're looking for…
Here’s an example:
Raymond Knudsen is seeking paid work as a producer or production supervisor/manager on features, shorts, commercials, etc. He most recently supervised an upcoming union feature titled THE DUTCHMAN and coordinated a union commercial for Uber Eats/Burger King. Contact him at rknudsenfilm@gmail.com.
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And what else is this thing?
In addition to the listings, I’ll try to include some sort of indie film dispatch in each issue. A feature presentation, if you will. Hopefully this will be fun or valuable or interesting. (If it’s not, the answer is undoubtedly more resources, so feel free to upgrade to a paid tier.) First up is…
8 Questions With: Zeitgeist Films Founders Emily Russo and Nancy Gerstman
Thirty five years ago, Nancy Gerstman and Emily Russo — friends and fellow theatrical bookers — took a trip out to Jersey City. They were there to see some office space a former colleague of Gerstman’s had offered her. The space was huge. Big enough that it was tempting to overlook the then less-than-desirable neighborhood. Over lunch, they soured on the space but warmed to the idea of working together — united by their film taste and shared desire to be their own bosses.
Together, they founded Zeitgeist Films, which would quickly become a premiere arthouse distributor (by their second year of business they already had an Oscar nomination, for Bruce Weber’s Chet Baker documentary Let’s Get Lost). For an office, they opted for a tiny space within a gift business in the West Village. The choice reflects the ethos that would come to define Zeitgeist: The company has persevered by staying small, shrewd, and committed to quality. Through the years, it has consistently released only five or six films per year, and only films Gerstman and Russo both love.
This month, Metrograph has been commemorating Zeitgeist’s 35-year anniversary with Zeitgeist Films at 35, a small, but rich sampling of the 200+ films Zeitgeist has distributed throughout its impressive run — including early work from the likes of Todd Haynes, Guy Maddin, Laura Poitras, and Olivier Assayas. I took the occasion to ask Gerstman and Russo about the company’s beginnings, their approach to distribution, and the series.
When you started Zeitgeist in 1988, was there a hole in the indie distribution market that you thought needed to be filled?
Nancy: I guess there were some distributors of indie films, but mostly there were not. Our first films found us. A couple of filmmakers we had been friends with asked us if we wanted to distribute their films. So it was a lot different than right now. It was an open field.
Emily: But I think we also felt that we were going to limit our selections to five or six films and that we'd give each one very specialized handling and really care about them and be selective about what we took. And those were not necessarily films other companies had been following.
What did being hands-on mean more practically?
Emily: It was just Nancy and me for the first three years of our business, so we did everything — the marketing, the booking, the collections, the shipping. It was a very mom-and-mom kind of operation. So we could assure our filmmakers that the buck stopped there with the two of us.
Nancy: And when we grew, it was slow and organic and we still only did five films a year. One of the criteria for us picking films has always been films that we love.
How did you approach marketing for the initial films?
Emily: With Poison, it was just riding an opportunity. I remember we went over the materials and the marketing with Todd [Haynes]. He had a lot of ideas. He sketched out a number of concepts for the campaign. In those days everything was done by hand. When we moved Poison from its initial three month run at the Anjelica to midnight shows at the Waverly, we designed a little flier that said, "Have you had your poison yet?"
We did everything very economically, so we had to be very creative about how we would get the word out about things. And frankly, that's the reason we were able to stay in business for 35 years. All these competing companies had money to throw around, and they never made that money back and eventually they went out of business. And because we didn't have that money to start with, when a film would be a success, we would actually make money on it. It was almost like an industry secret that nobody ever saw overage. You'd get your money upfront from your distributor and then you'd never see any overage. With Zeitgeist, you didn't get much up front but eventually you saw money if the film worked.
What were some of the ways you got creative with a small budget?
Emily: We worked with festivals a lot. We were not against taking money from sources that would support the film. Like if we did a French film, Unifrance would often contribute and bring the filmmaker in. We'd set up a screening, that sort of thing. We did a lot of Canadian, German, and French films because there was a subsidy available.
Nancy: One of our secret weapons was our designer, Adrian Curry, who's now the head of design at Kino Lorber. Our business got much more sophisticated when he came on board. He is amazing. He does Movie Poster of the Day.
Emily: We were always very meticulous about design. We tried to create really good trailers. We were thoughtful and careful about what we did. Each film had its own approach. When we worked with Guy Maddin it was different from when we worked with Abbas Kiarostami. We would also find the right theater in New York. It was so important to launch it correctly in New York because New York led the rest of the country. If it could do well in New York, we could almost always pick up more screens around the country — it's somewhat still like that today — so we'd try to work with Film Forum or the Lincoln Plaza Cinema or the Anjelica occasionally. And then just try to open things at the right time.
How has your approach changed?
Nancy: It's much different. We're still taking the same strategy of five films a year. But it's harder to get play dates in theaters. We used to be able to get many, and now if we get 50, 75, we're lucky. You have to really have something that will attract people away from their screens. And now there are other really great [arthouse distribution] companies out there, too. We're not the only player.
Do you have advice for independent filmmakers who have made a movie on a shoestring budget and are wondering what to do with it?
Emily: They should've thought of that first! Don't make a movie before you think through what you're going to do with it.
Obviously there are more film festivals out there than ever before, so try to get into some film festivals, because that's where you'll be able to see it with an audience and see how it plays and see if it gets some steam and builds up from that. And if a film can't make it into the top film festivals, there are plenty of regional ones where it could potentially be shown. It's kind of a valid life for a film these days, to just play festivals and not ever really be theatrically released.
At a moment like this when you’re given the chance to look back and reflect on the work you’ve done, what comes up for you?
Emily: I think one of the things that distinguishes the films is how timeless they are. New audiences can see them for the first time, and they hold up. That's really gratifying to see.
Is there one film remaining in the series you can spotlight for people to go out and see?
Emily: Towards the end of the retrospective we're going to be premiering this new 4k restoration of Archangel from Guy Maddin. Guy is one of the filmmakers we've worked with multiple times. This was the first film of his we distributed. And he'll be there December 1st and 2nd. And Nancy and I will be there on the 1st, and we'll be doing a Q&A afterwards.
See also:
Richard Brody wrote a nice piece about Zeitgeist — and the company’s role in bringing the films of Abbas Kiarostami to American audiences — in the New Yorker.
Lastly, a short appreciation…
I dug this Johnny Look film about a struggling country singer inflicting pain on his ghost-worm-write in order to produce a hit about heartache. It’s a good, much-needed reminder to be nice to your pets and muses and pet-muses…