Let's stop stanning studios in 2026

How virality is being exploited by independent film companies.

For many aspiring filmmakers, we are pushed down to earth from our dreams to land on the main path towards filmmaking. It is inaccessible; a road where success is compromised by the wills of increasingly cowardly studio executives and original art is disregarded. There is another path; it’s narrow, cloaked in thorns of audience oversight and financial failures, but artistic freedom is a little bit of a safer bet.

With fewer compromises for the artist, independent film companies have been able to grow in commercial and critical success. A24 is one example. The company began distributing films in 2012. Since then, they have expanded into film and television production. Neon, a festival favourite, has joined A24 in the ranks along with Mubi, mostly known for its streaming service boasting a great selection of films. Independent filmmakers are now reaping rewards that were thought only possible for mainstream studios. Independent films can also boast a dedicated fanbase, box office success and award contenders. Film studio conglomerates led artists and audiences to believe that artistic freedom was an unnatural pairing with commercial and critical acclaim. We know now that this is artificial manufacturing, an excuse to prioritize profit over engaging storytelling.

Independent filmmakers and companies have a presence on social media that their mainstream rivals lack. The popularity of independent films on social media is something everyone wishes to emulate, however, once you create something with the intention of it going viral, you have already failed. In news about upcoming films, A24 is mentioned before the director or screenwriter. In this aim to capitalise on the studio’s name, publications dismiss the aim independent film has in giving more voice to the filmmakers. It also encourages a very unusual and disturbing way to discuss new art, as evidenced in this The Hollywood Reporter article below about an adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death, set to be directed by Charlie Polinger with Mickey Madison in talks to star:

A24 is not an artist and the conflation of the studio’s distribution and production efforts with the artists actually making these films is dangerous. This is a problem in culture journalism: writers replicating the prose on social media in their writing for virality. Posts on social media using ‘A24 film’ as an adjective to describe everything from an aesthetic Instagram post to a Sabrina Carpenter music video should not be inspiring journalists to mimic this text.

Internet culture being placed at the forefront of art criticism is why it’s suffering and subsequently, so is art. Art criticism is being offset to unqualified sycophants on social media. Press has become less about the film and more about what trends studios know about. For example, their awareness of the “daddy” trend on social media to describe an attractive man means that Pedro Pascal continues to be dogged by such questions and a reporter asked Chase Infiniti, star of One Battle After Another, what it was like to call Leonardo DiCaprio ‘daddy’ on set. Press interviews are not so short that nothing of substance can be discussed. As evidenced from the removal of the Chase Infiniti interview, this method rarely generates positive buzz for the film. Virality seeks to court relatability and relatability is what is harming the creation and criticism of art.

This difference to film that independent film has brought to the industry would of course inspire admiration among audiences and artists. But it’s hard to ignore how stan culture bleeds into the admiration and how that has encouraged the brandification of independent film companies and emboldened them to participate in typical corporate behaviour: betrayal. While betrayal might sound like the parasociality that I’m imploring us to abandon,there is no other word better to describe how artists and audiences feel to be abandoned by a space that they were led to believe that prioritized them.

Sidelining stories by marginalised artists

Independent studios are beloved for their selection of distributed films: tender, original, personal narratives written, directed, and starring POC that stand out among the sequels, reboots and remakes that mainstream studios are often producing on a conveyor belt. A24, in particular, made sure that audiences knew about these films and that they were seen. There has been a concerning lack of effort to promote these narratives. Last year it was Sing Sing (2024), elevated by Coleman Domingo’s stellar performance, this year it was Highest 2 Lowest, directed by Spike Lee and starring Denzel Washington. The film marks the fifth collaboration between two of America’s greatest artists yet the film immediately went to streaming on Apple TV, preceded by an insulting short release in cinemas that did not reach past the Atlantic, excluding the international audience that A24 had created with its diverse stories.

Contrary to popular belief, the limitation of marginalized people from films is not normal and it is hurtful when companies who you believe to be empathetic to that hurt show otherwise. We were led to believe A24’s introduction to film marked a new beginning that would ensure that stories that centred Black people in all their complexities could be seen on the big screen. Instead, independent film is following streaming companies’ march of doom by introducing another compromise for an artist: the loss of opportunity for a cinema release. The march moves towards the path of mainstream studios, independent film companies are straying away from an ethos that they created. They infringe on artists’ freedoms just like everyone else.

A.I

Once again A24 is at the scene of the crime with their announcement of introducing an A.I division this summer. Scott Belsky, a partner at A24 stated in The New Yorker that the technology will “explore the full landscape of their imagination.” The imagination of filmmakers isn’t limited by technology, it’s limited by poor funding within the independent film industry and it is not in such a dire place that you’d invest the little funds it has into a technology that only seeks to destroy filmmakers. The lack of consideration for artists is further underlined by the responses to this investment. Daniel Kwan, the co-director and co-writer of multi-award winning Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), has stated that A.I is “fundamentally incompatible with our institutions.” We’re already seeing A.I being used as an excuse to further exclude POC from the industry. A24 is turning their back on the filmmakers that helped build their name through this decision.

Investment in genocide

The scorning of artists and audiences by independent film companies goes beyond corporate greed and into an absolute absence of humanity. In May, it was revealed that MUBI had received a $100 million investment from Sequoia Capital. The Silicon Valley based firm in turn has invested in multiple companies such as Apple and Google, companies that are complicit in genocide in Congo as well. Sequoia has also invested in Kela, a defense tech firm based in occupied Palestine, founded in July 2024. Israel’s occupation of Palestine has killed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, though that figure is a very poor estimate. Those who are still alive are being starved and ethnically cleansed from their home. For MUBI to brand themselves as accessible internationally while taking money from companies that are committing a genocide of artists in Palestine is nothing short of despicable. In April, Fatima Hassoun, a Palestinian journalist was killed with seven members of her family before her documentary was set to premiere at Cannes. In July, Adweh Hathaleen, who helped make Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land (2024), was also killed by Israel. The money from Sequoia may help MUBI grow as a company but the investment is a devastating disparity to the art it wishes to champion.

Independent film companies’ exploitation of virality spotlights how quantity doesn’t equal quality. The numbers of these companies, the number of fans and funds doesn’t ensure an expansion of options for independent filmmakers. They have hid behind our beaming praise to cloud the environment of the film industry even more. Their goodwill is so surface level that we’ve hit our heads on the shallow floor. In spite of that injury, we will not lose consciousness. In 2026, we put our fan merch away and put on our thinking caps. We will continue what they have abandoned: to place humanity at the forefront of our art.