What is an Indie?

[Ron in LA]

What makes a movie an indie? Guess we know it when we see it, but former indie directors make mainstream movies, and regular actors appear in both, and subsidiaries of major studios finance and promote "indies". What makes them indies? Budget not to exceed "X"? Why was Mulholland Drive left out of the IFP West awards? Is it like the Special Olympics? The best of unpopular movies?

It's not like Lord of the Rings was made by an agency of the federal government. All of the studios are "independent". (Sort of.) (Or elso none of them are.)

I think IFP West had a major identity crisis in the March 23 awards show from Santa Monica. Why invite Nicole Kidman? And how could you miss the irony of shamelessy hawking coroporate sponsors like Motorola and Starbucks while claiming that the claim to fame is escape from commercialism?

[movieDUDE68686]

I think your prime example of an indie is "Memento". They usually do not play around where the big theaters are. They usually are only playing in one theater in a few cities (usually philly, nyc, la, chicago, and chicago).

Another thing is that Memento was fantastic, and most indies turn out to be (traffic.... <which started out as one> )

[Jordan]

Actually, the term "indie" refers to a film that was made outside of the studio system. Indies may get picked up by companies like Miramax or Lion's Gate for distribution--these companies go shopping for films at the festivals. Rather than being "greenlighted" for production by a studio and funded by the studio, indies are made with whatever funding the film makers can raise. If the film makers are lucky, companies will be interested enough to buy the movie for big bucks. I don't suppose this is a complete answer, but you get the general idea?

[the saw is family]

well the true definition of and indie is a film that is completely payed for byt he filmmaker or investors,a studio is not involved at all. thats is why there are really not that many true indies left. also just because a film gets a limited release and plays at smaller theatres does not make it and independent film. those are art films a big differnce between an art film and an indie.

[CWM]

The best-known indie films that (kinda) gave birth to the genre were Steven Soderbergh's "Sex, Lies & Videotape" and Robert Rodriguez' "El Mariachi". Both films were produced for a relatively small amount of money, and were both critically and financially succesful.

"The Blair Witch Project", though severely hyped, was essentially an indie as well ...