New Filmmakers in the Time of Covid-19: The Minuses, the Minuses—and the Plus

Sabrina Doyle on set. (Photo by Henry Drayton)

Taking the first steps into filmmaking on a professional basis and subsequently developing that career in its early stages are paths that have ever presented challenges and uncertainties above and beyond those encountered in other fields. Finding one’s voice, honing one’s craft, getting oneself noticed in the saturation of competition, aspiration, and general noise, each presenting a hurdle to be overcome, have never by themselves been sufficient guarantee of success without the added contingencies of luck and circumstance. Will the screenplay of the talented filmmaker be noticed by the appropriate enablers? Will the sensibility of the material and its cultural focus mesh with the zeitgeist? Will the filmmaker prove their mettle when it comes to the actual making of the movie? Whatever might be the state of the nation and the world once the movie is ready for release, there remain battles to be fought over festival screenings and distribution. With the arrival of Covid-19, these steep mountains to climb were transformed into the sheerness of a cliff-face. Moving from screenplay to production became tougher than ever. Shoots, in so many parts of the US, became supremely tricky: how does one block a scene given the imperative of social distancing, how are notes to be given to the cast on set, what about the communication between departments, a dialogue of both clarity and nuance, and how does consultation with Covid-19 advisors impact these aspects of physical production? Once a film has been completed, filmmakers find festival screenings, festivals themselves severely disrupted, while the distribution one hopes will follow has been left in the throes of continuing uncertainty. Should the filmmakers wait for a release on the big screen, not knowing how long that wait will be? Or should they go for streaming in order to get the film out into the world? Hard for anyone, even the most experienced practitioner, to know.

As former head of the directing program at AFI Conservatory in Los Angeles, which I left in the summer of 2018, I decided to glean the experiences and consequent insights of my alumni who have been dealing with this situation. Writer-director Sabrina Doyle, for example, wrapped her first feature Lorelei at the end of 2018. She would have finished post-production early this year were it not for the onset of the virus. The indie’s premiere was scheduled for Tribeca in April but with only weeks to go the screening was canceled. “It was a real sucker punch,” Doyle says, “because you hope for that kind of splashy premiere to launch your film and career, and that just went away in an instant, and the industry didn’t step in and collectively come up with a plan for all the indies, like mine, that lost their big SXSW or Tribeca moments.” She explained that Tribeca is inviting this year’s films back next year, a gesture she very much appreciates, although by then domestic distribution deals are likely to have been worked out. The moment, in other words, will have been lost. This process happens now via online screeners—just not the same as the buzz of a festival and its audiences. Fortunately, Lorelei was invited into competition at the Deauville American Film Festival where it won the Jury Award, and one hopes it will  now achieve the distribution it deserves.

Zoé Wittock was somewhat luckier with her astonishing debut Jumbo, the movie premiering at Sundance in January of this year before screening at Berlin at the end of February, thus slipping in before the pandemic stole the headlines along with the regularity of life for so many of us. So far so good but then Covid-19 stepped in and the film's initial theatrical release in Belgium had to be scrapped, switched instead to VOD in March. The movie’s been screening theatrically in France and has been released in Canada, while Dark Star has acquired distribution rights in the US. Its inclusion in the “New Voices” section of AFI Fest had just been announced. Jumbo is a distinctive film from a film maker with a distinctive voice. In steadier times it would surely be winning more notice, but its take is so fresh it's likely to pick up more of its enthusiastic following over the coming months. 

Another feature debut from AFI alumni screening at this year’s Sundance was the mischievous Palm Springs. Directed by Max Barbakow, written by Andy Siara, the movie broke the Sundance sales record, being picked up by Hulu for streaming and by Neon for a limited theatrical release. Without Covid however, but with audiences in movie theaters across the nation in thrall to its agile plotting and generous heart, it would surely have garnered a wider devoted following. 

AFI alum Dubois Ashong was a week away from the start of shooting in the Dominican Republic for his debut feature Geechee, starring Andrea Riseborough, when Coronavirus made itself known to the world and the producers were forced to bring the entire unit home. After weeks of uncertainty, Ashong was able to return to his locations in late July, the production withstanding both a passing hurricane and a crew member catching the virus. The screenplay to his movie, which tells the story of a haunting by the souls of enslaved Africans, is both terrifying and deeply moving. Very much a film for our times, Geechee promises to be more than deserving of a theatrical release—maybe when the time comes that might be possible. It is of great concern then, and sad news indeed, that the shoot has been currently shut down after a crew member was injured in a mistaken ambush by local police. Thankfully they are apparently not seriously hurt. Covid-19, it would seem, is far from the sole problem to assail the new generation of filmmakers.

Dubois Ashong on the Set of Geechee (Photo by Carlos Rodriguez)

Fortune on the other hand, with the assistance of their considerable talent of course, has thus far favored other AFI alumni who have a not immediately been in production, at least as directors. Deft comedienne Oran Zegman has been slated by Tri-Star to direct the remake of Troop Beverly Hills as her directorial debut. Mattson Tomlin meanwhile, who when we met earlier this year, informed me that he works on eight or nine screenplays every day as a screenwriter—a boast I believe, given his astonishing capacity for productive endeavor—and having written the screenplays to both The Batman and Netflix’s current hit Project Power, is now directing the sci-fi thriller Mother/Android for Miramax. Even a global pandemic, it seems, hasn't blocked the progress of these alumni.

Indeed, the most daunting challenges in these troubled times are perhaps those facing aspiring filmmakers either still at film school or just beginning their adventure. The expense in terms of finance and time of attendance is no laughing matter, nor does a film student have the certainty of a career, as many of their contemporaries in other less unpredictable professions might have. They need to be strong-willed and yet I rarely found any fellow at AFI Conservatory to be arrogant or entitled. What struck me most was their courage—impressive in the face of their embarkation on such a high-risk path—which has been supported by programs tried and tested over decades to meet their needs. Film schools in the current climate, certainly those on the West Coast, and certainly those for whom production and learning by doing is at the core of their pedagogy, have needed to adjust curricula years in their evolution in order to adapt to current circumstances. How much of an impact such changes will prove to have on the development of students is difficult to assess, while the inevitable uncertainty of such adaptive approaches alone can hardly have been reassuring for those who succeed in achieving admission to the top schools only in the face of intense competition.

Alum Hao Zheng by contrast, was fortunate to come out of AFI Conservatory in 2019 with a student Academy award for his thesis The Chef. Already a couple of projects previously scheduled for current production have been pushed, thanks to Covid-19. Invited also to Disney’s new Launchpad program for directors, he has to be finding it particularly frustrating not to be embarking on this new adventure but having to wait. Hao tells me he's been busy though. “I never call myself a writer-director as I love collaborating with other writers,” he says. “But this ‘down time’ allowed me to spend more time on reading and practicing my own writing.” He says he’s been using the time to catch up with his fellow filmmakers. “I think because we have more free time now and are desperate for social connection we actually talk a lot more with each other than before, sharing our ideas and perspectives.” The silver lining to a dearth of production perhaps? A time for reflection, for learning, for consolidating one’s understanding of one’s craft, for developing new material. and for communicating with peers—maybe then, just maybe, all is not yet lost…

Peter Markham   October 2020