spoke digital films

Brave New Films Director Robert Greenwald stumbled upon a new and highly successful form of self-distribution with his film Uncovered: The War on Iraq. He’s now offering some of those same distribution tools to anyone who wants to use them, free of charge, through Brave New Theaters.

Director Robert Greenwald

Having had a career as a successful Hollywood producer, Greenwald made the muckraking Uncovered documentary as labor of love (or labor of outrage), due to his frustrations with what he saw as a timid and impotent mainstream media afraid to challenge the Bush Administration. At some point during the making of the film, he was asked how he planned to distribute it and realized he didn’t know. Given the unabashed political rhetoric in the film, he realized traditional avenues of distribution wouldn’t work. Eventually he teamed up with activist groups Moveon.org and People for the American Way who used their mailing lists to send out email campaigns offering links to buy the film. Greenwald said he had hoped he might sell maybe two or three thousand in total. After the first week, however, they had ten thousand orders. It was then that Greenwald realized he had stumbled upon something powerful.

Greenwald went on to produce the films Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, and other politically charged films. Capitalizing on the success of Uncovered, Greenwald and his activist partners decided to use the idea of home screenings. Through email campaigns, people could sign up to screen a film in their home (or their business or their community center). Once the home screenings were established, another email campaign began providing links to a website where people could type in their zip code and find a home screening near them. The model was wildly successful.

So, what is Brave New Theaters? Basically, it’s an online portal that allows you to provide information and links to your completed film. Through the Brave New Theaters website, people can learn about your film and host a screening, just like the model Greenwald used for his films. Others can then type in their zip code to see if there’s a screening in their area. That’s basically what Brave New Theaters provides, an online interface so that people can find your film, schedule a screening, or look for a screening in their area. It’s your job to direct people to the site and generate interest. No, Brave New Films is not providing their general mailing lists or the lists of associated groups like Moveon.org. However, they do send a link to your film to everyone who has ever screened one of their past films, which is pretty cool. For the right film, this tool could really help.

Robert Greenwald has received some criticism within the documentary community for “preaching to the choir” or for making one-sided films with little nuance. Greenwald says the goal of his documentaries is, first and foremost, to generate activism - not to create artistic masterpieces or Oscar winners. Whatever you think of his films, you can’t deny his success in creating a new form of distribution or that he has accomplished his stated goal of generating activism. I’m looking forward to seeing how Brave New Theaters evolves and whether it inspires any copycat services. I predict that a least a few people will wind up with highly successful uses of the tool.