“In periods of great challenge come periods of great opportunity and I think we’re living through that right now,” Megan Colligan, President of new U.S. distributor Row K Entertainment, told a panel on the economics of indie distribution at the Zurich Summit on Saturday.
The former Imax Entertainment President, and before that Paramount Pictures exec, was at the Zurich Film Festival’s industry summit for the first time, and just five weeks after she was announced in her position at Media Capital Technologies-backed Row K.
“The reason I tend to be so optimistic is because there’s a lot of different kinds of content and we’re consuming content at an alarming rate. Just have your phone tell you how much you were looking at things these last couple of days. It’s amazing and it’s only on the rise,” she told the panel.
“The other thing that is also on rise is the experiential economy. It’s growing and growing, meaning people are wanting to take out their wallet, and to go out do things, all kinds of things, and movies are going to continue to benefit.”
She added that whether a distributor was handling a documentary in the vein of Becoming Led Zeppelin or a Christopher Nolan movie, they had to create an event around its launch.
“That becomes a challenge when you have small budgets and maybe even a small movie. But it’s about figuring out who your target audience is and using digital, which democratizes that process, and allows you to find an audience and create an experience for a group of people.”
Colligan was joined on the panel by 193 CEO Patrick Wachsberger, Sony Pictures Classics Co-President Michael Barker and 30West Co-President & COO Daniel Steinman.
Awards & Festival Selections
The discussion touched on the impact of A-list festival selections and wins as well as victory at the Academy Awards.
SPC’s Barker talked anecdotally about the company’s involvement in Brazilian director Walter Salles’ political drama I’m Still Here, which was a box office hit at Brazil at the same time as enjoying a buzzy awards season, ultimately winning the Best International Feature Film Oscar as well as being nominated in the Best Picture category.
He suggested the company’s involvement in the film was quasi written in the stars, following its previous collaboration with Salles on Central Station, more than 25 years previously.
“In 2019 Cannes, Walter Salles asked me to meet with him in Vincent Maravel’s office,” he said referring to the French sales agent and producer.
“We had a two-and-a-half-hour session. He literally told me the entire story of I’m Still Here. It was unbelievable… He said, ‘It’s going to take me several years to do it and once it’s done, I have all the faith in the world that we’re going to be doing it together because we had Central Station together,” he continued.
“I have to thank Walter, CAA and Vincent Maravel for helping make that happen when the moment came but I do think in a way, it was kind of meant to be. It was also fortuitous, because we try to buy as many countries as we can, that Sony had Brazil as well because it was a huge triumph in Brazil.”
He recounted how they had kicked the awards season campaign off in L.A. just as fires were ravaging the city, and then suggested it was co-star Fernanda Torre’s Golden Globe win for Best Actress that had helped put the spotlight on the film in the final stages of the campaign.
Colligan cautioned that while an awards win could change a film’s fortune at the box office, distributors needed to make calculated choices, given the industry that has sprung up around awards campaigns and the subsequent costs.
“If you’re capable of getting nominations, if you’re capable of getting a win, it’s a massive change to the fate of your movie,” she said.
“It’s a choice though, because especially at the independent studio level, you’re taking a chunk of money and putting a bet on that versus putting a bet on something else,” she added.
Barker said the biggest challenge of an award campaign was getting Academy voters to see the film.
The panelists also debated the power of a Venice or Cannes selection, with Wachsberger suggesting Venice was now better placed in the calendar for awards runs in the main categories, while Steinman said he felt Cannes had gained extra cachet with audiences more generally in recent years.
“Actual award wins and even nominations feel authentic and organic in a way that’s more necessary than it used to be,” said Steinman.
He touched on past comments from Neon head Tom Quinn on the positive Cannes effect which did not exist “even half a generation ago”.
“I see it with my own kids,” said Steinman. “ One would think that Gen Z wouldn’t care at all about a very old, kind of storied and a little old folk-sy, maybe, film festival and market, but I think the opposite is true actually. They’re looking for something to grab onto.”
Barker suggested, however, that the importance of awards for independent films was nothing new.
“They has always been a lifeline for the independent films. The fact that they are more numerous now is great for all of us. But the Academy has always paid attention, for as long as I’ve been doing this.”
Hot Button Films
The panel also tackled how festival buzz or an Academy Award does not always guarantee a U.S. indie deal, especially for films on hot button subjects.
The issue was raised in relation to the fact that 2025 Best Documentary Oscar winner No Other Land, about settler violence in the West Bank, was eschewed by U.S. distributors, while more recently Venice Silver Bear – Grand Jury Prize winner The Voice of Hind Rajab, about the killing of a six-year-old girl by Israeli forces in Gaza, has also yet to secure theatrical distribution in the U.S.
Barker said he did would have to think about The Voice of Hind Rajab but did comment on No Other Land, saying that SPC’s decision not to acquire the film was based purely on projections around its box office potential.
“I really liked that film, but we looked at what the theatrical possibilities were long before the film won the Oscar, and we didn’t feel that the film would do well in the box office theatrically. That is why we didn’t pursue that film.”
Talking more generally, Barker said a thorny topic would never stop SPC from acquiring a film.
“I don’t really think about that. I’ve had a lot of movies with difficult subjects. What I think about, and so do my partners in the Sony Classics team, is, ‘Is there audience for the film theatrically and will people go to see that film theatrically, and can we reach them?’. If we feel we can’t reach them we’re not going to pursue them,” he said. “It’s not because of an incendiary plot point or whatever.”
Wachsberger pushed back, countering: “I think there are subjects today that people are basically concerned about getting involved in.”
He asked whether a work like Michael Moore’s 2002 documentary Bowling for Columbine, about the 1999 Columbine High School Massacre, would get a release today.
Colligan, however, concurred with Barker, saying: “Your time is not infinite and your money is not infinite. You have to watch a movie and say. ‘I believe that I and my team know how to deliver this movie to an audience in a theater’. You have to feel inspired that you’re the right home for that movie and that you’re capable of delivering that.”
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