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The end of analogue: Is Australian film distribution dead?
Why do some local films fail at the box office when others of much the same quality succeed? How are audiences changing the ways they access local films? How effective is the existing theatrical distribution architecture in delivering local content to audiences?
What’s behind the recent successes of Red Dog, The Sapphires and Bran Nue Dae? Despite the fortunes of these isolated titles, this Platform Paper asserts that the Australian film industry is holding on to an archaic approach to distribution that is maladjusted to the diversifying ways audiences access screen content. For too long, policymakers have conflated the ‘film industry’ with ‘the production sector’ and chronically ignored marketing, distribution and exhibition as key factors that engage audiences and create demand for local films. Distribution, rather than an impartial series of mechanisms through which completed films reach their demanding audiences, is in fact a problem requiring a solution for Australian filmmakers.
There are filmmakers who are experimenting with innovative distribution and marketing strategies that are responsive to audiences, and focused on accessible and easily available means of film delivery. Can online and informal distribution can be formalised into new approaches that are inexpensive to filmmakers and responsive to the multiform ways in which audiences connect with films? What can digital do for Australian film?