Medicine for Melancholy film

Nofilmschool has a really great interview with filmmaker Barry Jenkins, who recently directed the indie feature Medicine for Melancholy. The film was made DIY on a low budget and won awards at the Sarasota, Woodstock, and San Francisco International film festivals and garnered three Spirit Award nominations.

I haven’t seen the film yet, but from seeing the trailer alone, I want to see this as soon as.

Medicine for Melancholy trailer

Here are some quotes from the interview on nofilmschool. You must check out the full article on the nofilmschool site as its a really good read. It is really encouraging to hear from filmmakers like Barry Jenkins.

The trick is, and this is something we know in hindsight, is that if you make a DIY film, whether it sells or not, you better go through its release with the same mentality. Be out there, be hustling your work, be doing it yourself.

And now the candid shit: get as much as you can reasonably get upfront. This has always been true of distribution. Even though the numbers are much smaller, it’s especially true of DIY distribution. When you sell your film, keep the back-end on the back end and get as much up front as you reasonably can.

….in today’s world it’s easier to NOT buy a film than it is to buy one, especially a DIY flick. That’s just the reality of a world where there are more and more films being made at such low costs.

DIY is as fine a medium as any to showcase talent. It’s navigating the rigors of a Hollywood production that’s missing.

…smaller content creators will deliver projects at such conservative costs that the threshold for profiting from them will be extremely favorable.

…the web space makes it the perfect place to exhibit content that captures an audience while subtly promoting brands.

You can buy the DVD here or watch through Netflix.

The full article can be read at nofilmschool