Communication and International Relations

Independent films are playing an increasingly powerful role in shattering a media marketplace saturated with ethnocentric franchises. The production of high-end yet inexpensive digital film equipment is chipping away at the soft power of large media conglomerates.

Do corporations like Disney have a lot of power? Of course they do. But in a marketplace where new technologies like non-linear editing and digital cameras give power to the less wealthy consumer, we will soon witness a decline in the power of multi-billion dollar media enterprises.

As Director Francis Ford Coppola said in 2007, “cinema is escaping being controlled by the financier, and that’s a wonderful thing. You don’t have to go hat-in-hand to some film distributor and say, ‘Please will you let me make a movie?’” And with Digital Cinema reducing the cost of printing films for multiple venues, digital filmmakers are quickly gaining similar opportunities as the majors.

The Internet as a distribution channel has also revolutionized the ability of independent films to garner more audience attention. The Internet is providing small production companies with the ability to distribute their films directly to the consumer via their website and to reach a large global audience in the process. Director Robert Greenwald even asked his Internet audience to sponsor his next documentary film “Iraq for Sale,” making $385,000 in ten days.

While still growing in influence, it’s important that these films continue to gain representation so that the homogenization of western values doesn’t go unchallenged. The emergence of new digital technologies is giving power back to the people and, in the process, providing a richer context of world diversity.