Blog posting written by Jennifer Barish, Communication Management & Design ‘14, FLEFF intern, Skokie, IL 

The problem with getting eyes on independent film is not distribution. The Internet has allowed mass circulation and platforms for open discussion. According to Carlos Gutierrez, Director of Cinema Tropical, we “need to make film relevant once again … how we see it outdated ... film is thriving as an art form, but we are still concerned with who directed it and where it was made.”

Simply put, we need to rethink our relationship with cinema.

Kevin Lee Vice, president of programming at dGenerateFilms, offered inspired advice for the students present at the session. A career is “mostly a process of self-discovery,” he said. A self-educated film critic, Lee has crafted his own career through new media and watching hundreds of films over the last decade. Lee helped shape a new artistic medium, and his work with video essays are changing the way people talk about film and television. Check out his work here.

The independent film industry is rapidly changing, but how we think about film is not advancing at the same rate as the methods of distribution, production and education. We need to keep up, and aspiring film professionals need be bold, brave, innovative.