Independent film insider Caroline von Kuhn On the art of keeping independent film alive

Independent cinema has long since been a home to some of the most bold and influential voices in our culture. The definition, however, of what it means to make a film ‘independently’ has shifted-shape over time. For one thing, it is financed outside of the ’Studio’ system and therefore requires financial risk and trust and a hell of a lot of hard work. But more than that, the description has spoken to an independence of spirit and vision; a term used to describe the most bold and imaginative ways of storytelling. From the vanguard of the French New Wave to the '70s Americana of Easy Rider and Chinatown, films produced independently have indelibly shaped their times. Caroline von Kuhn is a dedicated advocate for independent film and filmmakers. She has built a career discovering, supporting, and elevating the imaginative worlds created by emerging visionaries. Spanning work as Director of Industry and Catalyst at Sundance Institute to Director of Artistic Development at San Francisco Film and a Co-Founder of the Points North Institute, Caroline recently embarked on a new chapter in Europe; as the Executive Director of the Oxbelly Institute in Greece. Caroline has spent a career ensuring that new, dynamic and exciting voices have the space, opportunity, access and community to develop and further their craft. Her commitment to independent film and all that it represents has always been unwavering; she remains passionate about supporting storytellers through independent film and is relentless in finding the funding to bring these stories to life.

James Wright: We first met at Bob Berney’s New York-based film distribution company, Apparition, working side-by-side as assistants: both green and fairly terrified. Or maybe that was just me. How do you view that formative experience as an entry point to the business of independent film? What do you think it taught you professionally, and taught you about yourself?

Caroline von Kuhn: I think it was interesting that we started at a time when theatrical releases still felt like they were thriving. I feel fortunate to have been shaped by a culture that was so compatible with my own sensibilities. I had a healthy nostalgia for '70s New York cinema. So, growing up (professionally) in New York, as opposed to heading to LA, really influenced me, especially in terms of what that era stood for culturally. Many companies were producing some of their best work, creatively speaking, and reaching audiences in ways that feel different now.

When I took that job, I was looking to combine business and the arts. I had interned at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the only institution that responded to my email to an info@ account, and that’s how I fell into film. I have always been interested in the business side of things and so I wanted to understand the business of the art I was going into and how a company was set up. The work artists were creating, combined with my growing understanding of how the larger system worked, had a deep impact on me. 

So often, people are brought up through production but don't understand the context of the audience or where a film may or may not fit. Having that deeper understanding of one model at a specific moment in time –even though things are different now –really laid the groundwork for me as I moved into film financing; looking at the gaps in the market and the point of inaccessibility for filmmakers to be afforded the opportunity to tell their own story on their own terms—that became the kind of thesis for serving nonprofits, artist development programmes, and eventually, film financing as well.

JW: “Cinema is the mirror by which we see ourselves.” Do you agree with such a statement when it comes to contemporary independent film? Does it feel more the case than it once did?

CvK: It’s interesting to think about phrases like "seeing ourselves" and "holding a mirror up to society" – are they one and the same? And when we look at cinema, we have to ask who’s been telling the story, who’s been on screen, and who would claim that cinema does indeed reflect society, for many different reasons. That’s where things get interesting.

I love how cinema can transport me far away but also connect me closer to myself. So, on an emotional level, I do believe that cinema reflects who we are, though sometimes it happens in a humanitarian way, other times in an intellectual, political, or social way. It really depends on how you want to think about it, but I do think it’s true. That’s also why I’ve fallen in love with working outside the U.S.—there are so many different languages to explore, and by that, I don’t just mean spoken or written language. Cinema pulls from visual language, mythology, art, photography, geography—it’s this incredible blend of mediums. 

A great film speaks through those languages, and the beauty is that each person can find their own way through them, discovering something different with each viewing. There's nothing I enjoy more than watching a movie for that very reason.

JW: Fifteen years after we worked together, the landscape for independently produced film has changed so dramatically. On a global scale, I often think of it as the ‘middle’ falling out – across multiple sectors. It fell out in publishing, it fell out in music and it fell out in film. Did your ground-level view of the industry, particularly at Sundance allow you to see the shifts happening  in real time? How did the changes start to manifest themselves over the years?

CvK: I don't think you can separate art and commerce if you're going to analyse a field and where there's gaps. And in a country where the middle class has gone away, I would argue that the middle class of each of these industries has also gone away. While there's a great celebration – rightfully so – around the democratisation of access to making work, whether through cheaper technology or access to cameras. It has also led to a very cluttered landscape of distribution.

When Sundance started 40 years ago, and when we began our careers 15 or 20 years ago, I don’t think people spent time defining what they meant by independence. When they talked about an independent form of art, especially independent film, “independent” meant independently financed. People were making films for $200k. I directed my first film for under $200k, pulling favours from family and friends, borrowing ladders or locations or props from neighbours in Camden, Maine, where we shot it. It felt possible to do something on a small scale and still have it find a place in the festival landscape and even in the market, reaching an audience interested in lower-budget or micro-budget independent film. 

The rise of streamers definitely shifted the economics of distribution, leading to a reliance on streamers and their output deals. This started to decentralise theatrical, both in terms of audience and economics. So now, to me, independent film no longer means independently financed. Instead, I see independent film as a filmmaker telling their story on their own terms, whether that’s at any budget scale or with a distributor financing it.

JW: Many of the organisations you’ve worked at are incubators for talent – to varying degrees – piecing together a blend of filmmaking community, mentorship, workshops and a pipeline to grants and funding. Given that cinema is almost unique in the breadth and depth of collaboration required, do you still view these labs and festival programmes as foundational for independent cinema to continue to be made?

CvK: It’s something I think about every day. When I was first starting out, work and life became one in the same because my network – my friends – were the other producers and fellows I met through the programme. Moving to the other side, serving and building those same programmes, I began to think a lot about who gets invited into the room, and once they’re there, how to empower them to truly have agency. 

Part of why I joined Oxbelly was that when I first visited in 2019, I experienced a different power dynamic than I had in other labs. Christos V. Konstantakopoulos, my boss and Oxbelly’s founder, had this vision where storytelling meets hospitality. An idea I didn’t fully grasp until I went there. The idea of being a filmmaker who has never left their country or shared their script beyond a trusted friend, and now heading to Greece to take part in a prestigious programme. It’s an intimidating career moment, and suddenly, you’re sitting at the same table, with your voice given the same value as Paul Thomas Anderson or Lucrecia Martel. That, to me, was a new model for building community. 

The economics of being an independent producer or writer-director are simply not there. When I was producing, I had a full-time job at Tribeca Film Festival, while also nannying and tutoring calculus and physics. So, the challenge is figuring out how to create programmes that don’t just offer a nice respite but help filmmakers navigate the real world after they leave, whether it’s through Sundance, San Francisco, or Oxbelly. It’s a deep obligation for non-profits working in this space, and I do believe there’s great leadership moving things forward. 

Oxbelly is interesting because it’s my first experience outside the U.S. system. The concept of intersectionality here, with writers from different dramaturgical principles, mythologies, and pathways to financing, adds another layer. How do we become a place that expands rather than constricts the creative process? To me, that’s not just altruism—it’s smart business. Being bolder, more specific, and intentional is not only necessary, but it should also be rewarded.

JW: A company like Neon has capitalised on the beauty and strength of cinema outside of the U.S – for instance Parasite, The Worst Person in the World, or Anatomy of a Fall. Do you feel like Neon and the likes of A24  are now the standard-bearers for inventive and calculated risk-taking? Do you think too much weight and expectation rests with them to maintain an independence of spirit in their production and distribution choices?

CvK:  A24, Neon, and MUBI are magnificent at marketing and building younger audiences. This isn't just great for their companies and the films they promote, but also for the industry as a whole. It’s exciting to hear, especially from Mubi, how many young people are watching Revival cinema. A24 and Neon have been the two that many applications to Catalyst, wanting to premiere at a market festival in January (the code for Sundance), aspire to sell to. Their marketing is clever, sophisticated, and never annoying – something that’s rare, as marketing can often go many different directions.

What sets them apart is their ability to translate films for a broad audience without dumbing-them-down, which is a smart business plan. They have great taste and know how to engage with audiences. Unlike past distributors who treated films as untouchable or overly precious, A24 and Neon make their films accessible without compromising quality. 

It’s frustrating when you log into a streaming service and think, "What terrible choices did I make that led to this algorithm?" and can't find the films you're actually interested in. But with companies like A24, Neon, and Mubi, I trust their curation.

JW: From a financing perspective, the independent film world can spotlight the will, appetite and room for ‘breakthrough’ success for a clutch of smaller, character-driven films: Past Lives in 2023 for example, Aftersun in 2022. But by comparison to the late '90s and 2000s there seemed to be a mindset as well as a  system in place to allow the production and distribution for films like Lost in Translation, which was made for $4 million, Pulp Fiction was made for $8.5 million, Good Will Hunting was made for $10 million. Do you think those American independent films, that were widely accessible and global successes are being made today, and if not, why not?

CvK: I could give a recent example of a deeply independent film, but was made with MGM Amazon, RaMell Ross’s Nickel Boys. It’s an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s book, which I watched on opening night at the New York Film Festival. Amazon had already produced Underground Railroad with Barry Jenkins and Ross had done Hale County This Morning, This Evening (which I had given a small grant to in San Francisco). The reason I cite Nickel Boys is because that film was made in a way that only Ross could – playing with point of view in ways I haven’t seen before. 

It also  had great producers like Jocelyn Barnes, who co-wrote the script with RaMell and runs Louverture, and Plan B, Brad Pitt's company, run by Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner. These were supportive producers, not there to shape the director's vision but to empower him to fully realise it. That night reinforced my optimism; there is always going to be great talent out there – that won’t change – but what they need is the right support, not to figure out what they’re doing, but to have the freedom to fully realise their vision.

Another international film is Queens of Drama, a French film that went through Oxbelly, where I work (though it was before my time), and Faliro House, where I also work, is a co-producer. It played at Cannes Critics’ Week, and it’s a film where the filmmaker clearly understands the cinematic reference points they’re drawing from. It’s one of the richest worlds I’ve seen in recent years, playing in a space of queer cinema and musicals that I haven’t seen in present day. If you ask me five years from now if a movie like this could still be made, I hope the answer would be yes. But it’s hard to point to specific examples of films like this – films that don’t fit a mould. Would people know how, and more importantly, be able to make that kind of film now?

On the glass-half-empty side, part of the reason I took a job outside the U.S. is because of the way mergers, like those under the Disney umbrella, and streamers’ reliance on algorithms are narrowing the definition of what programming works best for their audiences. There’s a shrinking of imagination around what films go into production and get to audiences. 

This puts more pressure on the independent producer, who has to be both a partner to the filmmaker and director while also translating the project to potential funders and distributors. It feels like there is even more labour required of producers today than there was 15 years ago, back when things felt scrappier and more open to possibility – like the '70s or '90s, when there was a surge in independent filmmaking. Today, understanding the system a film is backing into, and being able to translate that effectively, you need to partner with your distributor early-on or you’re bound to face bumps later in the process.

JW: In your experience, how frequently do investors recoup from an independent film investment? And if they won’t and don't, what are some of the selling points one outlines as to why people should support independent film, philanthropically or as a private backer?

CvK: At Catalyst, which is the independent financing initiative of Sundance that I used to run, the goal was to educate and empower a cohort of film financiers who are filmmaker-friendly. That’s a simple yet layered statement. I find the idea of going in to “spend” something deeply problematic, both ethically and in terms of achieving success. My approach at Catalyst focused primarily on case studies of films that lost money. We never concentrated on anomalies – the exceptions to the rule that might be used to seduce new investors into making bad financial decisions. 

My advice to filmmakers was always to view any meeting with an investor as the start of a long-term relationship, not just someone to fill a gap in their budget. I say this because, as a green producer, I misunderstood my role. I thought my job was simply to raise X amount of dollars, find the money, and that would be it. I now find that crass, crude and deeply disrespectful. I got lucky with my first film, working with financiers who were more sophisticated than I was and who ended up teaching me about film financing through the process. 

If someone is interested in investing in independent film – like the type of person who would join Sundance Catalyst – they’re typically analysing who isn’t afforded the opportunity to tell their story on their own terms. To me, that’s what true independence is: independent thought.

What I’d tell a producer is that an investor is often looking to support a specific moment in your career. They’re also investing in the value proposition of the idea your film represents. That’s why people get involved in independent film. They’re making a huge financial play, like backing the debt financing of a big Hollywood movie or cash-flowing tax rebates. They’re wanting this film to be made in this way. That’s what draws investors to independent film.

JW: Obviously no discussion about independent film should solely focus on Hollywood’s decline in that respect. What excites you about the landscape of world cinema? Are there filmmakers emerging out of particular countries that you are especially excited by?

CvK: I feel like I’m about to give a company-style answer, but I did move to Greece partly because Christos (V. Konstantakopoulos, Founder & President of Oxbelly and Faliro House) is based there, building a movement from Greece, but also because of the talent of Greek filmmakers like Yorgos Lanthimos and Athina Tsangari, two names I knew before moving. It’s exciting to see what careers are translating outside of Greece and then how they're bringing others up behind them. 

There’s something exciting about being in a city where artists are still taking risks and embracing experimentation in their work. Over the past two years, many New Yorkers have come through saying, “Athens is the new Berlin or Lisbon, or like New York in the nineties.” And it’s true!

It’s interesting to see how the success of a filmmaker impacts the visibility of other talents who’ve always been there but maybe haven’t been recognised because the country is smaller, and the language is tough to learn. My answer has to be Greece because I’m most invested here and spending the most time, but it’s also sincere.

Regarding foreign language, when Parasite won Best Picture, many saw it as a turning point for foreign films, with subtitles no longer seen as a barrier. But I think the market has gone back-and-forth on this in recent years. Technology has made subtitles and translation cheaper and more accessible, and I’m curious to see how foreign language films become more palatable, translatable, and widely distributed. I track this closely, partly because I live in a non-English-speaking country and because the filmmakers we support often see their work as deeply indigenous, rooted in their own mythology. It makes me wonder: just as some deeply Americana films don’t translate well outside the U.S., is that true for other artists? Or is it that the more specific a story, the more universal it can be? There’s something about sincerity and truth in a film that can connect with you on a human level, even if you don’t share the cultural references.

JW: How have you navigated finding and working with talent in an organisation without strong name recognition or established infrastructure? Instead of slotting into a pre-built system, you're essentially building one from the ground up. What were the initial challenges? And have you been surprised by the opportunities that come from working with someone like PTA, Barry Jenkins, or Charlie Kaufman? It seems like in emerging markets, there's a real appetite for fresh ideas—newness becomes a currency on its own, as opposed to legacy organisations that have been performing well for years. 

CvK: I loved my job at Sundance and running the Catalyst programme, but when I left, I knew I wanted to create a model outside of the system Sundance afforded. With so much change happening, being smaller and more nimble is an advantage. Before you even know if it’s a programme or a financing initiative–whether you’re structuring a team of advisors or planning next year’s retreat–you get to build from the foundation that was laid by Christos, who founded it. He fostered creativity, risk, and intentionality for years, and now I’ve inherited that groundwork to build on with him. That’s truly unique. 

There’s such clear intentionality in this space, and it’s deeply creative, not transactional. No one’s pitching. At first, I didn’t fully understand when Christos said the Oxbelly retreat is as much for the advisors and special guests as it is for the fellows. I thought that was decentering the fellows, but it took me a year to realise how truly communal that is. Fellows and advisors are on an equal plane. Even those considered a “name” or a “get” aren’t invited as keynotes. Everyone’s at the same table. For instance, Charlie Kaufman might be doing a session with a poet, Eva H.G., discussing the influence of poetry on his cinematic writing and then fellows, advisors and special guests are having conversations around the dinner table together after, that naturally builds off of such sessions. 

There's something special about that space—and even the simple act of swimming in the sea—where the conversations shift, becoming more meaningful compared to rushing off to the next meeting with your phone out. This year, we had two films at Cannes, and many of our alumni are starting to see their work go out into the world. It will be interesting to see how that helps explain Oxbelly to those who don't know us yet, as it's largely been built through word-of-mouth from those who've experienced it.

JW: Do you ever imagine yourself doing something creative for yourself in the future – creating art purely for yourself, free from professional responsibilities and interests, just for the sake of it?

CvK: There are two short films I plan to make in the next ten years that won’t have anything to do with the film industry. One of them might be something I create with my mom, and it could be just for the two of us.

JW: You kind of answered this at the top, but what makes an independent film independent?

CvK: I think independence means independence of thought. It’s complex, though, because not everyone is afforded that freedom – from an economic, safety, cultural, or political standpoint. So, for me, it’s about non-dominant narratives. The work I enjoy serving comes from these perspectives that, over time, chip away at dominant culture. That’s what feels truly independent to me.

Find out more about Oxbelly here.