In “Invisible Nation,” director Vanessa Hope investigates the election and tenure of Tsai Ing-wen, the first female president of Taiwan. The 85-minute documentary follows Tsai as she seeks full international recognition of Taiwan’s right to exist.
The doc was produced by the director’s husband, veteran producer Ted Hope, who has been in the indie trenches since 1990 when he founded Good Machine, the label behind indie classics including Ang Lee’s “The Ice Storm” and Todd Solondz’s “Happiness.”
“I have had the joy of being intimately involved in over 130 films, all boldly authored and executed, but I think this latest one —’Invisible Nation’— is perhaps the most important one, and not just because the lives and self-determination of the 23 million citizens of Taiwan are at stake, but because it is metaphorically representative of the state of the world, where authoritarian dictatorships and corporate power each suppress and restrict truth, freedom and choice,” Hope says.
In August, Hope, who was an Amazon Studios motion picture executive for five years, delivered a blistering takedown of the studios and streamers at the Locarno Film Festival.
“The indie film sector is fucked but it actually has a huge chance to build something and I actually think that is quite doable and the chance of building something better are quite high,” Hope said during his keynote speech at Locarno.
Ahead of the Sept. 29 world premiere of “Invisible Nation” at the Woodstock Film Festival, PvNew spoke with Hope about the future of indie film distribution.
The indie doc market is pretty dismal. How do you feel about finding distribution for “Invisible Nation”?
Everyone who watches this documentary says to (me and Vanessa) ‘Oh my God. I had no idea. It’s so interesting.’ To me, that’s always been a core attribute of what helps a film sell. You’re showing something new, in a digestible way. This doc also has real urgency. I think the world wants world peace and that’s being threatened. There are many movies right now that focus on the Ukraine. There’s only one title that focuses on Taiwan for a variety of reasons. Will that lead to a sale? Or does the system have root causes in it that leads people to not want to pick up it up?
Just a few years ago streamers like Netflix, Amazon and Apple bought plenty of politically oriented docus. But in the last two years they have shied away from social issue fare. Why?
The global streaming platforms by their very nature have to be driven by constant growth and constant entrance into other markets. As a result, they can’t touch something that may piss off anti-human rights authoritarian dictatorships across the world. That’s why they got out of the political business. I was allowed to acquire controversial truth to power films when I was at Amazon. We picked up Nanfu Wang’s documentary “One Child Nation” (2019) but it was only for the U.S. So, I think that there are numerous ways that if the global streaming platforms want to stay in the (political) space because of audience demand, they could. But perhaps it’s just too much trouble. Is it worth the risk for them?
Are we heading back to selling social issue docus territory-by-territory?
That’s definitely a piece of it, but I think it doesn’t end there. At Amazon I always argued that since there was so much out there it made sense for territorial acquisitions, not just a global-only policy. Media sequencing also makes sense. By sequencing, you get this whole group of inciting marketing events. There’re a slew of better best practices that can be implemented. In indie film and definitely in documentary, it’s been said for at least 25 years that when you go out and raise your money (to make a film) you should be raising some marketing and distribution spend. How many people are doing that? I bet that it’s less than one percent. I think some of that’s human nature. We all want to believe that we are going to be loved beyond our wildest imagination. That we will be quote unquote discovered. That we will be rescued by somebody who actually knows better. Sorry, that’s not the world we live in.
Do you think we will see a decline in documentary production due to shrinking budgets and limited distribution methods?
“Invisible Nation” took six years because nobody was going to sit down and say, “here’s a million dollars Vanessa. Go tell this incredible, untold story about Taiwan.” That’s not the system we have. But we do have a system that involves grants, some private equity, some additional foundation works, some additional donations. All of these things along the line, as you build out the proof of principle, enable it to get to get done. And yes, there is a huge problem that a lot of folks can’t give six years their life to make a film. But those little bits of support are out there and can be found if you have the patience to get it right, and to essentially keep grinding away to get the access that you need and the collaborators that you need. These last 50 years of indie film have been production-centric, and if the philanthropic part of the community shifted to a better allocation of one third production, one third marketing distribution, and one third infrastructure, all of that could be built out. I actually think it would not lead to a reduction in production. I think that it would probably facilitate even more movies getting made, because then we would actually have the right methods to showcase that great work.
Where do you see the indie film market heading in the next year?
I think that the savior of the doc space and ultimately indie film, and then I would take it as far to say democracy in general, is going to be regional everything. The regional film festivals in particular, but also advocates, publicists, influencers in communities. Global streaming and the world of ad-based platforms is the equivalent of fast food. We need a slow food movement for film in America. That is going to look like community-based theaters, community-based festivals and community-based screenings with folks who prioritize truthful and passion-driven content.
