July Talk's Leah Fay Goldstein and Peter Dreimanis in a scene from the film Middle Life.Pavan Moondi/The Canadian Press
Pavan Moondi has no delusions that he’s the next Markiplier.
While the Canadian filmmaker is self-distributing his super-charming new romcom Middle Life, after it enjoyed an enthusiastic reception on the film-festival circuit, Moondi knows that his low-budget movie starring Peter Dreimanis and Leah Fay Goldstein (of the rock band July Talk) isn’t going to reach the box-office heights that Marikplier (a.k.a. YouTube star Mark Fischbach) witnessed with his self-distributed horror film Iron Lung, which earned an astonishing US$50-million worldwide earlier this year.
“It’s hard for me to say, ‘Oh yeah, everyone should do this,’ because it’s extremely challenging,” Moondi says of the self-distribution route. “Over the past 15 years, I’ve been honing my filmmaking craft and trying to be a better storyteller. Distribution and marketing is not something I’m used to at all.”
Pavan Moondi.Clare Stein/Supplied
And yet Middle Life’s path to theatres is becoming something of a trend for independent filmmakers who, faced with a belt-tightened landscape populated by increasingly risk-averse distributors, need to take destiny into their own hands. In addition to Markiplier’s Iron Lung, other recent self-distributed titles include the Canadian filmmaking team behind the horror film Hunting Matthew Nichols, and the Sundance-certified drama Ricky, starring Canadian actor Stephan James. The work to bring a film to theatres without an established network and infrastructure is immense, but the pleasures of artistic control and direct rewards can be substantial.
Ahead of Middle Life’s Canadian release – June 5-11 at the Cineplex Yonge-Dundas in Toronto, and a special one-night screening June 10 at 13 Cineplex locations across the country – Moondi spoke with The Globe about the journey.
This film was made incredibly fast, from concept to shooting in just four months. How did you get it off the ground?
I had made Sundowners in 2017, and had wanted to make a bigger-budget follow-up, but I’d fallen into the trap of hurrying up and waiting. There were a couple Telefilm applications that didn’t pan out, some films I was working on in the U.S. that came close. And then I had a moment where I realized it was seven years since Sundowners, and time was moving fast. It gave me a sense of urgency to stop being so precious in trying to make, say, an $8-million film and just go do something for as low a budget as possible. Peter had just shot Sinners, and his takeaway was that it was a huge movie but it was still just a bunch of friends who had known each other since film school, having fun. Well, we could do that, too.
How much did it cost?
We’re finally telling people the budget now: it was $100,000. Which is less than half of a typical Telefilm Talent to Watch budget. And we tried to make it feel bigger than it is, opening with a flipped-over car, lots of locations, shooting in Toronto and L.A. But the funny thing is that it was almost frictionless. It really did feel like making a movie with our friends.
Was making the film less challenging than the self-distribution element, then?
The degree to which Peter and Leah and I are specifically involved in it now is wild. We’re booking the theatres, we’re cutting the trailers, we’re cutting every Instagram reel, making every poster. It’s a great education, and we’re doing it because we believe in the film, but I also hope to never have to do it again. It’s a badge of honour to make this film completely with private money, but it can be a double-edged sword because if you’re not Telefilm-financed, there are distributors who don’t want to work with you because it’s too risky for them to not be able to rely on Telefilm’s marketing funds. It makes complete sense from a business point of view, but it also disincentivizes people to make films outside the public system.
How crucial, from a marketing perspective, was the fact that you have the July Talk fanbase to engage with?
It’s massive. One of the things that even allowed us to raise the money to shoot was that we could make a strong business case that we have a built-in audience that is going to be interested. We spent the past little while travelling with the film around Canada to festivals and one-off screenings, to extremely positive receptions, and that’s allowed us to have Cineplex putting the movie out in a lot of cities. I’m not saying this is a sustainable way to make a movie, that someone should make a film for $100,000 with no release plan and do it all themselves. But if you have been waiting around for years trying to make a film, then you should just go do it.
How open are exhibitors to self-distributed films in the current moment?
I’m conscious of the July Talk thing, so it’s hard to say how open they are, but I can say that Cineplex has been a godsend. The fact that they’re willing to put it in 13 cities on the same night and working with us on our schedule, allowing us to do it after we’ve already done our little tour of rep theatres, that’s been great.
You’ve known Peter and Leah for years – how has the relationship evolved through this process?
I think they’re doing a lot more work than they anticipated at the beginning. But because we’re completely in control of how we’re marketing the movie, there’s no pushback on what our trailer is going to look like or anything that we’re posting, so it makes it smoother, and the three of us are on the same page and have the same taste. It feels like an extension of making the movie.
Will you be taking this approach for your next project?
I felt this was a little bit of kismet that we were all free at the same time and in the same kind of urgent headspace. And we had to call in so many favours from friends to make this happen, shooting in so many locations and borrowing gear. You can do this once every 10 years. I want to go back to those projects that came close and fell apart. If you can show what you can do with a very little amount of resources, that can give people an idea of what you can do if you had a respectable amount of resources. I’m hoping that’s the next step.
This interview has been condensed and edited.