DAN MIRVISH: ""Put Your Freak Flag On"

MARKET MONDAY #3

Transcript:

I’m one of the co-founders of Slamdance. And by the way, Slamdance basically started in the exact same spirit that everything Courtney just said: with a bunch of filmmakers. We collaborated, we got together, and we supported each other, and that’s me right there. And we’re still going on.

But also, I think part of what – there’s great stuff Courtney and Ted said, and other people are going to say [it] all day about getting your audience and market testing everything – don’t get too hung up in that, though, all due respect. Make your art. We’re filmmakers. We need to think of ourselves as artists. Maybe small “a,” not big “A.” We need to think of ourselves as performers, like musicians, and go on tour with our films.

So you should just make the film you want to make, and hopefully you’ll find an audience along the way – even if you haven’t figured it out ahead of time – because technology changes so fast. Audiences change so fast. Your film is going to change as you make it. You don’t always know what your audience is going to be until sometime much later, sometimes 30 years later. Your only audience is yourself. So make the film that you want to make, because in 30 years you have to look back on it and go, “Oh yeah, I like that movie,” even if no one else ever saw it. So don’t be afraid to ignore all the advice that you hear.

The other thing to think about is that if you just think of these films that we’re making, these indie films – especially features – as 90 minutes of content. It’s very hard to justify seven years of developing the script, five years of raising money, three weeks of shooting, and then a year of post, a year of film festivals, 20-plus years of hiring, getting a distributor, firing distributors, suing distributors, and doing it ultimately yourselves. It’s hard to justify that as just 90 minutes of content. But if you think about it as a community-based, performance art project that is multi-decades long, then it starts to make more sense.

So getting your people involved, from the crowdfunding phase where you get to 300 backers and getting them involved, to making the film and asking everyone on the crew and cast for help, and your backers to help. And then when you get on the festival circuit – someone asked yesterday, what happens if you can’t afford to go to all these film festivals? Well, you have 300 backers. Let them do the Q&A. Let your key grip do the Q&A. It doesn’t have to all be you.

On my last film, 18.5, mysteriously I was dogged by protesters (pro-Nixon protesters) who followed me around at every single festival. It was mysterious how they showed up carrying the same banners everywhere I went around the world. Well, I’ll let you in on a secret—I made the banners. And I would just show up at screenings, usually after the screening, when people stuck around for the Q&A, and I would say, “Oh yeah, hold this up, hold that up, now start yelling ‘Nixon! Nixon!’” And then they would start Instagramming it and participating. It became a participatory experience for everyone. Don’t tell anyone I said that.

Likewise for my current film, Atomic Fondue, which we’re still crowdfunding on Kickstarter. I thought, why wait to make the movie to make the banners? Just start making them now. You start getting other people to hold things up, and suddenly it says “Atomic Fondue is the bomb,” and people are participating. So just some practical thinking – sure, you’re going to have your mugs and stuff from your crowdfunding campaign, but you can do more. I was at Sundance a few weeks ago, and it coincided with our Kickstarter, so I brought these banners.

By the way, it’s very easy to make a banner. I went to a thrift store, got a Vera Wang sheet for a dollar, tore it, then designed a banner on my computer using the logo—you should always come up with the logo before you make a movie—project it onto a wall, trace it in pencil, then use Sharpies and acrylic paint to finish it. It’s really not that complicated. But if you’re going to make a banner or a statement, get the punctuation right. It matters.

So that’s why I say let your freak flag fly. You literally should make a freak flag. On set, at festivals, you can turn it into a protest movement, into something participatory. That’s the point: it becomes something people are part of. You guys are part of the movie now. That’s great. And if you’re not self-promoting, you’re just not trying.

But the point is that it’s not just me making the movie. We already have 300 backers making the movie. We’re going to get a cast, a crew, audiences – it’s everyone. That’s what we need to do to make a movie. It’s not just you, it’s everyone.

At the end of the day, I’m also not really market testing. It’s a great idea, but I don’t really know how to do that. But that’s the nice thing about crowdfunding. I always say it’s Kickstarter, not “kick finisher.” We’re raising maybe 10% of the budget that way, but you can see what’s working. You try things, some work, some don’t. We tried to get a nuclear disarmament community behind us. No interest. Okay, move on. You can’t anticipate everything.

We even had a banner that said “No Nukes: N-U-U-K-S,” thinking certain things might happen politically, but they didn’t. So okay, maybe later. You adjust. You keep going. You meet people along the way – like some Danish filmmakers we met who loved it. And that’s part of the process. Anyway, any questions? No? Well, that’s it. Keep moving.

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Slamdance celebrated its 32nd Film Festival February 19–25, 2026, in Los Angeles - its second year in the city - as well as online via the Slamdance Channel.

Notable Slamdance alumni include Anthony and Joe Russo (Avengers: Endgame), Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer), Lynn Shelton (Little Fires Everywhere), Gina Prince-Bythewood (The Old Guard), the Safdie Brothers (Uncut Gems), Marina Zenovich (LANCE), Lena Dunham (Girls), Sean Baker (Anora), Rian Johnson (Knives Out), Bong Joon Ho (Parasite), Merawi Gerima (Residue), Andrew Patterson (The Vast of Night), Natasha Ofili (Creed III), and Julio Palacio (Makayla’s Voice: A Letter To The World).

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