I feel the winds of change.

At the Chicago International Film Festival I encountered a remarkable new film called Kissing on the Mouth. It is carrying the same torch as Susan Buice and Arin Crumley’s Four-Eyed Monsters, which I saw back in June. They are both "homemade" films with remarkable depth and substance. They are also films that capture an immediacy and, more importantly, intimacy with the audience that could not have been captured using conventional filmmaking methods.

In a sentence, KOTM was made by four filmmakers who were the four crew members and the four actors in the film. It was either serendipitous or necessary that the story never needed them all to be in the same room at the same time because who ever wasn’t in the scene was behind the camera shooting it. KOTM and FEM are made by filmmakers who are young enough to have grown up with a camera and have no inhibitions about using whatever means they have at their disposal to make an honest film. The results are two films that try desperately to get intimate with their audience on a level that is almost totally foreign to anything mainstream. It’s unsettling but also refreshing because, deep down, that intimacy is something I’ve longed in a film without even conciously knowing it.

The only comparison I can draw is to Cassavetes, who threw off any traditional filmmaking inhibitions to create films that are unadulterated in observing humans at their most human moments. I love them. However, Cassavetes learned that craft only several films into his directing career and these young guys are doing it out of the chute. I am nothing short of completely inspired by them.

The Lesson: We can make films. Now.

I had the good fortune of seeing Joe Swanberg and Kris Williams (2 of the 4 filmmakers for KOTM) at a panel discussion. The topic of distribution came up and, of course, my ears perked. Here is a random smattering of quotes from the various Chicago filmmakers on the panel.

"Distribution is very depressing. Unbelievably depressing."

"My documentary [Lipstick and Dynamite] is under the Extreme Sports section in stores because the distributor decided to advertise it that way."

"Don’t get stuck on one project. Everyday the clock is ticking and you’re going to die."

At one point Joe said that the lesson he learned was if he wanted to make money on Kissing On The Mouth, he should have gone down to the SXSW festival, where it played, with a trunk full of DVDs and sell them.

Yes, Joe, I agree. Not because the film was not good enough to make money another way, but because if filmmakers like Joe are going to pioneer another way of making great films they will inevitably have to pioneer another way of distributing them. 

When the frustration with distribution becomes as palpable as it did in that panel discussion from both the filmmakers and film watchers (at one point a guy named Peter in the audience shouted "I’ll buy a DVD of any one of your films right now for $20!") I want to get all hand clappin’, foot-stompin’, and hallelujah shoutin’. The winds are changing. Spout is a website being built for the film lovers and the filmmakers to subvert the current distribution system, but it is their own frustration that puts fuel in our engine.

To be honest, we need advice from the Joes and Peters of the world who are fed up. Fed up with all of the good films that are loved by audiences at the festivals and abandoned by distributors when the festival is over. It’s you guys we’re building a community for and it’s you guys that will make it.

For Joe Swanberg’s reviews and more check out filmbrats.com here.