indieWIRE has released the results of their annual critic’s poll for the best undistributed films of 2007, and Ronnie Bronstein’s Frownland has made the top ten. The Gotham award winner received seven votes, the same number as Abel Ferrara’s Go Go Tales, which is interesting for a number of reasons. For one thing, Ferrara and Bronstein were two of just three American directors to make the Top Ten. For another, in the case of both films, whether or not they’re actually undistributed is basically a question of semantics.

I first heard that IFC had acquired Go Go Tales back at the New York Film Festival in September, and have heard a number of confirmations of that rumor since. Anthony Kaufmann even references those whispers in his indieWIRE write-up of the poll, noting that “for now, [Go Go Tales is] still technically available.” It basically gets to keep its place on the list because IFC hasn’t yet issued a press release.

Meanwhile, Silent Light earned 20 votes in the poll, which would have been good enough to tie for second place…had the film not been disqualified because Tartan quietly acquired U.S. distribution rights last month. I certainly didn’t get a press release about that––I’ve got to be one of the film’s most vocal supporters, and I didn’t find out about the deal until a month after the fact. Frownland, meanwhile, has distribution in France, and due to the number of North American film festivals where it’s played, it’s probably been seen by more non-critics on this continent than the film ranked right below it on the list, Nick Broomfield’s Battle for Haditha.

This is not about me fronting like Silent Light deserves recognition and Go Go Tales (which I’m on the record as having loved) does not, nor am I trying to argue with the rules of this particular poll. But it does seem like proof positive that not only is the line between “distributed” and “undistributed” getting a lot murkier, but the idea of distribution-as-victory is maybe not all it’s cracked up to be.

The idea of celebrating undistributed films at the end of the year is a kind of affirmative action––it’s essentially like saying, “These films shouldn’t be handicapped from reaching an audience just because they don’t have US distribution.” Leaving a film off the list because of a planned U.S. release is like saying, “It doesn’t need our help, because distribution is the victory that matters.” But it seems like the problem is really the reverse: the films named in this poll that don’t have U.S. distribution are largely in that situation because they defy audience expectations, and/or don’t fit in an existing marketing niche. Films that fit that description which do have U.S. distribution––like Silent Light, or like Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg, which IFC will release day-and-date style in 2008––still aren’t going to reach a mass audience, either because there IS no such thing as a mass audience for what they have to offer, or because their distributor isn’t powerful enough to create the impression of a must-see, or most likely, some combination of the two.

If you break it down into a benefit analysis, ending up on a list like this is probably a better boon for a film like Frownland, than landing U.S. distribution is for a film like Silent Light. Frownland gets to go down in history as A Masterpiece That Everyone Was Too Chickenshit To Take A Chance On; unless Silent Light gets a Foreign Language Oscar nomination, it’s destined to wear the badge of Just Another Obscure Foreign Film That Opened And Closed At Film Forum In A Couple of Weeks. In terms of sheer numbers, it probably won’t be seen by more Americans than Frownland reached in its festival run, and it’s very, very unlikely to make any money.

Am I wrong? I guess for me, the ultimate question is this: if most “art houses” in most cities are now dominated by the indie arms, and what remains of the old art house audience have been forced to find their films at festivals and on DVD, at that point, is landing theatrical distribution still more of a victory than NOT landing it?