Erzulie Diary: Limited Theatrical Release Plan

Distribution is such a hairy place for a filmmaker with no recognizable names, no festival laurels that matter to the film gate keepers, and no money. It is a soul sucking hell hole, both of resources and time. I have launched myself into this hole with a parachute of my own network of friends and supporting filmmakers, and can only just hope for the best.

Our film, Erzulie releases on VOD on June 14, 2022. It is kind of nuts to think that we have a release date. It seems so far away, yet sometimes I wake up in a sweat realizing how fast the date is coming. Tonight is one of those nights. Right now it’s midnight and I cannot sleep because all I can think about is how can I best position our film for the ultimate chance of success.

What to me would be success?

I have had to redefine success several times already. At first, it was… let’s get into SXSW. When that didn’t pan out, it was let’s get into some recognizable film festival. And though it is early in the festival submission process, it is hard to not feel completely deflated from the many rejections already flooding in. So now, plan B. How can we best position ourselves from a marketing stand point leading up towards the release of Erzulie? That… I have some ideas.

The good thing about Erzulie is how niche of a film it is. Distributors don’t seem to like this, however. But if any of my business school training taught me anything, it was that if you try to please everyone, you please no one. Niche and being able to narrow down your target audience has the best probability of success. Well, I am about to put this theory to the ultimate test.

So Erzulie is about mermaids with a witchy vibe and has a great college undergrad feel and a strong female empowerment message. If I could put a few films into a blender, I would say you put in a dash of The Craft, with The Goonies, a sprinkle of Splash, and a whole lot of 90s, you’ll get Erzulie. My thought is because we do not have any known talent and I am currently a nobody, that the only way to get people to my screening events (that are not directly my friends) is to bribe them with an offer they cannot resist — a damn good party.

So party it is. The problem with parties is to have a good one, you have to do a lot of planning, which means a lot of time and effort. And we have the smallest of marketing budgets. Luckily, I managed to assemble a tiny, but mighty group of film lovers/students who want to go on this journey for more of a learning experience. So far we have researched cool venues and events to partner up with, made some great headway with connecting with some of these event coordinators, and are solidifying contracts and venues. Awesome.

Next step, once we’ve established our core parties, it seems like a waste of money not to have an associated official screening event to drive people to. Problem is, we don’t really have money to do the marketing events + the theatrical events. Here is where I must come up with a viable cost analysis to present my investors and see if anyone will be interested in investing more for the possibility of a larger pay off. You know the saying, you have to spend money to make money… well, that is exactly where we are now.

So now, I am sitting in the dark researching venues, plugging in numbers and going down rabbit holes trying to find the answers. Alas, this is the life of an overachiever independent filmmaker.