What The Tribeca Film Festival’s First ‘Digital Creators Market’ Says About The Future Of Indie Film

If the entertainment industry needed more proof that social influencers and digital filmmakers were bound to disrupt the traditional film and television industries, here’s more. For the first time in its 15-year-old history, Tribeca Film Festival has announced an exclusive event to tout the burgeoning space.

Kicking off tonight with a screening of the long-anticipated Shay Carl-starring, Morgan Spurlock-produced Vlogumentary, the Tribeca Film Festival’s inaugural Digital Creators Market takes place tomorrow. During the event, online content creators like Jon Cozart, Mikey Murphy, Ingrid Nilsen, and Meghan Tonjes will connect with buyers, producers, and agents to discuss potential content ventures.

The initiative is also slated to feature a lineup of high-profile screenings, including YouTube Red’s Sing It! and Fullscreen’s Electra Woman & Dyna Girl. The Vlogumentary screening is particularly pertinent given the film aims to cover the very rise of digital creators the inaugural Market reflects.

“For any filmmaker, Tribeca is one of the best venues you could ask for,” says Matthew Testa, director of Vlogumentary. “It’s a real acknowledgement that this is a new media platform that’s highly relevant and that these content creators are major players.”

For Testa and team, it is also an opportunity to get in front of distributors. As Vlogumentary is aimed at moviegoers who are uninitiated to YouTube’s vlogging scene, he is ultimately hoping for a box office theatrical release.

Kevin Iwashina, who has worked as a producer on traditional projects (Jiro Dreams of Sushi) and as a producer’s rep on influencer films (Lazer Team) agrees that lines within the industry continue to blur. “If you look at every major film festival, they all have a VR presence, they have a digital presence, they have a television component now,” he explains. “Everybody’s looking at content as content, and there’s no stigma in terms of where it’s being originated.”

While Tribeca’s three-year-old N.O.W. (New Online Work) program has previously showcased 10 works exclusively distributed online, this is its first major nod to a rising crop of digital influencers. “We heard from these creators that they needed a place to meet industry and we heard from the industry that they were looking for a place to do business,” festival director Genna Terranova told Tubefilter. “We aim to be a facilitator, a vehicle and a launch pad to have these breakthrough companies and digital creators grow this young business.”

If the influencer film and series sector feels ripe with potential, however, Iwashina says that there has been a ceiling on quality thus far

given the space’s limited budgets and nascent creators. “The projects are working from an audience perspective,” says Iwashina, whose Preferred Content — a film, television and digital sales company — will be participating in the digital market. “Now, I think we should get them working from more of a critical perspective.” He sees this evolution happening within the next six to 12 months.

Certain creators, however, do already stand out. Iwashina says that Kian Lawley of The Chosen and Shovel Buddies has “movie star charisma” and “the opportunity to cross over,” while Vine illusionist Zach King may “have a future as a filmmaker,” though he notes he hasn’t seen anything King has done yet in the traditional narrative space.

A goal of the inaugural Market is to cultivate higher quality projects within the space, adds Terranova. “We are challenging this burgeoning and passionate community to make the best work possible and develop these storytellers to tell high quality stories in whatever format they chose.”

Looking ahead, however, Testa wonders whether such mainstream aspirations might detract from the space’s everyman appeal. “What happens when you introduce money and business managers and studio people into the equation?” This is a question, he says, that Vlogumentary aims to tackle. “Can creators maintain the approachability and relatability that make this platform so special?”

Testa, who has produced and directed projects for Bravo, National Geographic, Morgan Spurlock, PBS, and FX, says that delving into the digital space was invigorating for him as a traditional filmmaker. Seeing the ease and confidence with which creators were talking about themselves in the first person and posting content online without any intermediaries inspired him to undertake a personal film about his own life, he says.

“Worlds that were once isolated from one another are now converging,” says Terranova. “We believe digital talent are poised to be a big part of our next wave of emerging storytellers.”