“Independent cinema” is a meaningless term. It’s a myth. Real independence is a state of mind, nothing more. To call someone “independent” is to give Hollywood too much credit; studios aren’t the navel of filmmaking or the baseline of anything. There has always been a dependent relationship between financiers, directors and distributors, which means there’s no such thing as true “independent” cinema, with the exception of home movies made for the family album or footage shot with a cellphone at a spring-break beach party in Florida.
