By Emily Best
I want to start a Fair Trade Filmmaking movement. I have been shouting this from the rooftops, but I understand that talking to filmmakers about getting paid better is like praising virtue and condemning vice: it’s too easy.
Fair Trade Filmmaking does not start when someone spontaneously decides to pay the filmmaker more than the sales agents, distributors and exhibitors. In the age of direct-to-audience distribution, that’s the really easy part. And while of course the notion of “Fair Trade” is to pay and treat the creators better, more importantly it is a way to engage the consumer in the process of fairer practices. But there is a big catch: the product has to be really good.
