By Scott Glosserman
A year ago I was having breakfast with Ted Hope, but I didn’t know it.
Attending Sundance’s Art House Convergence Conference in Midway, Utah, (a coming together think tank of progressive art houses and independent theatres), I found myself sitting at a communal breakfast table, conversing with Ben Galewsky, a co-op expert who was applying his preferred model to a small theatre in Champaign, Illinois.
The collective mood at the conference was cautious and guarded. Theatre owners commiserated over Fox Searchlight’s recent letter vowing to end shipments of 35mm prints, essentially requiring indie houses to retrofit for digital projection or to get used to solely showing repertory titles. Yet, sales reps for VPF’s (Virtual Print Fees) weren’t revealing their deal structures. Indie exhibs were looking for answers, but little at the time were understood, much less given.
