Not for Everyone

Why I stopped chasing the system and started trusting the work

In production on King Coal - Curren and I running our own race.

My friend Penny Lane is on Substack now (subscribe!). She’s sharing some honest, necessary reflections, one of which included being transparent about her Sundance rejection. I admire her for that.

It made me think about my own history with that festival. I’ve been rejected by Sundance more times than I’ve been accepted. And yes, of course, it stings. I’ve felt that slow, sinking disappointment - especially when I believed in a project with my whole heart. But I moved on.

The trouble is, not everyone around me did.

After one of those rejections, the streamer we were working with insisted we go straight to their platform. As if... no other festival would do! I remember thinking how shortsighted that was, as if one institution’s validation (or lack thereof) determined the worth of the work. As if building an audience should happen overnight.

In 2023, I did get into Sundance with King Coal, and to be honest, I was kind of amazed. I remember standing at the Directors Brunch; a swanky affair, one of those “only if you’re invited” kinds of rooms. I turned to a Sundance programmer and said how honored I was that we were there. I mentioned how much the film had evolved since we submitted, which is incredibly normal. You submit in September, find out in November, and sprint to the finish line by December.

But the programmer looked at me and said, “That’s good, but I hope it’s not more fictional than it already was.”

I wasn’t sure how to take that. King Coal was always hard for some people to place. We blurred lines and we did that intentionally. Sundance programmed it in the NEXT section, not the documentary category, making it one of the few docs there and ineligible for most awards. This frustrated our publicist, but at the end of the day, we had the Sundance stamp of approval and went on our merry way.

We did a 50-screen theatrical tour and found our own audience. It wasn’t easy, but we did it (kudos to Mia Bruno for running that show).

A lot of people in my industry are freaking out right now, streamers have cut budgets, no one’s buying, no one’s selling. It’s a statement. And it’s awful. It’s also true.

But the real truth is: the system will never fully hold you.

It might support you here and there. It might throw you a bone or pull you into the spotlight for a minute. But it will never be your foundation. You have to build your own.

That’s what I’ve been doing, quietly and consistently.

I don’t play the game very well. I don’t have regular calls with my agent, though she’s a lovely human. I don’t use social media, and I have no regrets about that.

I don’t live in New York or LA. I live in a town of 6,000 in West Virginia. I don’t go to parties or attend festivals unless I have a film playing.

Speaking of: I’ve never loved the parties.

Too often, it feels like a bunch of people from nowhere, gathered in a nowhere-place, making work about everywhere. Too often, I’ve been distracted by how much money is being spent on the bar tab and hors d’oeuvres in a room full of underpaid, overworked filmmakers - many of whom are only there in hopes of meeting someone who might get them one step closer to a lousy couple-thousand-dollar grant.

I instantly feel more at home when I hear an accent float across the room - someone like Bill Ross, who sounds like they’re from somewhere.

To be sure, there are exceptions. More and more regional, international, and Southern filmmakers are breaking through—films popping up here and there and everywhere—and I do love many of the people in this field.

But I don’t always feel connected to them. And that’s okay.

The festival world often feel stiff. So serious. So...placeless.

So I spend less. Expect less. And run my own race.

And because of that, I mostly move through this world pretty peacefully.

Deleting social media helped a lot with that. I’m no longer in a daily comparison loop. And that’s made room for something else entirely: focus, clarity, and a quieter kind of confidence.

It’s funny, because I made King Coal in something of an isolation chamber, after deleting Instagram. I honestly don’t think I would’ve taken as many risks in that film if my brain had been cluttered with what all my peers were making. And I wouldn’t have made it through the process without the support of a steady, trusting team. So at screenings, when people ask, “What would you change? Are there parts you don’t like?” I know they’re asking because they don’t like something (usually the funeral scene). But if you think we’re burying a body and not a story, then it’s probably not for you. And that’s okay, too.

I don’t feel burdened by that question. I don’t feel pressured to answer it.

In many ways, it’s an odd question - one that shifts the focus away from the film itself and toward some imagined disappointment. A rich conversation, short-circuited - it feels like a social media comment, just said out loud.

Sure, things could have been different. But that’s true of every film.

That film came from a place I can’t replicate. It doesn’t make sense how it came together, so I don’t question it, and I don’t defend it as perfect.

The film was exactly what I needed to make to feel complete.And when people do get it, they really get it.

They rush up to me.
They hug me.
They tell me about their place.
They tell me about their king.
They cry.
They FaceTime their dad so he can meet me, because he’s a miner in Nova Scotia.

The system will say the film isn’t marketable. Too niche. Too regional. Too something.

But it’s a film only I could’ve made, alongside an exceptional team.

And with that, how could I have any regrets? Why would I hand over my confidence to a system that doesn’t share my values?

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So if you’ve ever felt left out or left behind by the system, I hope you know: it’s not you. It’s the system.

You can still make your work.
You can still run your race.

Just make sure it’s yours - because you ain’t gonna get rich being an independent filmmaker, so you might as well enjoy the process.