Momentum is building.

Every day I get 2-3 DMs asking to see the film.

People are commenting, “Come to (insert city name here)”

It’s my third flight in seven days.

And now, I’m headed to Philadelphia.

A town as cool as it is tough.

The first time I ever went there, my Philly-native friend got punched in the face by a homeless woman. She then sat through a two hour play only to later learn she had a severely deviated septum.

That’s Philly in a nutshell.

What would the response to Withdrawal from a city that is in so many ways the epicenter of the modern opioid crisis? When the venue is a mere 15 minute drive from Kensington, a neighborhood featured in countless “inner-city zombie” videos?

I had no idea what to expect.

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Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

Like our recent screening at The Frida, I did everything I could to bring together a group of community partners to drive audience engagement.

An old friend from college, Evan Cutler Wattles, connected me with the local film watch group Girls Like Horror and their founder Christine Acevedo. She connected me with Rosalie Kicks, film culturista and the zine publisher behind the zine, Movie Jawn. All parties agreed to become promotional sponsors of the event, with Evan debuting a new music video.

We all co-hosted a Partiful invite to around 300 people.

Out of that, we got 26 RSVPs. And 16 Maybes.

Ah…the math of independent film.

I was also put in touch with Sarah Laurel, Executive Director and Founder of Savage Sisters Recovery.

Sarah is in long-term recovery, and through her organization saves lives and provides resources on the front lines of the opioid epidemic. On our first phone call, she was exactly the kind of person I had always heard about but never had the chance to meet, a tough Philly girl with a heart of gold.

She agreed to come to the event and give out free Narcan and test strips.

I liked her but I was nervous. Would my film feel like a quaint small-town story in light of the life and death she sees every day?

I excitedly emailed the venue to tell them about the community partners.

The email I got back was less than thrilled:

“You should really run any partners by the venue first.”

Trying to keep the exchange professional, apologising for my poor phrasing while internally thinking, “What do you think I’m doing right now, asshole!?”

The response:

“You have two tickets sold, so you now have more partners than you have attendees.”

A classic example of that Philly hospitality.

The Trip

I met up with Evan Wattles at his home in West Philadelphia.

Evan and I met freshman year at NYU. He was a film student, returning to college after rehab.

He was the first “sober” person I ever met.

At the time, I was an eighteen-year-old drama major struggling to control my rapidly growing opioid addiction while hiding it from everyone around me.

Sick attracts sick, as they say. And we became fast friends.

Evan cast me in all of his film school projects and called me his “muse,” an honor I completely took for granted.

After an intense year of working together, my addiction took me in another direction. Outside of a few phone calls and brief encounters, we hadn’t seen each other in over a decade.

Now we were both in our late thirties. Both sober. Both married. Both trying to figure out how to balance a life of art with the realities of adulthood.

Evan now runs a successful commercial post-production company.

But success has a cost.

The long hours, endless client notes, and constant pressure had slowly drained the joy out of “making it.”

He misses art.

He misses expression.

He misses meaning.

Instead, he was chained to a desk fifteen hours a day, bouncing between Slack messages, budgets, and revisions.

In the arts, it’s almost impossible to find balance between financial stability and creative fulfillment. Rarely do the two arrive at the same time.

I have my own problems. I’m financially behind. I put stress on my family. I’ve gained almost forty pounds since wrapping production on Withdrawal.

But this film, and the struggle of releasing it, has given me something I often take for granted: I feel fucking alive.

The Venue

We drove into town to PhilaMOCA, a 200 year old granite square of a building tucked into a corner block.

It once made mausoleums before being transformed in the 2000s by DJ Diplo into the headquarters of Mad Decent Records. Tons of big artists recorded there and it was the sight of the first Mad Decent Block Party. Since 2010 it’s become an underground art venue that still vibrates with that rough-around-the-edges energy.

The staff was wonderful.

The Savage Sisters crew was kind. Rosalie was a pure-bred cinephile.

These were my people.

People doing it because they love it.

The crowd filed in.

28 presales translated to around 45 people in the room.

I wish it was easier.

I wish I could walk into every city and sell 100 tickets because my name alone meant something.

We proudly talk about Non-Dependent Film but the title is misleading. I am deeply DEPENDENT. Dependent on partners, on supporters, on people willing to help me - a person they’ve never met before - because they share a vision for the future of American cinema.

As Withdrawal began to play - the mood was tense.

Sometimes I think people feel like this is a “serious movie”. That they’re supposed to sit quietly and be serious. There isn’t as much laughter.

This makes me extremely nervous.

I spent the entire 90 minutes pacing in the back of the room - working up a sweat as I did.

Did they hate it?

Did the tough Philly crowd reject this piece of art?

Were the Savage Sisters judging me?

Did they all think I was full of shit?

The Q&A

Someone later criticized me on Letterboxd for not being “real” during the Q&A. They said I seemed like I was on a “press tour.”

Real? REAL??? You want to know what’s “Real”? Booking this event, organizing all the partners, getting questioned and criticized, and then paying for a plane ticket to fly up just to sit on a stage in front of a room full of strangers and talk about the most vulnerable parts of my life. I don’t know what you want from me but I think you need to look in the fucking mirror about what “being real” is.

Maybe I didn’t talk enough about the movie? Maybe it was my conversation with Evan earlier that day, but the thing I wanted to talk about was the future of filmmaking.

I hate the power dynamic that is sometimes implicit in the Q&A setting. You’re sitting up on stage, looking down at an audience who’s supposed to be impressed with some feat of cinema.

And yes, making movies can be a beautiful, difficult, almost magical process…but it’s entirely ACHIEVABLE.

You can make a film.

You can distribute it yourself.

You can change your life.

You can choose a different path.

I’m not saying everyone should make a movie but everyone can…even if that path comes with you being a little older, a little broke, and a little fatter than they imagined.

The end of the night

When it was all said and done, I made $289 in merch sales and $222 from the ticket split with the venue.

Roughly $500, which barely covers the cost of travel and food. (although come tax time, a lot of those expenses are deductible)

But is that all this is for?

As I left the building, Rosalie Kicks told me that our Q&A left her with the feeling of wanting to make her first film since 2020. I hope she does.

I hugged Millie Rose Evans, who once again, travelled over 500 miles for this movie. The feeling of gratitude I have for her is sometimes overwhelming.

I stayed up late talking with my old friend, Evan.

I was reminded that this is one of the funniest, most intelligent, thoughtful and talented people I’ve ever met. He needs to be making art.

As I laid down in his guest bed, I got a text from one of the Savage Sisters:

“I never watch stuff about drugs. Cause I did them & my work is all about them. I’m surrounded by the consequences of this epidemic daily so I prefer to avoid it on a screen. In fact…I generally hate anything about drugs cause it’s always so…corny. There were many things that felt deeply personal and relatable about your film. I got angry. I laughed…I’m thoroughly shocked. Well done sir. I hope more humans like us watch it and feel all the things. Because it’s nice to feel now. It’s safe to feel. Thanks for making a film that allowed me to feel.”

This text. Right here.

This is why I do it.

This is why I make movies.

xx

Aaron

Our next screening will be on Friday June, 26th at VisArt Video in Charlotte, North Carolina. Tickets are available at www.withdrawalfilm.com

Combine this with the fact that the previous shows had under-performed (by my standards) and the feeling was clear:

I was on a losing streak.

I forced myself out of bed, cranked out three shots of espresso from my shitty espresso machine, grabbed my suitcase and a way-too-big poster tube, before rushing out the door.

Driving to the Atlanta Airport, all I could think about was getting a much needed win. It was something I had worked toward for weeks.

The Plan

More advertising. More outreach. More partnerships. More Meta ads.

The first bit of momentum came from a social media clip that went semi-viral. This was a tip I got from Adam Rioux, writer/director of the new feature Urchins (I’ll be dropping an interview with him next week). He told me to take short/relatable clips from the movie (15-30 seconds) and set them to new music with an end card. My first few attempts did alright but then I had one blow up for 193k views.

Judging from the comments, many of these came from Europe but you know what…I’ll take it.

A few weeks prior, I made an appearance on the podcast, Movie Dog, to talk about Withdrawal. I love this show and host, Brett Boham. Brett had gone to school at UGA in Athens, and agreed to come out and introduce the film at The Frida.

But I still wanted more. I wanted to find someone local to Orange County. Someone connected to the filmmaking community there. Someone I could support while asking them to support me.

Non-De is supposed to be about filmmakers helping filmmakers? Well I had a screen at an amazing venue. This was the opportunity to put the Non-Dě Mutual Aid Network into practice.

I started digging through the Frida’s Instagram page and found Lisset Mendoza. She was an OC filmmaker, Frida regular, and someone who was fundraising for her first feature, ‘Finding Jose’.

I sent her a DM and after a brief video call she and her podcast co-host, Francesca Rivera, agreed to “Sponsor” the screening. We would play a teaser trailer for ‘Finding Jose’ before Withdrawal and I would donate a portion of all my merch sales to her film.

Lisset proved to be an incredible partner.

She filmed and edited multiple promotional videos for the event.

She helped make the screening feel like a community event instead of a filmmaker dragging a movie around the country hoping strangers would care.

She tied the screening to the actual Orange County Community.

I was really impressed and incredibly grateful to all of her work.

The Road To Santa Ana

It’s a long flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles. About five hours.

On my route I got an email from the theatre informing me we had 38 pre-sales.

As a general rule you can multiply your day-of pre-sales by 1.67 to get a pretty good idea of what you’re total will be.

Nowhere close to a sellout in a 200 seat theatre.

Did I wish it was higher? Yes.

But given some recent struggles I was grateful for this. If there’s anything you learn from touring it’s this:

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE JUST HOW HARD IT IS TO GET A STRANGER TO BUY A TICKET.

When we finally began our descent over the Sierra Madres, that unfathomable grid of concrete slowly came into view: the Los Angeles Basin.

All your hopes and nightmares seem to live somewhere inside that endless crisscross of freeways and city blocks. From above, it looks like a net poised to tighten around you.

A Welcome Face

Cinematographer, Emily Marquet, had offered to pick me up from LAX. (Something only a real friend would ever volunteer to do.)

Emily had delayed starting her master’s program in cinematography at AFI for a year so she could shoot Withdrawal. Now, after everything, she had just graduated.

Seeing her on the other side of that journey was a reminder of just how long this road has actually been.

She picked me up with her boyfriend, Gabo (short for Gabriel). Another AFI cinematography graduate.

A Mexico City native, Gabo greeted me with incredible hospitality, offering me - a complete stranger - his own bed for the night.

We spent the day in Los Angeles visiting AFI and dropping off promotional materials at The Lumiere Theatre (where Withdrawal will return for an LA Premiere on July 9th.)

Around 5pm, we started the long drive down to Santa Ana.

The Frida

The Frida Cinema has become one of those legendary venues that aspiring filmmakers dream about playing.

A volunteer-run, two-screen arthouse cinema, they have one of the most diverse programming lineups in the world. They also have one of the best social media presences in independent film, regularly creating posts that reach thousands of people.

You’d think that with all of this they might be overwhelmed. Not so. They are also one of the most accommodating and communicative theatres I have worked with.

Even through email, their staff had a level of positivity and enthusiasm that made the whole process feel different.

When we arrived around 7pm, a screening of Our Hero, Balthazar was just wrapping up in our theatre.

I have long followed admired the Balthazar grassroots campaign. Self-distributed through their own label, has done an incredible job connecting with young audiences. A group of young people staffed a small merch table so I introduced myself and asked how they got involved.

By the end of the conversation the trio agreed to stick around and watch Withdrawal.

People started arriving.

There were a few familiar faces. (All of whom I love dearly but for brevities sake, I will refrain from listing)

Over half of the crowd were strangers.

Slowly but surely, the rows began to fill.

The crowd was amazing.

They laughed.

They gasped.

They engaged.

They were present.

In total we had 75 people in the audience - a little higher than my initial estimate. Nearly everyone stayed throughout the Q&A.

Afterward, they lined up at the merch table and nearly bought me out of shirts and DVDs.

The majority of these people were Frida regulars. They had built a habit of showing up for movies they had never heard of before.

WHAT A DREAM.

One pair of brothers brought their own printed poster for me to sign. They told me:

“Most filmmakers don’t bring their own merch, so we always print our own.”

That is the kind of audience you want to build.

Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is

When all was said and done, I was able to raise $220 for Lisset’s film.

This may not sound like a huge amount. But that was all of the profit from our merch sales. Margins are thin in the exhibition business but I will always try to put my money where my mouth is when it comes to supporting other filmmakers.

The Long Ride Home

By the time we piled back into Emily’s 4Runner, it was already midnight.

In four hours I would need to call an Uber back to LAX.

The next day I would be exhausted, picking my kids up from daycare and trying to push through the day.

These days, I find myself asking the question:

“Is this worth it?”

Is it worth putting in so much work to take such small steps toward a much larger goal.

Is it worth the time and the money and the effort to get 75 people out to a theatre on a Wednesday night?

Is it worth sacrificing the sleep, money, comfort, and time?

There is no guarantee where any of it leads.

Just hope and a gnawing vision of what an artistic life leaving a maximum impact is supposed to be.

Sitting in that car, flying up the Five, surrounded by people who believed in the same thing I did, the answer was unmistakable:

Yes.

xx

Aaron

Our next screening is in Philadelphia, PA at PhilaMOCA on 6/16 at 7pm.

Tix available at www.withdrawalfilm.com

I had no idea what kind of response the piece would receive.

Thousands of reads on Substack.

Thousands of likes, hundreds of comments and shares on Instagram.

Even a mention in Indiewire.

Many filmmakers reached out to tell me that the article reflected frustrations they had been carrying for years. But I also heard from several theatre owners who felt the piece mischaracterized their position, or at minimum painted independent theatres with a brush that was too broad and overlooked some of the realities they face every day.

Today's follow-up is about some of the things I learned from those theatre owners who were gracious enough to reach out and have an open dialogue with me.

First, A Correction

In the original article, I wrote:

"Concessions sales (which is where most cinemas make their money anyway)."

This was wrong.

Most theatres do not make the majority of their money from any single revenue stream. What I was trying to say is that concessions typically have the highest profit margin on a percentage basis. But these are two very different statements and I straight-up misspoke.

I am not a journalist and have never claimed to be one. 

But I do welcome corrections, and when I get something wrong, I will own it.

Why Won't A Theatre Play My Film?

Independent theatres, particularly the ones that function as community pillars, can appear from the outside to operate like a boutique restaurant. Where the programming team is like a michelin-starred chef, crafting a menu based on local ingredients and personal taste.

But that isn't really how cinemas work.

In reality, they operate much more like a retail store with limited shelf space. And i mean, extremely limited shelf space.

Literally, each screen is a shelf.

The theatre's job is deciding what products get placed on those shelves.

Some products are wholesale inventory. These are the studio films.

Some are on consignment. These are films from independent distributors.

Others are products that pay for shelf space. These are rentals.

Every programming decision comes down to one question:

"What gives us the best chance of keeping the lights on?"

Who Makes That Decision?

Most independent cinemas simply do not have the staffing capacity to thoroughly research every film that arrives in their inbox. (Dozens arrive every week)

If they have never heard of you, or your film, and don't recognize any stars, they have no reliable way to predict how your event will perform.

And many theatres are unwilling to take that risk.

In fact, several theatre owners told me that films from distributors like A24, Blumhouse, and Neon are regularly declined because exhibitors are unsure whether those titles will perform in their particular market.

Every year, hundreds of independent films compete for bookings at independent cinemas. Many have recognizable cast members, established distributors, publicists, and marketing budgets.

That's steep competition for self-distributed NonDē films.

Why Is This Decision So Difficult?

Theatres are caught in the middle of a variety of economic and logistical pressures that make risk-taking extraordinarily difficult.

The biggest issue: Inflation

Everything has become more expensive.

Food and concession costs have risen dramatically over the past six years.

Projectors, audio systems, and other technical equipment have become significantly more expensive to purchase, maintain, and repair.

Energy costs continue to climb. One theatre owner shared utility bills exceeding $10,000 per month during the summer simply to keep the building operational. Heating and cooling large auditoriums requires an enormous amount of electricity.

But perhaps the biggest challenge is real estate.

Most theatres do not own their buildings.

Many operate under commercial landlords or private equity ownership groups that have little connection to the local community. They know theatres are almost impossible to relocate so they squeeze these tenets for every dollar they can.

One theatre owner told me their rent had increased by 600% over the past nine years.

And while it’s easy to complain about high ticket prices, we can all agree that ticket prices have not increased by 600% to offset this cost.

Another owner explained that they had personally guaranteed debts related to the theatre. If the business fails, they risk losing their home, their car, and other personal assets.

Basically, when I wrote in the previous article:

“Artists absorb the financial risk. Institutions monetize the aspiration.”

Well, in some cases, theatre owners are also artists - absorbing enormous financial risk at the behest of exploitative landlords sensing that their passion is a weakness by which they can extract profit.

The result is an industry where successful cinemas often operate on profit margins around 10%.

There is very little room for error.

The Studio Squeeze

On top of all of this, exhibitors are limited in their flexibility because distributors and studios exert an outsized control over theatrical programming.

Many major releases require "clean runs," meaning theatres must screen the film 3-4 times per day, often with specific requirements regarding prime-time showings and minimum commitments that can last one to three weeks.

Unlike most businesses, theatres are required to provide instantaneous detailed sales reporting back to distributors. Studios receive extensive visibility into each theatre’s business performance while carrying very little of the operational risk involved in running the venue.

These arrangements often force theatres to remain open during daytime hours that may actually lose money once staffing and utility costs are considered.

One theatre owner explained it to me this way:

"If cinemas were allowed by studios to just be open during hours where enough people are consistently coming, they'd be open only at night because that's when the majority of their revenue is earned. So to give up one or more of those slots to something that either seems like a total risk or they have no idea how well it could do, it's generally a risk most aren't willing to take."

In addition, single screening events create administrative work. They require additional marketing coordination. They can complicate existing programming commitments. And in some cases, they risk straining relationships with distributors.

From this perspective, a “Sell-Out Rental Fee” is not just covering the ticket sales but also the opportunity lost by not playing a studio film, the administrative burden, and a potential “amateur tax” (or what in freelance work we call an “asshole tax”) of working with someone who is inexperienced and not able/willing to hold up their end of the bargain: marketing the fuck out of their movie - more on this later.

The Ticket Sale Conundrum

Distributors typically take around 50% of ticket sales. For major studio releases, that percentage can climb to 65% or more. (It’s fucked up that the more successful a movie is, the less exhibitors get to keep)

The theatre's slice of the pie continues to shrink.

A lot of talk in the industry today is around lengthening Theatrical Windows - Studios are now promising to return to 45 day theatrical windows before titles are available on streaming.

However, this in some ways masks the real problem for indie exhibitors:

• Studios are still prioritizing streaming over theatrical by offering subscriptions at a discount.

• Theatres are not given the flexibility to actually screen what sells. Once they agree to a run from a distributor, they cannot deviate even if the film is underperforming. 

So What's A NonDē Filmmaker To Do with This Info?

The biggest thing this process has given me is a deeper sense of empathy for the pressures facing community theatres.

I am also deeply grateful to the theatres that have given Withdrawal a chance through ticket-split arrangements.

What a gift of trust! Not simply as an artist, but as an independent distributor who promised to market a film and then followed through.

Does That Mean I Am Walking Back My Original Article?

Fuck no!

I still believe charging filmmakers a rental fee equal to a sold-out screening is an exploitative practice.

At the same time, much of the context I've outlined here applies specifically to the community-focused independent cinemas that are genuinely fighting to survive.

There are also historic theatres, nonprofit cinemas, municipally-supported venues, and regional chains that operate under different circumstances and ostensibly SHOULD have far more calendar flexibility.

(In my experience, some of those venues have been among the most aggressive when it comes to rental pricing.)

The additional context does not erase the problem.

It simply helps explain part of it.

Lessons Learned:

1. The Pitch Matters

One lesson became very clear through all these conversations:

Being small and scrappy is a good and admirable thing but it is not always a compelling business argument.

Some cinemas prioritize these types of films - very often they have devoted considerable resources to building up a local audience that is willing to risk coming to see new underground films.

But these are few and far between.

Major distributors and successful independent distributors tend to focus on two things when pitching theatres:

• How much money has the film made in previous engagements?

• How much money is being spent on marketing?

Those are the metrics exhibitors care about because those are the metrics connected to risk.

Independent filmmakers need to learn how to speak that language.

1. Stop Blaming Theatres For Not Marketing Your Film

This may be the biggest lesson of all.

The most a theatre can reasonably be expected to do is:

• Share a few social media posts that you provide.

• Include your trailer in the pre-show package.

• Display a poster if you provide one.

(And that isn't enough to sell tickets.)

Theatres are marketing multiple films every day.

Your event is one among many.

Marketing experts often estimate that a person needs to encounter a message five to eight times before taking action.

Creating those impressions is your responsibility.

The flip side to this is that Theatre owners SHOULD NOT be cutting marketing costs and assuming distributors will pick up the slack. Two-pronged marketing efforts are the only way to building a healthy audience base.

1. Local Connections MATTER

The easiest way to overcome a small to nonexistent marketing budget is to build local partnerships.

Connect with local filmmakers.

Connect with film clubs.

Connect with nonprofits.

Connect with community organizations.

Do this before approaching the theatre.

When a venue sees that you already have local advocates willing to help fill seats, you become a much less risky proposition.

Local connections are often the difference between an empty auditorium and a successful screening.

(Many of the smartest distributors in the business, including companies like A24 and Neon, have increasingly adopted similar grassroots strategies.)

In Conclusion

I want to thank the theatre owners who reached out in a spirit of good faith and conversation.

These discussions have provided valuable information that will make me (and hopefully you) a better, more informed micro-distributor.

It has helped me re-think my approach strategy, and informed my counters when a theatre is willing to negotiate. 

Will this article get as many clicks as its predecessor? Absolutely not.

But I’m not looking to build a brand on rage-bait and one-way finger pointing.

We all hold a responsibility to the American Independent Revival.

And Open dialogue is essential if independent artists and independent exhibitors are going to work together.

We have a lot in common:

No one wants to be exploited with rental fees. No one wants to be exploited with rent.

Everyone wants to be able to pay their bills. No one wants to have empty cinemas.

We must work together to build a healthier, more sustainable 21st Century Cinema.

This is the only thing I am focused on.

xx

Aaron

This past Memorial Day, I gathered with my wife and members of her extended family around an ICU bed as a beloved uncle, brother, father, and friend, Hari Cohly, was taken off life support.

Hari was a man I had grown very close to over the years. Part mad scientist, part actor who never stepped on stage, he was one of those people whose voice gets permanently lodged in your memory. The kind of person who could tell a story for forty-five minutes, wander through six tangents, several pseudo-scientific hypotheses and still land the punchline.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t heard that voice in a long time.

An incredibly aggressive cancer had grown in his tongue.

Why does God have such a cruel sense of humor? That such a gifted speaker should have his tongue swollen, twisted, and ultimately cut away?

The surgery was brutal. Then came radiation and chemo. Eventually organs began to fail. Blood clots spread throughout his body. The battle that everyone hoped he would win took a turn for the worst.

That morning, I arrived at the hospital for a completely different reason.

My wife was in the emergency room with debilitating abdominal pain. The doctor informed her she was experiencing her first “gallstone attack”, likely aided by a combination of stress and the steady diet of greasy takeout that accompanies a family crisis.

They shot her up with morphine.

And I walked her (slowly) from one wing of the hospital to another to say goodbye to her uncle.

As the end drew near, I held my wife’s hand partly to comfort her and partly to keep her upright.

The room echoed with wails of grief.

Everyone understood what was coming.

As Hari took his final breath, a small smile appeared on his lips.

No one else seems to have seen it.

But I know what I saw.

And then he was gone.

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The Problem With Witnessing Death

It’s difficult to describe watching someone die without sounding like a psychopath. Words like ‘extraordinary’, ‘surreal’, and ‘profound’ come to mind, yet somehow feel inadequate. (They also make me sound like a psychopath)

Death occupies such a large space in our imagination. Each person spends a certain percentage of their precious waking minutes fearing, philosophizing, avoiding, and rationalizing death.

Then it arrives. surprisingly fast. One moment someone is here. The next moment they aren’t.

Maybe it’s best described as cold. And simple. Painfully natural. (This also makes me sound like a psychopath, so perhaps I’ll stop trying.)

The irony of witnessing death is:

The person dying is released from the wants, desires, ambitions, anxieties, grudges, the desperate need to understand. They are no longer burdened by the ego.

But for those left behind, the opposite seems to happen. Death intensifies our need for meaning. It forces us to confront ourselves.

Trapped inside our diseased flesh suits, we can’t help but interpret another person’s death through the lens of our mortality.

You can’t help but make death about yourself.

That sounds terrible to say out loud, but I think it’s true.

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The Smile I Want to See

I know I saw Hari smile. Even now I can close my eyes and picture it. But nobody of the twenty people in that room agree with me.

Why am I so attached to that image? Am I projecting?

If so, then what am I projecting?

What does that say about me?

The answer: If I died right now, I don’t know if I’d be smiling.

My oldest daughter has started noticing how often I’m gone. Before my last screening, she wrapped her arms around me and cried “Daddy, please don’t go.”

I worry constantly about the burden this tour places on my wife. Every screening means another evening she’s handling dinner, bedtime, baths, and all the little emergencies that come with raising children.

Meanwhile, I’ve been struggling to keep up with the sheer volume of work this roadshow requires:

Emails. Phone calls. Meetings. Follow-ups. Press outreach. Partnerships. Content. More content. Somehow still more content.

I haven’t mowed the lawn in over a month. I don’t even believe in lawns. Why would any self-respecting human devote their life to cultivating an over-fertilized ecological disaster in front of their house?

Still, I worry.

What the neighbors think.

What does everyone think?

What do YOU think?

Am I just a failure with a shitty lawn?

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The Tour

Right now, every screening feels like a referendum. Every ticket sale feels like evidence. Proof that it’s working (or isn’t). Proof that I’m good enough (or am not). Proof that the pain I’m putting my family through is worth it?

The Charlotte screening didn’t go particularly well for many of the same reasons the Brunswick shows were rough. I didn’t write much about it because it felt repetitive.

The diagnosis remains the same:

• Not enough outreach.

• Not enough advertising.

• Not enough ticket sales.

Painful, yes. Fixable, hopefully.

Our upcoming screenings have far more investment. Promotional partners. Guest introducers. Q&A Moderators. A significantly larger marketing push.

• June 10 at The Frida in Orange County

• June 16 at PhilaMOCA in Philadelphia

• July 9 at the Lumiere in Los Angeles

At this point all I can do is keep building, keep improving, and hope the effort translates into people showing up. Because when you’re on a losing streak, the most dangerous thing you can do is become obsessed with what other people think of you.

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FEAR

I watched Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals with my grieving mother-in-law last night. While we were both cheering for the Spurs, I couldn’t help but feel bad for Chet Holmgren - a talented player who was having an absolute existential crisis on national television.

He was playing scared. And fear is a terrible strategist.

It makes you conservative when you should be bold.

You hide when you should be visible.

You avoid failure rather than pursue success.

Fear doesn’t improve the work. It only makes you miserable while doing it.

What Would Make Me Smile?

The image keeps returning to me: Hari’s final smile. Whether it happened exactly the way I remember almost doesn’t matter anymore. I need it to be true.

I think I’m asking myself: what would put that same smile on my face when my time on earth comes to an end?

I don’t want to smile because I’m relieved to escape my inbox. I don’t want to smile because I’m free from stress.

I want to smile because I gave everything I had to the things that mattered: The Films. The people I get to make them with. The creative risks. My family.

And I didn’t use one as an excuse to abandon the other. I don’t know if that balance is possible. Has anyone achieved it? Or is the challenge of trying anyway the whole point of being alive. I don’t know.

All I know is that life keeps happening.

The screenings keep coming.

The bills keep arriving.

The kids keep growing.

The people we love keep getting sick.

Some will die.

And somehow we’re still expected to make art.

Not after life calms down

Or after things become manageable.

Or when the timing improves.

Now.

It’s all we have.

Until it’s gone.

xx

Aaron

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My destination was the SoGlo Theatre, a venue I had previously visited when Withdrawal played at the Golden Isles Film Festival back in summer 2025.

Building a Cinema by Hand

Festival director Pryce May is the kind of guy you can’t help but love. Baby-faced and unassuming, I must admit that when I first met him I thought he was a high school volunteer. But walk around downtown Brunswick and someone will inevitably tell you:

“Pryce is going to be mayor of this town someday.”

Pryce had big plans for the SoGlo Theatre. After 20 years as a community theatre and local art gallery, he, a husband and father of two, was taking over the lease and turning it into a 113-seat independent cinema.

As he later told me, it was his way of fulfilling his dream of working in film while staying in the hometown he loved.

What’s that dripping sound? It’s the sound of my heart melting.

Despite building the screen himself out of plywood and a white sheet, he had already negotiated contracts with A24, Neon, and Blumhouse Productions to become the only theatre within a 100-mile radius to play their films.

The Perfect Setup

A group of community partners came together quickly (mostly thanks to Pryce)

Sam Ghioto, a super talented local filmmaker, was going to premiere a teaser trailer for his feature documentary A Thousand Rivulets Run before Withdrawal. Sam was also kind enough to film an interview with me and post clips to social media in the week leading up to the event.

We had community partner Heather Woodard, founder of New Roots Glynn RCO, a recovery community organization that provides support and resources to those recovering or seeking recovery from addiction. She had tabled at our screening during the film festival and was excited to return and promote the event on Facebook.

Pryce had negotiated a dinner-and-a-movie deal with local restaurant, Bubba Garcia’s. Plus I had a few local contacts who promised to spread the word.

Advertising Push

• Pryce got a spot on local radio.

• I did a feature interview with The Brunswick News.

• Both Pryce and I paid for Meta ad pushes.

• A local sign store donated a massive ten-foot sign for the outside of the theatre.

  

Two days out, Pryce texted me our presales:

• 20 for Saturday at 2pm

• 15 for Saturday at 8pm

• 17 for Sunday at 2pm

For a town this size, and for a theatre that had not yet established a regular audience, I was thrilled with these numbers. I assumed we’d probably get another 10-15 walk-ups and land somewhere around 100 tickets for the weekend.

It Begins…

I arrived around 1:35pm and was met by Withdrawal producer Jonathan Walls, who had made the drive separately.

We set up our merch table.

A mother and daughter arrived after reading about the screening in the paper. Eventually, two other couples entered, both of whom had purchased tickets early.

Then I checked my watch.

2:05pm. We were supposed to start five minutes ago and only had six audience members.

I asked Pryce, “Didn’t you say we had 20 presales?”

“Yeah.”

“Well… where is everyone?”

“I have no idea.”

We had to start the film.

During the screening we continued the autopsy. Were there other major events happening in town that day? No. The weather was a perfect 81 degrees and sunny. Was that a good thing? Or was everybody outside?

There was no immediate explanation for why sixteen people who had bought tickets simply didn’t show up.

Suit Up and Show Up (even when they don’t)

Someone told me long ago that if you want to be successful you have to suit up and show up. I’ve tried my best to live up to that mantra.

Jonathan I got up on the small stage for a post film Q&A. We told the six-person audience how grateful we were that they had chosen to spend their afternoon with us, and how excited we were for the theatre Pryce was building.

They all expressed admiration for the film, and one gentleman showed me his bronze chip celebrating fourteen years of recovery.

After saying goodbye to Jonathan, who immediately got in his car for another 4.5-hour drive back to Atlanta, I spent a few hours at my favorite coffee shop in town: Spiral Wanderings.

When I visited during the summer, this coffee shop had been packed with high schoolers and moms crafting together. They were all so excited about the film festival. The kids eagerly showed me their Letterboxd top fours.

Back then I had an epiphany: cinema culture has spread to every small town in this country. There are underserved audiences everywhere. This is the future of non-dependent cinema.

But now I was face to face with the harder reality: It is hard as hell to reach people and get them out to the movies, much less an independent one.

My barista, a local artist named Kat, cheered me up. Even though she had to close the shop that night, she promised to come to the screening the following day.

Saturday Night Disaster

As I walked back to the theatre, I told myself “Surely tonight would be different. It was Saturday night. Our only competition downtown was a Fleetwood Mac cover band. We already had fifteen presale tickets. Surely we’d get a crowd,”

7:45pm. Nothing.

7:50pm. Nothing.

7:55pm. A nice middle-aged couple arrived, hungry. They had purchased the dinner add-on and thought the food would be available at the cinema. I could see the disappointment in their eyes when we explained they’d have to pick it up after the film.

8:00pm. Nothing.

By 8:05pm it was clear that nobody else was coming.

My heart sank.

I could see in Pryce’s eyes that he was devastated too.

For our big Saturday night screening, we had an audience of two hungry people.

Host Mode

Despite all bruised ego, and the sinking pit in my stomach, these two people were here and we had to give them the best experience imaginable.

“This is a little crazy,” I told them, “But out of fifteen presale tickets, y’all are the only people who showed up. I want to take care of you. Tell me what food you want and we’ll go pick it up for you.”

They smiled politely, gave us their order, and we started the film.

Pryce and I walked around the block to Bubba Garcia’s, where local cover band Hot Banana Coffee was entertaining a small bar crowd with an acoustic rendition of “All Apologies.”

The song felt appropriate.

I think both of us felt like we had somehow let the other one down.

Carrying out a beef burrito and shrimp-and-pineapple tacos, I suddenly felt like I was back working as a delivery driver in 2017, just before I took the leap into filmmaking full time.

I cleared off my merch table (no one was buying anything) and brought it into the theatre to use as a dining table for our audience of two.

Pryce and I decided a formal Q&A would feel silly. Instead, we casually sat near the couple and talked with them about the film.

The woman, Bettina Dickson Rusher, is a local visual artist and founder of an arts nonprofit. She exchanged cards with Heather and Pryce, and I found myself hoping that our effort to make them feel welcome might eventually lead to future collaborations.

Late-Night Doubts

My entire professional life, from Withdrawal to Behind the Slate Podcast, is built around theatrical exhibition. I had never seen only eight people show up out of thirty-five presales.

I stayed up late writing my previous Substack article. Looking back, maybe some of my frustration leaked into it.

But I suppose if you can’t get people to show up for your movie, going viral for rage-baiting on Substack is a minor consolation.

Sunday Redemption

The next morning I trudged back to the theatre hoping for better, bracing for the worst.

Luckily, Sam Ghioto arrived and brought several friends.

Kat showed up with her mom, the owner of Spiral Wanderings.

A woman wandered in after church because she happened to see the giant sign outside.

A gentleman who had attended the world premiere of Withdrawal came back to watch it again.

A couple of women from the recovery community attended after hearing about the film from the man who had shown me his AA chip the day before.

“I wish I had known about this sooner because everyone in the recovery community would have come.” one of them told me. Later she casually mentioned that her daughter-in-law is an executive at Amblin Entertainment.

In the end, we had an audience of twenty for the final screening.

And I was grateful for every single one of them.

What Went Wrong?

The question rattled in my mind as I began the drive back home.

I think part of what happened is that there were people who wanted to support Pryce and his new theatre, bought tickets with good intentions, but already knew they weren’t going to attend. These pre-sales maybe gave us a distorted view of the impressions we thought we were making in the community.

I also think I should have done a better job reaching out to the recovery community directly. Which is difficult because twelve-step meetings aren’t really spaces where one can advertise events but it’s something I need to do better in the future.

Pryce is sending out a survey to gather more data.

But here’s what I know for certain:

Every audience member matters.

Even when you’re hurt, embarassed, and full of doubt, the show must go on.

In the end, we made $370. $260 from our ticket split of 52 sold tickets + merch sales. (not bad, all things considered)

And the thing I know most of all is that Pryce May is exactly the type of person who should be opening a theatre, the kind of person the independent arts community should rally around and support. He has vision, grit, and drive. Not once over the two days did he complain or look to blame someone else.

May this be an inauspicious beginning to the inevitable success of the SoGlo Theatre in Brunswick, GA.

Over the past month, I have contacted 189 independent theatres across the United States and Canada.

About 70 have responded.

A majority of those responses sounded something like:

“We’d be happy to rent our theatre! Our rates for a weekday are ________”

At this point, I usually open my calculator app, divide the rental fee by the number of seats in the venue, and sure enough, the result is almost always the theatre’s standard ticket price.

Which means, I (a DIY NonDē filmmaker) is being asked to pay for a hypothetical sellout just for the privilege to screen my movie.

I am not a corporate rental. I’m not private rental. This pricing is absolute insanity.

Recently, one art house theatre (who shall not be named but whose mission statement claims to support emerging and innovative artists) offered me a “discounted” rate of $500 for their 60-seat screening room.

When I explained that our tour does not do four-wall rentals and instead offered a ticket split with a minimum guarantee to ensure it was worth the theatre’s time, the response was essentially:

“We just can’t do that. Funding has gotten tight.”

I may be a filmmaker but I can do basic math.

At $10 a ticket, I would need to sell 50 seats just to break even. If I somehow managed to completely sell out your venue (60 tickets) on a random weekday night, I’d walk away with a whopping $100. While the theatre got $500 PLUS all concessions sales (which is where most cinemas make their money anyway).

There is no way that it’s costing the theatre $500 in overhead to operate for a 2-3 hour screening window.

You know how I know that?

BECAUSE THERE AINT NO WAY IN HELL THAT THEATRE IS SELLING 50 TICKETS ON A RANDOM WEEKDAY NIGHT.

Most theatres of that size are probably averaging about 20 tickets for a weekday screening. TOPS.

Which means the theatre is not protecting itself from financial risk. It is attempting to offload all of that risk onto a filmmaker, and THEN capitalize a tidy profit.

Pardon my language but fuck your mission statement. You are what you do, not what you say.

Four-Walling and the Illusion of Opportunity

In theatrical exhibition, renting a venue outright is commonly called “four-walling.”

The argument in favor of four-walling is straightforward: pay an upfront fee and the filmmaker/distributor keeps 100% of the ticket revenue.

On paper, that sounds fair.

But in practice, it’s not.

Theatres have gotten greedy and see a filmmakers desperation as a way to stem the bleeding of their broader business failures.

When four-walling, theatres often refuse to host ticket sales on their website, forcing aritsts to use sites like “Eventive” this making the purchasing process not only clunkier but feel less legitimate.

The Bigger Pattern

This problem does not exist in isolation. It reflects a broader pattern throughout independent film culture.

Film festivals turn creators into customers, selling the dream of exposure, discovery and distribution for a nominal submission fee. It is borderline criminal that ‘Film Festival Submissions” is a four figure budget item in most Seed&spark campaigns.

Forty-eight-hour film competitions charge artists to participate, then charge those artists and their friends to watch their work.

Entire cottage industries have emerged around selling workshops, seminars, and “career advice” to aspiring filmmakers desperate for access.

The pattern is always the same:

Artists absorb the financial risk.

Institutions monetize the aspiration.

And because filmmakers are so desperate for legitimacy, many accept these terms without questioning them.

credit to

Adding Insult to Injury.

Many NonDē filmmakers don’t realize what these cinemas are willing to give to studios in order to play their films:

Theatres pay licensing fees.
Theatres split tickets with distributors.
Theatres dedicate prime-time slots to movies that regularly underperform.

The old logic was that this investment was worth it because studios spend heavily on marketing, and stars - but in 2026, it’s not so simple.

Big stars regularly underperform at the box office.

Attempts at viral marketing regularly fail.

And don’t let the numbers fool you.

2026 has so far been the best year at the US Domestic Box Office since COVID but fewer tickets are being sold now than they were 15-20 years ago. The grosses are only higher due to inflating ticket prices and premium format screens (IMAX).

This business is in structural decline.

So if theatres are willing to take that gamble on studio films with falling attendance numbers, why are NonDē filmmakers expected to pay the equivalent of a full house up front?

The Real Value NonDē Film Brings

The real value of NonDē film is not just the movie itself, it’s the community that forms around it.

People who care want to be with other people care. They want to meet friends, talk after the screening, participate in Q&As, feel like they are part of something.

NonDē filmmakers understand this. We spend years building relationships, collaborating with local artists, organizing grassroots promotion, and convincing people to leave their homes for an in-person experience.

Smart theatres realize that NonDē filmmakers are valuable because we will hustle like hell in a human-to-human way that the studios simply can’t.

A successful screening event is an intricate network of interpersonal relationships, friend groups, favors, aspirations, wants, and needs that create a collective sense of belonging.

Theatres need to wake up to the fact that they are a part of this network not just the landlord charging rent.

The crowd at the Babylon Kino in Columbia, SC before a recent screening of Withdrawal.

The Theatres Getting It Right

There are many theatres that have realized the value in self-distributing filmmakers and community event organizers.

They offer reasonable ticket splits to filmmakers, incentivizing their marketing efforts, and distributing risk so that all parties are incentivized to make a great event.

If they ask for minimum guarantees - it actually reflects realistic attendance or the minimum overhead required to pay staff and turn on the projector/HVAC.

They understand that filmmakers will hustle like hell to fill seats.

More importantly, they understand that independent screenings create a different kind of energy than passive studio programming. A packed screening with a filmmaker present can turn a theatre into a living community space instead of a room where people silently consume content and leave.

An active community creates loyalty.

And theatres that embrace it are far more likely to survive the future than those trying to squeeze every possible dollar out of artists to put a bandaid over their razor-thin margins.

Crowd at a Local Short Film showcase I hosted at Cine in Athens, GA. Featuring a clip from ‘Two Envelopes’ by Martin Scholl

Dear Indie Cinemas,

We are not interruptions to your business model.

We are a huge part of your future.

As the traditional distribution/marketing economy continues to collapse - you need more community-based partners to turn your theatre into the “third space” hangout it needs to be in order to survive.

We are here to help you create that culture and community that you can then market yourself by.

We’re not asking for charity. This is a business.

And if you just don’t want to screen our film for whatever reason. Maybe you’re overburdened or overwhelmed OR you don’t think this particular film would work with your audience, JUST BE HONEST. It’s as simple as saying, “I don’t think that’s a good fit for us right now,”

(Only one theatre I communicated with had the decency of sending this response and I have tremendous respect for them. Thank you, The Grand Cinema in Tacoma, WA)

And your communication style matters because filmmakers talk.

The networks are actively growing. The Lists of “good” and “bad” theatres are being circulated.

We tell each other about the deals that are offered, the ticket splits negotiated, the predatory rental fees demanded, and the institutions that talk a big game about “supporting artists” only to turn around and demand another pay out.

We know who you are.

Dear Filmmakers,

Stop participating in the cycle.

Stop treating these institutions like untouchable gatekeepers.

Don’t let their greed increase your desperation.

Find another option in the area: a micro-cinema, community film club, bar with a screen in the back. They deserve your business more than a theatre still acting like it’s 2004.

Stop the cycle of desperate exploitation.

Because the truth is: we have leverage.

They need us more than they would like to admit.

xx

Aaron

I hate waiting.

Normally at this time I’d be putting my kids to bed. As the father of a four year old, I’m very up-to-date on my Dr. Suess references. And there’s a page in “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” that describes my current situation perfectly…

This page always elicits a lot of questions from my oldest daughter that usually boil down to, “Why are they waiting?”

What innocence. What bliss. She literally has no concept of waiting as an essential part of life.

Because it is…

Especially if you’re a NonDē filmmaker booking and scheduling your films own theatrical tour.

Waiting for Theatres to Respond

Yall, theatres are overwhelmed.

Some are volunteer-run. Some are historic single-screen venues hanging on by a thread. Some are dealing with distributor obligations, staffing issues, broken projectors, landlords, city boards, grant applications, and twenty-five filmmakers a week all insisting their movie is urgent. Sometimes (many times) they just don’t respond.

And the psychological game begins.

Do good things come to those who wait? Or do squeaky wheels get the grease?

Because there is an art to following up without becoming annoying. A delicate craft. A form I am called Politely Squeaking.

You squeak just enough to remind them you exist. Not enough to make them regret opening the email.

The ideal follow-up email should feel effortless (though it may have taken forty-five minutes to write)

Every sentence, carefully engineered to conceal the fact that I have refreshed my inbox seventeen times that day while assigning deep emotional depth to punctuation.

Silence

There’s a theatre that simply will not respond to me at all.

This one’s particularly frustrating because I know people who have screened there. I know they program independent work. I have a local partner willing to host the screening and help with the promo and a local non-for-profit eager to support the film. I have everything I can think of that would make this an attractive offer.

Nothing.

Communication must always be positive. No frustration. No desperation. Only momentum. Enthusiasm. Evidence that this train is moving and they should jump aboard. Because the truth is people only want to board moving trains.

Still nothing

I’ve sent multiple follow-ups. Each shorter than the last.

(That’s another rule of Politely Squeaking: your emails must shrink over time.)

Your first email is confident and informative. Your second is friendly. Your third becomes monk-like in its brevity.

“Just circling back to let you know about the dates we recently booked!”

“Wanted to check in!”

“Would love to work with you!”

My correspondence eventually turning into the sounds of a dog politely pawing at a window during wintertime.

Still nothing.

A Victory

Recently, a theatre I desperately wanted to play finally got back to me after seven weeks of silence.

Seven weeks.

Then out of nowhere:

“We’d love to program Withdrawal.”

I stared at the email like it was a miracle before quickly texting my fellow producers “Fuckkkkkkkkk Yessssssssssss”

It’s addictive, booking screenings. Not metaphorically. I’m genuinely chemically rewarded by it. Every time a venue confirms my brain lights up like a Christmas tree. Another city. Another chance. Another proof that this strange experiment called NonDē cinema might actually work.

This addictive nature puts me through the emotional stages of withdrawal that feature in my movie: first I’m optimistic. Then confident. Then worried. Then offended. Then deeply zen about the whole thing. Then offended again.

It’s not just theatres…

Since Withdrawal premiered a year ago, a lot of friends and mutual connections have tried sending the film to famous people or people in the industry. It’s flattering. I know this is done in generosity. But I don’t usually pay this too much attention because, what is a celebrity going to do…REALLY!?

But every now and then, the film gets sent to someone I REALLY care about.

I’m currently in this situation.

Someone I know sent the film to someone who, if they connected with it, could genuinely change things for us.

I was CC’d on the email.

The person responded warmly. Said they’d watch it that weekend.

That was four weeks ago.

To make matters worse, this person is a very active Letterboxd user.

I can literally track every movie they have watched INSTEAD of Withdrawal.

It’s a unique form of modern humiliation watching someone log four obscure Italian giallo films, two direct-to-streaming action movies, and a documentary about competitive eating, while your own film sits unwatched in their inbox like a Victorian orphan.

I have drafted dozens of follow-up emails in my head.

Maybe I send a new review quote?

Maybe I mention the sold out screening?

Maybe I drop an obscure fact about their movie taste that I learned from their instagram story three years ago?

I haven’t sent any of them.

Because deep down I know, you cannot force someone to love you, and you cannot force someone to watch your movie.

There are times when squeaking is not useful and becomes a panicked attempt to control something fundamentally uncontrollable.

Because I have a Confession…

Lately I’ve become a terrible responder myself.

People email me and I forget. Friends text and I answer three days later in my head (not in real life). Someone asks for a favor and I flag it and accidentally leave it buried under fifty other obligations.

Not because I don’t care, because I’m overwhelmed.

I’m an independent artist jugging twenty different jobs at once. And I’m a Parent. There are no lazy weekends. No casual nights out. My brain feels like twenty browser tabs all auto-playing different videos at once - and half of them are K-Pop Demon hunters sing-alongs.

So now when someone doesn’t respond to me, I try (not always successfully) to remember that there’s a life happening over there too.

A kid crying.

An overdue bill.

A parent in the hospital.

A thousand tiny invisible catastrophes.

And maybe my follow-up email arrived exactly at the moment they were least capable of answering it.

In Conclusion

If i could offer any bit of advice it would be this: Squeak when you have something to offer.

Sometimes that’s the art itself. But often times its something more: principles or simply the promise that you are going to outwork everyone else: hang posters, cutting trailers, flying six hours for a Q&A and personally DM strangers. ANYTHING to put more butts in seats than the average studio release on a Wednesday night.

We must squeak because no one else will. Studios have marketing departments. Publicists. Ad buys. Infrastructure. Independent filmmakers have Gmail and emotional endurance.

But ultimately, waiting is inevitable.

Especially for NonDē filmmakers.

You wait for replies.
You wait for reviews.
You wait for audiences.
You wait for opportunities.
You wait for money.
You wait for the feeling that you’ve finally “made it,” before slowly realizing no such feeling exists.

And maybe the trick is learning the difference between waiting passively and waiting actively.

Waiting while building.
Waiting while touring.

Waiting, but still squeaking.

xx

Aaron

It’s a seven hour round-trip and the truth was that I just wanted the company. Despite attending almost 40 screenings of ‘Withdrawal’ the anxiety that comes before an event can be miserable. And a car ride of jokes and gossip was preferable to hours of wondering “would anybody show up?”

But now it was Friday, the day of the trip, and I was working off of 4 hours of sleep. My kids don’t care if I was up late hosting a new local short film block the night before - they still wake up at 7am. I was beginning to doubt if I could make the late night drive home.

Millie (our lead actress) came over at around 2pm and after showing me the rough cut of her short film ‘Steely’ - which was a fantastic - we hit the road.

The Venue

Our destination: The Babylon Kino. An independent screening room set up by Filmmaker and Journalist, David Axe.

I had heard about the Babylon through fellow roadshow filmmaker, Alec Bonk, who’s film Blind Cop 2 had played there a few months prior. “It’s small but the vibes are immaculate,” he had assured me.

The booking process was the easiest I had ever experienced. Within an hour of emailing, David had responded to my booking inquiry with “Sure, what date do you have in mind?”

Considering that many other theatres don’t respond until my fourth or fifth follow-up. This kind of communication was incredibly refreshing.

Marketing

We did a few things to market:

1. I cut a little promo reel for Instagram/Tiktok with the hook line of “Do you live in Columbia, South Carolina?”. It did alright, about 3k views.

2. We made a tile graphic and collaborated with the theatre.

3. I paid Meta to boost our trailer, targeting a custom audience in the Columbia area. $50 over 7 days. It got almost 400 link clicks however no one in the audience confirmed that they bought tickets because of this. A few days before the show I also paid $25 to boost the tile graphic.

I’m going to continue using Meta Ads however I think they are better at raising awareness than driving sales. In all my experience hosting both repertory screenings and screenings of Withdrawal, the best potential audience members are not random people in whatever you think the “audience demo” is. It’s the people who are in the habit of going to THAT cinema. The regulars. They are the ones who constitute the baseline of a successful event. Which is why my best marketing strategy is:

4. Sliding in the DMs. I check out every post from the theatre over the last few months. I follow anyone who likes and comments. And when I start to see certain people liking or commenting repeatedly - I send them a DM. Nothing weird but just simply “Hey! I’m reaching out because I see you regularly interacting with (insert theatre name here). I wanted to let you know that we’re bringing our film ‘Withdrawal’ on (date). Would love to share this work with you,”

   1. This strategy led to six conversations with some really lovely people, two of whom came to the screening.

Road Snacks

I tried some “Legendary” Protein Chips. The results are not what legends are made of…

Arrival

We got to Columbia by 6:30pm. The 5points area was already buzzing with Friday night SEC energy.

Packs of college students were wearing white tee shirts featuring baby photos and the words “Last crawl before we walk”. I could only assume these were soon-to-be graduates getting shit-faced at college bars for the last time. Not exactly “micro-cinema regulars”.

We grabbed a quick dinner at a Chinese restaurant before heading to the theatre - bags of merch in hand.

The Nike Collab

Google maps led us to a two story commercial building. The sidewalk was lined with people sitting in ragged lawn chairs and others lying in tents. My heart sank, “It must be a homeless shelter or soup kitchen,”

In that moment - I was a total hypocrite. I had been a homeless junkie and yet still I worried that these people might ‘scare away’ potential audience members.

My fears were only confirmed when I saw a group of young men in lawn chairs asking a couple, “Where are you going?”

“We’re going to a movie,” They said, “It’s an independent film in a little theatre upstairs,”

Walking up a set of stairs, I quickly introduced myself to the couple as the filmmaker. If they were uncomfortable, it would be harder to bail if the filmmaker is there watching you. My concerns were unfounded. They were Babylon regulars and collaborators of David Axe.

But as I was making small talk I realized - I had lost Millie! I looked back down the staircase and saw her laughing with the group of young men.

She came up a few minutes later to announce, “I just convinced that whole crew to come to the movie!”

Turns out I couldn’t have been MORE WRONG. These guys weren’t unhoused, they were SKATERS waiting all night for renowned Columbia Skate shop, Bluetile Skateboards, to release its first ever shoe collaboration with Nike SB - a pretty dope Monarch inspired skate shoe inspired by Bluetile founder David Bluetile and rider Irving Juarez, a DACA recipient and immigrant whose story reflects the perseverance at the heart of both the collaboration and the broader skateboarding community.

I felt like such an asshole.

Why was I so afraid of “losing” people, instead of being open to engaging with more!? Why am I STILL learning this at 36 years old!? I don’t have an answer but this is why it helps to bring your hustler lead actress to screenings.

The Space

The Babylon Kino is a gorgeous micro-cinema. Inhabiting a roughly 1000sq foot commercial space, David has set up a variety of couches and chairs facing a wall-length screen.

David was an incredible host. He served wine, Topo Chico, and fresh popcorn from a small table in the back. He was eager to talk shop about micro-budget filmmaking, and roadshow tours. I also really appreciated that he encouraged the audience to check out our merch. An accomplished producer (a feature he produced, ‘American Dollhouse’ had recently premiered at SXSW) it was so cool to talk with an artist who so clearly “walks the walk”.

The crowd began trickling in. There were several middle-aged couples, many of whom seemed to know David. There were a few people that came because I had DM’d them including, Harper, who runs a super cool queer-focused film club out of the Kino called “Harpy’s Film Club”. She was hosting an event the following night, so it was really cool of her to come out the night before.

Despite the 8:00pm start time - David was in no rush. He let the crowd mingle, giving more than enough time for the crew of six skaters to find someone to hold their spot in line and come upstairs.

All in all I think we had 18 people in the house. But the space felt warm and full - and everyone was able to get cozy on a couch.

The lights went down at about 8:25pm.

I was really impressed with the sound system. The stereo speakers were loud and clear, with a centralized subwoofer that was able to deliver the punch of our film’s LFE channel - which we had so painstakingly crafted.

The Afters

The film received a warm applause and the entire audience stuck around for a very informal Q&A.

Folks lined up at our little merch table afterward.

We sell: two different types of shirts, a tour poster (designed by Philly-based illustrator, Annson Conaway), and hand made DVDs.

Ever since I began selling merch, I offer everything at a sliding scale. Trying to meet audiences at any budget. EVERY sale is important in this type of filmmaking but I couldn’t help but feel incredibly grateful for this audience’s generosity as many of them opted to purchase items at the upper end of the price range.

As we left the building, our new skater friends ran after us and gave Millie a gorgeous shirt from their own clothing line.

David was generous enough to leave the Kino’s bathroom open all night and told the the 50 or so people waiting for sneakers that they could use it.

We finally hit the road at about 11:15pm but I wasn’t tired. I was buzzing. This night is what NonDē cinema is all about.

Conclusion

Our trip to the Babylon Kino was a huge success in all categories:

• We connected with some amazing people. David Axe is the kind of artist and curator I admire so much. He is truly in this game for the right reasons. Harper is an awesome NonDē focused film-curator and I’m excited to follow her as she will be moving to NYC in July.

• It was such a cool and interesting crowd of film lovers who were open to new work. THESE PEOPLE LIVE IN EVERY TOWN IN AMERICA.

• The Skater Crew were not only so cool and generous, but they reminded me of the most valuable lesson: walk in to every new space with an open heart of possibility. Don’t let fear prevent you from connecting with someone new.

• Millie is such a real one. Incredible actor. Even better friend. And such a hustler. I am in awe of her.

All-in-all we made $340 from merch sales + the 50-50 ticket split with the Theatre. Even counting our expenses (Advertising, travel, food - which are all tax deductible) we made money.

Every screening is worth it. But every screening in the black is to be celebrated.

Next up!

For our next tour stop, we’ll be heading to Brunswick, GA for a weekend of screenings opening the BRAND NEW SoGlo Theatre (May 16-17).

Be sure to check out our full schedule below!

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of Withdrawal’s World Premiere at the Atlanta Film Festival.

Ah, memories…

In the past year we have traveled the world, won 12 major awards, garnered hundreds of rave reviews from thousands of audience members, and have been the #1 new release for the week at our home cinemas (The Plaza in Atlanta and Ciné in Athens).

We’ve ALSO been rejected by countless film festivals, faced innumerable challenges, and had hundreds of emails go unanswered…all in a years work when you’re a NonDē filmmaker.

But TONIGHT, lead actress, Millie Rose Evans, and I are getting into my Honda CRV for a 7 hour roundtrip drive to the Babylon Kino in Columbia, SC for the very first stop on our “Broke, Sober and NonDē Tour”!

This Substack is going to be taking you behind the scenes of the new frontier of DIY filmmaking: the successes, the setbacks, and (most importantly) THE DATA. I will be sharing the lessons learned, the emotions felt, and the food consumed as I prepare to leave my family and travel across the country sharing Withdrawal with new audiences.

Right now we have 11 dates secured throughout August but rest assured, there will be MANY MORE TO COME.

So join us for the journey. Subscribe if you can (it would REALLY help us out). And look out for our first official post TOMORROW as I recap our journey to the Babylon Kino!

Yours in cinema,

Aaron

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