Top 70 Independent Film Quotes

I knew nothing about the independent film industry. I didn’t know much about the industry itself. All I knew was how to watch movies, how to enjoy them, how to hate them, how not to like them.

I think there’s a time and place to watch an independent film, or catch up on a French action film on your laptop, or Netflix it, or download it, or watch it on-demand. But I think we also have to maintain the sacredness of the movie theatre as church – especially with event screenings.

On an independent film, you really learn about pace. You have so little time to do things, that you really have to know your scenes.

And you know, we did it as an independent film, and we weren’t expecting it to be on television, and Lifetime ended up buying it. And the viewers responded intensely to that film.

I don’t want to do every independent film offered to me.

It’s becoming increasingly harder and harder; there’s no such thing as independent film anymore. There aren’t any, they don’t exist. In the old days you could go and get a certain amount of the budget with foreign sales, now everybody wants a marketable angle.

I grew up thinking there was something called ‘independent film,’ which I wouldn’t necessarily have had access to if there wasn’t Sundance.

A few nights ago I went to a Hollywood screening of a small independent film made by Sally Kirkland, an old friend of mine who also did terrific job acting in it. There were other actors in it and they were all terrific.

I was on ‘The Shield’ for a year before ‘Crash’ came out, and it was like doing an independent film every week.

I’m used to doing independent film where the style is a lot more casual. With improvising, you obviously find so much out on the day – and in a way, I feel more comfortable doing that.

I still want to do a romantic comedy or a western or a gritty independent film… there’s so much that I still want to do.

There’s plenty of great independent films to do, but you can’t support yourself making independent film as an actress.

In independent film you tend to have stories that involve more of a community, and the smaller characters are important to the story.

I’m just looking for the best story being told by the best people and the best part that I can find. If those things add up, I want to be a part of it whether it’s a studio film or, more likely in that instance, an independent film.

To be honest, when I started watching VR content, I was mostly disappointed and thought people could do better – not that different from when I set out to make ‘Swingers’ and thought, ‘There’s a better way to make an independent film.’ Which is why ‘Swingers’ ended up being so much less expensive than anything like it.

The truth for me is that I’ve been doing independent film since the get-go, so that’s a big passion of mine, but the big ones are really fun, too. I like my world to be eclectic.

When you’re on an independent film, you have a lot of great people there who are telling really true and authentic stories. But you also have a lot of con artists and people who think they can do something that they can’t.

With independent film, as an actor, you have more involvement – it’s very much more connected. It’s not just like I’m showing up and there’s another actor on the call sheet; you’re very attached to it.

There’s a lot of cool stuff going on in independent film. But obviously, yeah – all the comic-book-franchise stuff is deeply boring. But these comic-book characters are the pagan pantheon of gods in today’s contemporary culture. It’s so important to so many people.

Before I made ‘Sweetback,’ I had a three-picture deal with Columbia and enough juice, if I was real clever with it, to proclaim that I wanted to do an independent film.

You can’t ignore the Asian and Hispanic populations in L.A. We can let audiences know independent film is not just about white men.

I definitely think independent film is very exciting, and you get to sometimes take bigger risks. So that’s always a challenge and something that I look forward to.

I started acting professionally when I was about 17. I worked immediately, but a year into it, I did an independent film in Canada, and that started it all. It was proof that maybe I could do this as a career.

I have done a lot of short dramas that are three, four or five episodes and so that makes the filming process similar to the independent film process; it is very intimate, and it is a small cast and a small crew and everyone is there with a common goal and want the best for that project.

The network shows have this very commercial voice that you have to adhere to, and the cable shows, it’s kind of like winning the lottery. The independent film world is a world you can actually get to. You can get the under-a-million-dollar film by finding a good cast and financing.

I’ve had a lot of experience in independent film, and about how to choose. You’ve got to be very discerning about where you put your five bucks, and where you cut and what you don’t cut.

Newlyweds shooting budget: 5k for actors, 2k insurance, 2k food and drink. 9k in the can. We only shot 12 days. That’s how to make an independent film.

There’s a big difference between the independent film world and the Hollywood film world, and I don’t know that I understood that until I got into certain rooms, and people’s faces go blank when you talk about Sundance.

Independent film is not only an oxymoron; it doesn’t exist anymore.

People in independent film have a passion; they’re not in it for the money.

I’m always looking for interesting stories, and I feel in independent film there’s more opportunity.

Intimacy between humans need not be relegated to independent film. Real characters can exist no matter what the scale of a movie is.

I might do my own independent film, that my husband wrote for me, if all the ducks are in a row.

Making an independent film is so different.

Independent film is for actors that love to act.

In the summer of 2000, four college friends and I grew mustaches, bought highway patrol uniforms, and shot a $1.2 million budgeted independent film called ‘Super Troopers.’

There’s a strange sense of accomplishment in making an independent film. Everything’s against you; there’s no time, and even less money – you bring a bottle of glue, chip in twenty bucks, and hope you all make it through the day. If you manage to finish it and it actually turns out to be pretty good, it’s thrilling.

For the most part, the American film market has become very corporatised, even independent film to a degree, and because of the corporate management mentality, they want to take the safe way.

With independent film, simply because they don’t have the money to make a big-budget film, they’re forced to make a story that’s important to them, that they would like to see on film, a personal story that people can relate to, about people, where you can see the love of the characters.

I’m always struck by the kids who turn up in New York and LA, and places in between. Chicago. Wanting to do theater, wanting to do independent film. Wanting to break into television or radio.

When you’re making an independent film, it’s like this actor plus this actor equals this funding, this financing. Pull this actor out, this actor is still here but this money’s gone. It’s this frightening puzzle mosaic that is the world of independent film.

From a production point of view, I still have one foot firmly planted in the independent film world, and much of the shooting on ‘Jumper’ was done ‘Swingers’-style because that was the only way we could afford to do it.

The process of making an independent film is like building a mini Eiffel Tower with popsicle sticks – it doesn’t happen overnight, and it’s not easy.

I had not starred in an independent film and it’s about a woman who owned a hair salon.

The lifeblood of my career has been independent film.

Part of the excitement of doing independent film is the complete unknown of what lies in store for the film’s future.

No, I just thought of a story and wrote down what I saw. It was about two kids in Ireland who went around killing people. It was called Travelers, and it was made as an independent film.

I did a film when I was about 30; it’s a coming of age story called ‘Gas Food Lodging,’ and I’m so proud of that little independent film. I play this young English geologist, and he’s such a simple, loving kind of guy. Doesn’t talk too much. He’s just a quiet guy, and he gets the girl.

When we were filming the first ‘Magic Mike,’ we obviously had a limited budget; it was an independent film. And we would entertain extras in between takes.

I’d like to do an independent film.

Let me tell you one thing: there is no more cutthroat place to be than an independent film. Disney is a cakewalk after that – that is no lie.

How movies are financed, it’s a world market now… I feel like, you know, the independent film way of working is something that was in my bones. It’s like being a part of a punk band, but no one’s singing punk rock anymore. Only a few bands are able to play, and Woody Allen is one of them.

The chasm between independent film and commercial film is now so wide. You either have to be super-famous and get a first-time director or writer’s indie script off the ground, or you’re a newcomer and go and put a cape on for four years.

In the ’80s, I can’t say that Amy and I were aware of an independent film community. We could only get a certain amount of money for our pictures, which made them low budget movies, but they were distributed through studios.

It’s never easy getting an independent film made and distributed – even when it’s easy.

TV, in particular cable channels, has assumed the role of independent film.

Independent film is almost nonexistent right now, because all the distributers that used to love to put out these little art films are all out of business right now, because it costs so much to open a movie.

TV is really hard to break into. This may be the worst piece of advice, but make an independent film. TV oftentimes takes people who are established. The great benefit of not breaking in yet is purity of voice.

We’re told that independent film lovers… folks that are used to watching art house films, won’t come out and see a film with black people in it – I’ve been told that in rooms, big rooms, studio rooms, and I know that’s not true.

All in all, I’d like to venture into film. Films are my staple diet, so I would love to be part of a feature film, independent film… it all just depends on the story and the people behind it, really.

I can’t wake up every day and not thank Sundance. They’re a great beacon of light for any independent film. Just to have a film that you made shown on a screen for an audience in a theater is beyond me, so I owe them everything in the world.

The culture of independent film criticism has totally gone down the drain and this seems to come with the territory of the consumer age that we are now living in.

With an independent film, you have a little more freedom, and you also have less money, so you’re sort of struggling to get it done, to get something that works. With a big studio, everything is there for you, and it’s easier.

The movie industry has collapsed into two types of film – the $100 million blockbuster or the small independent film of $1 million or less – and the huge middle ground has been lost. Cable is filling that void.

I come from Venezuela, from the independent film arena, and you work with one camera.

I’m used to always having struggles getting finances together and keeping precarious budgets alive in the independent film world.

There aren’t many American directors here trying to direct a Japanese yakuza film. When you combine that with the fact that I don’t speak much Japanese and this was an independent film I was financing myself – people were curious about what I was doing.

I love independent film so much, and that’s kind of where I made my mark.

I believe that independent film making is the last frontier of creative expression available. So I’m always willing to lend a helping hand to a young film maker who’s just getting into the business.

The size of a studio film lets you see technology in a way that you wouldn’t on an independent film, like the gadgets and the angles and all that.