With You Resemble Me currently playing at the Angelika Film Center, Filmmaker presents two guest posts about the film’s self-distribution, one by the film’s writer and director, Dina Amer, and, below, one by producer Elizabeth Woodward.
After a beautiful premiere in Venice, 30 festival awards from over 70 festivals around the world, our special film You Resemble Me did not have any meaningful distribution offers on the table. We could not believe that our only option was to take a deal that not only would place the film in a catalog of films that we didn’t feel were of the same level. We we also knew that taking those deals would mean handing over the rights and control to the film for 10 years or more, having little say in how it was released, and closing the book on any possibility of financial return. We had made this film against all odds, facing countless nos, constantly in the face of impossible circumstances and persevering, so why not try to take on this last chapter of a film’s journey ourselves?