--- title: Why TV Is the Perfect Place for Indie Filmmakers description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. canonical: https://time.com/collections/the-cloud/3682354/tv-independent-film-sundance/ article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-01-26T16:12:40.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-02T23:06:04.770Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Why TV Is the Perfect Place for Indie Filmmakers og:description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. og:url: https://time.com/collections/the-cloud/3682354/tv-independent-film-sundance/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd33bf6ceb4f5dfe2/69877bd9524fc041badec1fa/togetherness07.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Why TV Is the Perfect Place for Indie Filmmakers og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why TV Is the Perfect Place for Indie Filmmakers twitter:description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd33bf6ceb4f5dfe2/69877bd9524fc041badec1fa/togetherness07.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Jan 26, 2015 # Why TV Is the Perfect Place for Indie Filmmakers > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with Ally. Ally is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: July 2026. ## Ally: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Ally is a digital financial services company offering online-only banking, including checking and savings accounts, through Ally.com and its mobile apps. Launched in 2009 as an original disruptor in financial services, Ally was built to challenge outdated banking norms with a simpler, more convenient way to bank. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. by [James Poniewozik](https://time.com/author/james-poniewozik/) ## James Poniewozik  The Duplass brothers, on the set of Togetherness. The Duplass brothers, on the set of Togetherness.PRASHANT GUPTA/HBO If you’ve been following the news out of the Sundance Film Festival, you may have been noticing that a lot of the news there is about something other than film. Namely, [TV names, deals and projects](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/22/arts/television-becomes-a-force-at-sundance-film-festival.html) appear to be everywhere at the festival this winter. The festival lineup this year includes two series: _The Jinx_, a documentary series beginning in February on HBO, and _Animals_, an animated series from independent filmmaker brothers Jay and Mark Duplass, which is looking for a distributor. The Sundance Institute has setup a “laboratory” for TV creators, and [Sundance founder Robert Redford](http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2015/01/22/redford-sundance-film-festival/22142161/) has been quoted as saying that “television is offering more opportunities … and is advancing farther than major filmmaking.” As Redford alludes to, part of the dynamic is an issue of business opportunities. There is, arguably, richer potential in landing a TV deal than making an independent movie, shopping it around, and trying to get it attention in theaters. Last fall when her show _Transparent_ premiered on Amazon, Jill Soloway–who got the deal for the show after her movie _Afternoon Delight_ won acclaim at Sundance–told me that indie filmmakers already realize that much if not most of their audience will see their movies on streaming or VOD; why not take the next step? “It’s a rare, rare movie that’s about humans or about families or about people that can really make it theatrically,” Soloway said. “Independent filmmakers already have their heads around people on their couches watching their movies. For me coming out of Sundance and having Amazon offer this opportunity it felt like I was going to get to make a movie and I already had distribution.” But I’d also argue that TV is a good match for indie filmmakers for other than economic and practical reasons. TV isn’t just an alternative venue for the kind of storytelling these filmmakers want to do. In many cases, it’s a superior one. As Soloway says, a lot of independent film is about slices of life and the evolution of relationships. You can treat that in a 90-minute movie, but, as in the case of _Transparent_ and its interwoven family stories about sex and identity, you can do a lot more in a five-hour season. It might have made a fine movie, but it was the best TV show of 2014, and it now has a Golden Globe to show for it. Turn on HBO right now, meanwhile, and you’re essentially watching an indie-film triple feature: _Girls_, from _Tiny Furniture_ director Lena Dunham; _Looking_, produced and directed by Andrew Haigh (_Weekend_); and _Togetherness_, from the abovementioned Duplass brothers. Each show falls into the genre of the not-always-funny-comedy or drama-with-laughs, a category that sometimes irks TV traditionalists accustomed to clearer drama and comedy boundaries–but which is the stock-in-trade of indie film. Arguably, that entire genre is really the indie aesthetic being transferred over to TV. And the talent has as well: a number of series have employed indie directors like Nicole Holofcener (whose credits include _Enlightened_ and _Looking_) and Lisa Cholodenko (_Olive Kitteridge_ and NBC’s upcoming _The Slap_). I’d love to see someone like Holofcener make a series; I love her films, like _Friends with Money_, but they often deal with precisely the kinds of intertwined relationships and class and status concerns that are perfect for series TV. I’m not trying to write another triumphalist, TV-is-better-than-movies piece here. The two genres each have their strengths, and each does things better than the other. But I’m glad to see that TV now has both the status and the institutional support to lure in more artists whose stories might be better told in a longer format. Maybe the best hope for independent cinema is to recognize that, sometimes, it’s better off being independent from cinema. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/the-cloud/3682354/tv-independent-film-sundance/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/the-cloud/3682354/tv-independent-film-sundance/"},"headline":"Why TV Is the Perfect Place for Indie Filmmakers","datePublished":"2015-01-26T16:12:40.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T23:06:04.770Z","description":"It's not just business. 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