Stindie

Parallel to this expansion has been the concentration of the film industry in fewer studios and their specialty subsidiaries generating ‘stindie’ productions and the growing central role Sundance and the IFP (Independent Feature Project) market.

Following in the footsteps of Disney’s success with Miramax, every major studio acquired a stable of subsidiaries (sometimes referred to as “stindies” or “mini-majors”) in order to profit from notoriety gained at the Academy Awards and prestigious film festivals.

“I was called ‘Queen of the Indies’ by Time magazine (1997),” she tells Made in Hollywood. “Around that time, the whole [industry] changed — a kind of a studio-indie film, a stindie kind of formed.”