One of the filmmakers of American independent cinema Chad Hartigan shared his experiences in independent cinema during a conference organised at Eastern Mediterranean University Communication Faculty.
During the conference which was organised in collaboration with the American Embassy, Chad Hartigan stated that his first movie was not accepted by any festivals and following a short period of disappointment, he decided to produce a movie entitled “This is Martin Bonner”. Stating that “if the movie you produced is good, it will be noticed somehow”, Hartigan put forth that for his second movie, he applied for numerous international festivals but only received the invitation of Sundance Film Festival. Hartigan stated that his film received the Audience Award for Best of Next in the same festival. Following this award, he started receiving many invitations from different countries and had a chance to display his movie in various places.
According to Chad Hartigan, the most important problem of the independent moviemakers is to locate funds as it is almost impossible to produce anything outside the Hollywood film industry. Hartigan also put forth that he takes great pleasure from working independently and has already started working on a new film.
Born in Cyprus, Hartigan expressed his pleasure in re-visiting the country where he had his childhood. Hartigan also stated that he has plans of making a film in Cyprus. The filmmaker also answered questions coming from students and academics during the conference and told the students that even if the movies they have produced are rejected, they need to work hard without giving up.