August 21, 2022 update: Read the blurb at the bottom of this new post.
August 3, 2021 update: NYC announced a vaccination mandate today, which felt like a good prompt to update this post. Everything we original wrote below still holds true; however, we’re thinking our return in February no longer feels feasible. We were already second guessing that estimation as the delta variant and breakthrough cases were on the rise through July. And while this new mandate addresses our concerns about the reliability of an honor system, the potential for further mutations and continued breakthrough cases are still a major concern. We think it’s wisest to observe how the mandate affects infection and transmission rates indoors through the winter, and make an informed decision about our future in the spring. Fingers crossed things will look different by summer 2022!
Original post:
June is almost here, which means we’re at the one year mark of having IndieWorks on hiatus. Last June, we decided to skip our 8th year entirely because we didn’t feel we could accomplish our goals of facilitating conversation and connection amongst our peers and audiences through a virtual series, especially since we were only 3 months into living and working remotely and already experiencing zoom fatigue ourselves.
As of last week and the CDC's lifting of indoor mask requirements, NYC is now allowing individual businesses to decide how they'd like to approach masking and social distancing moving forward. We're seeing a lot of eagerness from patrons to get back out to business as usual. And we feel that desire too, to start socializing and celebrating independent film and artistic discussion in person again. However, we don't want to lose sight of all that we learned over the last year, nor do we want to pretend the pandemic is over when it is most definitely not. With over half a million people dead from COVID in the US alone, and hospitalization & case numbers still looking somewhat bleak in NYC and other highly populated cities, we'd rather be safe than sorry. Our team is vaccinated, but we understand that not everyone is for various reasons, and there's no real way to tell the difference; and the last thing we want to do is put the service workers in our venue at risk in a space where it's nearly impossible to have both a decent sized crowd for the screening films & filmmakers and a safely social-distanced environment. So instead of jumping right back in to our in-person monthly series, we will watch & learn from the once-per-year festivals that are choosing to ease back into live screenings over this summer and fall, while observing how the vaccine continues to hold up against potential variants, and while hopefully seeing cases dwindle. Then, when it feels right, we'll plan our return.
We also want to be cognizant of our team that runs IndieWorks, who screen submissions and organize each month as volunteers. Many of us have suffered losses in literal and figurative ways, and most of us work full-time and are still experiencing burnout from being asked to maintain (or even increase) productivity despite the various stresses of the past year. We've been discussing as a team what our individual bandwidths look like for a return and have been considering slowing down to possibly every other month, or even quarterly, so that we can maintain the care and quality of the work we put into the series without sacrificing our personal needs as humans and creators. We haven't decided exactly what may change when we're back, but we do know that our annual calendar will shift for sure (since we typically run from June through April). As of now, we're anticipating opening submissions back up in October, and having our first official screening back in February. We need to make some decisions as a team and discuss with our venue, of course. But that's the tentative plan. If 2020 taught us anything though, it's that plans change and sometimes we need to make big pivots or pauses in order to prioritize everyone's safety and well-being. And so, we remain flexible and cautiously optimistic, and will continue exploring ways to keep supporting our peers and the local indie film community in the meantime.
Wishing you all well through the rest of the year!
-the IndieWorks team