Fest programmer Stephen Jannise, writing for the Austin Film Festival blog:
As far as we have come with on-demand movies, and as comfortable as most people have become with viewing films at home, the allure of the movie theater is still not lost on a majority of filmmakers. Playing in an actual cinema remains the ultimate dream, but the low costs and accessibility of VOD are so appealing to studios and distributors that this dream is even less likely to come true.
I think we'll see roughly as many indie features make it to screen as we ever have – for those films "worthy" of a big screen release, there is a definite correlation between a good run at the cinema and subsequent home video sales. However, with more indie films getting picked up for VOD distribution, the overall percentage of films that have theatrical distribution before they are made available to home audiences will shrink.
