When Kristen Stewart’s acclaimed feature directorial debut, “The Chronology of Water,” was acquired for domestic distribution by the Forge a few months after its Cannes premiere in May, one question crossed the minds of many people in the industry: What the hell is the Forge?

“After COVID started, it gave me an opportunity to think, as a film producer, about what sales entity I would want to work with, to have a vehicle to release films that we were intending to produce,” says founder Mark Mathias Sayre. “We had some early success, and a couple of contemporaries asked if we would handle their sales or distribution. Fast forward a couple years, and now it’s all we’re doing.”

As a flood of content has crowded the marketplace, so has an avalanche of new boutique distributors looking to release it, often prioritizing what their filmmakers want or targeting specific audiences. In the past year or two, companies like 1-2 Special, Cartuna x Dweck, the Future of Film Is Female, Joint Venture, Muscle Distribution, Suncatcher Prods., Watermelon Pictures, Willa and more have begun placing low-budget indies in theaters. It’s been happening on a larger scale as well: since launching in 2023, AMC Theatres Distribution has turned to domestic distribution experts Variance Films to get the lay of the land. Its operation has had big successes with concert docs like “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé” and other event presentations.

But having more options doesn’t necessarily make a producer’s path easier. “The biggest thing you need is patience, and you have to find your niche,” says Mabel Tam, senior VP of film and head programmer at Landmark Theatres. “There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach anymore.” She cites the Jewish/Catholic interfaith comedy “Bad Shabbos” as one example. “They released it in Florida first, before they even hit New York or L.A., and then targeted where they wanted to go. You have to be nimble and patient and watch your release calendar, making sure you’re not competing with anything too big.”

‘Urchin’

What might beat finding a niche audience for your film? A distributor that has a niche audience for its entire slate. Watermelon Pictures, a branch of Chicago-based MPI Media Group, focuses on Palestinian cinema and related subjects. Since it was founded in 2024 by brothers Badie and Hamza Ali with creative director Alana Hadid (sister of models Gigi and Bella Hadid), it’s distributed around a dozen films and launched the Watermelon+ streaming service. Its potential to reach underserved audiences is similar to the way Angel Studios has found success with viewers seeking family-friendly and faith-based content.

Suncatcher Prods., which recently handled theatrical distribution for the Armenian documentary “There Was, There Was Not,” with Watermelon handling ancillary, is a label focusing on the theatrical release of films about women, people with disabilities and the environment. Amazon and Focus Features vet Annalisa Shoemaker founded the company in 2023 as a for-hire theatrical distribution outfit. It got off to an auspicious start with Oscar nominee “To Kill a Tiger,” taking the film from its awards-qualifying run to more than 40 arthouse cinemas. Shoemaker recently departed from her doc-heavy lineup, working with AMC Theatres to book the rom-com “Good Bad Things” and setting it up for a Hulu streaming deal. “One of our goals at Suncatcher is building community, working backwards from the audience to learn what they want and how to bring them together,” she says.

On its surface, the Future of Film Is Female’s agenda seems pretty direct: create gender parity in the film industry by supporting the productions, exhibition and promotion of women who are first-time filmmakers. “What I’ve seen, leading out of the festivals, is that there’s not a lot of [gender] parity in what kind of films get picked up afterwards,” says programmer and FOFIF founder Caryn Coleman, who launched her nearly eight-year-old org’s distribution arm a year ago. “One of the reasons I wanted to do this is because there are more of these films than I could possibly handle.” But her model is something that could have far more widespread applications: using a nonprofit org to fund it all. “That’s not to say that we don’t try to recoup the money we put into it, but as a nonprofit, we try and do that via different means.”

The production/distribution outfit Willa “focuses on socially and culturally important films,” says founder Elizabeth Woodward. Willa’s impressive lineup of films includes Claire Denis’ “The Fence” and Spirit Awards nominee “La Cocina.” “Sundance Institute is really engaged in the future of distribution, so they invited me to be part of their fellowship,” she says. “That’s where I really formalized Willa’s business model, with some great mentors.”

‘Good Bad Things’

While most of these new distribs lean towards more serious fare, there are a few notable exceptions. Cartuna x Dweck, a partnership of Hannah Dweck and Ted Schaefer’s Dweck Prods. with James Belfer’s Cartuna animation studio, is launching its operations with “Dead Lover,” a horror-comedy they plan to screen with scratch-and-sniff “Stink-O-Vision” cards. “We’ve been looking at some of the cooler, weirder types of films we’d like to get involved with, and we don’t see the market being very favorable to them,” Belfer says. “And we’d work with certain companies and things didn’t make sense to us. So we [thought], ‘Why don’t we put our energy towards distribution?” Their equal in camp might just be Muscle Distribution, recently founded by film historian Elizabeth Purchell, which focuses on classic queer underground and art films.

While each of these new companies may not earn a lot, together they can make an impact. “The new smaller distributors are welcomed by movie theaters, particularly independent movie theaters and smaller theater chains,” says comScore head of marketplace trends Paul Dergarabedian. “Many of them fill a void by offering up films that, on their own, may not generate a ton of box office, but collectively can add to the bottom line, while simultaneously providing distribution and marketing to fledgling or overlooked films.”

It’s never been easy for independent filmmakers, but the emergence of so many boutique distribs offers a stark reflection of how expectations have changed. “There are literally dozens of incredible films that premiere at Sundance, Tribeca, SXSW and all of these other regional film festivals,” says Lela Meadow-Conner, a board member at the independent exhibitor group Art House Convergence. “Yet traditional theatrical distributors’ marketing budgets have dwindled, or they’re not seeing the box office returns they had in the past. But [boutique distributors’] windows and terms are often more favorable for theaters. Some of them will even do a 50/50 split.” And several distribs acknowledge that theatrical is often just a loss leader. “They see theatrical as marketing, in hopes of recouping some of that money with streaming.”

One buzzword you’ll hear a lot in the indie distribution space is “bespoke,” a fancy way of saying that each film’s release is tailored specifically to that feature and its unique audience. Joint Venture, a new company co-founded by Participant vet Chris Lane, promises to “build coalitions with filmmakers, audiences and partners to unlock the potential of each film.” It gives filmmakers a chance to have greater involvement in their film’s rollout, target communities with specific ties to their characters or subject matter, and offer others a chance to partner with them on a marketing campaign or screenings. For its recent release, “If You See Something,” a romantic thriller centering on an Iraqi doctor seeking political asylum in the U.S., the film’s website encourages viewers to join or donate to an org that welcomes refugee families.

‘La Cocina’

In February, former Sideshow exec Jason Hellerstein launched 1-2 Special, assembling a team of indie film vets to release up to 10 theatrical releases a year. While many distribs claim to be filmmaker- friendly, 1-2 Special aims to involve them as little or as much as they’d like, and to be as transparent as possible about the process. The label got off to a solid start on Oct. 10 with actor Harris Dickinson’s feature directorial debut, “Urchin.”

There are also new boutique outfits that claim to be “filmmaker first” operations, where producers get their share of box office before, or at the same time as, the distributors. “That is a premise that a lot of startup distributors have subscribed to, or have branded themselves as,” says entertainment attorney Elsa Ramo of Ramo Law. “And then the devil’s in the details: Is that truly how the deal is structured? Are there hidden costs and fees? Do they have a business plan that’s going to generate any revenue at all? With so much volatility in the marketplace, the best version of a deal provides some sort of advance or minimum guarantee. When you’re just dealing with revenue share, it becomes a much riskier proposition for the producer. Nothing is better than [getting] the most money upfront.”

Even though the influx of new players is exciting, Ramo says producers shouldn’t let their guard down. “In terms of evaluating distribution, you want to make sure that it’s not just about the offer on the table,” she says. “Are these companies going to have cash a year from now? Because in these cycles of emerging distributors, the one thing that hasn’t gone away is that you really need to do your due diligence.”