AFM Hits Las Vegas With New Attitude: There’s ‘Excitement’ and ‘Positivity’ for the Indie Film Event for the First Time in Years
The American Film Market’s fortunes are changing. After 43 years in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, the AFM launches in Las Vegas within the towers of the Palms Casino Resort Nov.5-10. Shifting the AFM’s narrative completely is the all-in-one-place Las Vegas venue: exhibitor offices, conference rooms, panels, an exhibitor lounge, Location Expo and for the first time, screenings, will all be in the same building. No shuttles necessary. The Brenden Theatres Las Vegas 14, complete with IMAX, is within the Palms; along with hotel rooms, the multiplex was an element of the resort’s 2022 $600 million renovation.
“Exhibitor space is sold out,” says Jean Prewitt, president and CEO of the Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA), the global trade association of independent film distributors, which produces the AFM. More than 286 production, sales and distribution companies along with international film commissions and trade associations are confirmed. “At this point It feels like everybody’s coming,” Prewitt indicated prior to the market, pointing to registrants from 80 countries and significant delegations from Italy, France and Germany. Industry consolidation and concentration has reduced potential attendance, however. “In terms of the last five years, I think we’re feeling pretty good about it,” says Prewitt. “Given the sort of shattering or almost shattering of the industry over the last four years, for everyone to be able to stand together now is extremely important,” she adds.
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“There’s excitement and there’s this positivity for the first time in a long time,” says Clay Epstein, president of Film Mode Entertainment and chair of IFTA’s board.
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“All the big companies are in the hotel exhibiting: Lionsgate, Film Nation, A24 and Neon —companies that have been scattered around Santa Monica, not necessarily in the Loews, and we’re all together for the first time in years, if ever,” he explains.
IFTA set the AFM in the convention-friendly city after an eight-city search. In contrast to AFM 2023’s gloomy post-pandemic and mid-strike edition, optimism abounds for the reimagined and rebooted 2024 AFM. “It was a move borne of necessity,” says Nat McCormick, the Exchange’s president, worldwide sales and distribution. “In a perfect world, the AFM could have continued in Los Angeles, but it was a move forward largely for logistical reasons,” he says. The new venue “creates a centralized location to bring the community together in a way that it has truly never been brought together,” he adds.
Centralization will be a boon for impromptu meetings. “We’re not just going to Vegas: we’re going to a very specialized venue that’s off the Strip, where we can create an independent film island for the community,” he says. While attendees will invariably go off-site, “I don’t see the Vegas of it all interfering,” McCormick predicts. Screenings will be an elevator ride away, breathing new life into showing films at the AFM, he believes.
Mimi Steinbauer, president Radiant Films Intl., finds many of her buyers are well acquainted with the popular destination. “A lot of them are very comfortable in Vegas. There’s a lot of direct flights from cities all over the world, so that makes it easy. I think there’s a lot of positives,” she says of the move. Will buyers be distracted? “I think if you’re going all the way to Vegas, you need product. I think the diversions will be fine,” Steinbauer says.
Nevada’s film and television pros are enthusiastic about the opportunity to host and showcase the popular filming location first hand. “We’ve long been a location for filmmakers, TV shows and commercials, but this shows the business side can take place here is as well,” says Kim Spurgeon, director of the Nevada Film Office (an AFM sponsor). Spurgeon is based in Las Vegas. “We are a town that is used to hosting conventions, we know how to do crowds, we know how to do big events, and we know how to do them well,” she explains.
AFM will not be the only game in town: there’s a concurrent massive auto components show (SEMA) at the Las Vegas Convention Center scheduled to attract more than 161,000 attendees, while the construction of late November’s Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix is ongoing. The F1 course requires the narrowing of major thoroughfares and impeded sidewalk access along some sections.
“There’s a lot of energy around the move to Las Vegas, and I’m excited to tap into that energy with the strong, diverse slate we’re bringing,” agrees Tamara Birkemoe, CEO of Palisades Park Pictures. “We’ll have to wait and see if Vegas can meet the very unique needs of a legacy film market, but I feel people for the most part are positively inclined and expect it to be a productive market.”
Closing deals is the eternal film market quest; this session promises some bright spots and an uptick in the need for new content in the distribution pipeline. “Buyers are going to be searching for movies for their end of 2025 and for their 2026 slates: there are a lot of openings in that distribution window,” says McCormick, putting AFM 2024 companies on a direct path to providing content to fill those gaps.
“We’re finding that if you have the right project, the buyers are available, right there and willing,“ says Steinbauer, adding, “It’s a question of threading the needle, of finding projects that are both original enough and comfortable enough, that buyers have a sense of what is a comp film, so they can assess the business possible on it.”
Existing distribution structures are facing considerable uncertainty in part due to the dominance of streaming. The entire independent film financing, production and distribution ecosystem is in flux. “It’s a challenged marketplace fraught with transition right now, that’s not new to this AFM versus the last couple AFMs,” contends McCormick. “Content is always going to drive the marketplace,” Film Mode Entertainment’s Epstein concludes. His conclusion could be the AFM’s mantra, “There will always be someone interested in great content.”
