| URL | indiewire.com |
|---|---|
| Slogan | filmmakers. biz. fans. |
| Commercial? | yes |
| Type of site | Independent filmmaking news |
| Registration | Optional |
| Available language(s) | English |
| Content license | All rights reserved. Use permitted with copyright notice intact. |
| Owner | Snagfilms |
| Launched | Newsletter:15 July 1996 Website:January 12, 1998[1] |
| Alexa rank | 12,319 (January 2012[update])[2] |
| Current status | Online |
indieWIRE is a daily news site for the independent film community. It covers indie, documentary and foreign language films, as well industry news, film festival reports, filmmaker interviews and movie reviews. The website has sections for high-profile film festivals, film information and release dates, critic ratings of films (criticWIRE), filmmaker and industry blogs, as well as resources and tools for emerging and established filmmakers. The blog network includes independent bloggers as well as veteran writers Anne Thompson and Leonard Maltin.
Contents |
The indieWIRE newsletter launched on July 15th, 1996, billing itself as "the daily news service for independent film."[1][3][4] Following in the footsteps of various web- and AOL-based editorial ventures, indieWIRE was launched as a free daily email publication in the summer of 1996 by New York and Los Angeles based filmmakers and writers Eugene Hernandez, Mark Rabinowitz, and Roberto A. Quezada.[5] Initially distributed to a few hundred subscribers, the readership grew rapidly, passing 6,000 in the fall of 1997.[6]
In January 1997, indieWIRE made its first appearance at the Sundance Film Festival to begin their coverage of film festivals. It offered indieWIRE: On The Scene print dailies in addition to online coverage. Printed on site, in low tech black and white style, the publication was able to scoop traditional Hollywood trade dailies Variety and The Hollywood Reporter due to the delay these latter publications had for being printed in Los Angeles. Due to a zealous staff that was willing to print and distribute said dailies at all hours of the day and night, often handing them out to audiences waiting on line for films, indieWIRE was soon dubbed The School Paper. While the style and look of the print dailies improved over the years, the nickname stuck.
The website indieWire.com launched on January 12, 1998,[1] and indieWIRE announced it would be charging for services. While met with cautious optimism by Wired magazine,[6] the experiment failed and indieWIRE returned to a free service less than a year later.
The site was acquired by Snagfilms in July 2008. On January 8, 2009, indieWIRE editor Eugene Hernandez announced that the site was going through a re-launch that has been "entirely re-imagined".
indieWIRE is said to cover lesser-known film events ignored from the mainstream perspective. In Wired Magazine, Janelle Brown wrote in 1997:
In 2002, Forbes magazine recognized IndieWire, along with 7 other entrants in the "Cinema Appreciation" category, as a "Best of the Web Pick".[7] describing its best feature as "boards teeming with filmmakers" and its worst as "glacial search engine."[8]
indieWIRE has been praised by Roger Ebert,[9] Kevin Smith, James Schamus, and Tom Bernard.