Getting a low-budget independent Australian film made is one thing. Getting people to actually see it is another.

Finding the right distributor can be a long, frustrating and often bewildering journey, particularly for filmmakers working without big budgets or industry connections.

In this article, Bunny Rabbit filmmaker James Branson takes us down the rabbit hole, sharing what he’s learned about navigating the road from completed film to festival screenings, cinema audiences and, ultimately, a VOD release.

“It was like going on a tour of Australian cinema history.”

Feature article by Bunny Rabbit filmmaker James Branson with contributions by Maisie Fabry

In August 2024 I wrote the screenplay for my feature film debut Bunny Rabbit. Three months later, we were on set and shooting it. Two months after that, we’d locked the edit and finished the post-production. In the space of five months, we’d managed to go from the initial idea to a finished film, ready for festivals and audiences.

Almost two years later, Bunny Rabbit is finally getting a wide release, which should tell you something about the long and arduous process of getting a film released independently in Australia. I know two years is pretty quick for a film to go from script to final release, and yes, this is my first film so I’m probably a bit naive here. But for someone whose background is making content for the internet, two years between conceiving a story and releasing it can feel like a very long time.

Bunny Rabbit has, by most metrics, already been a success. We’ve managed to find our way into some fantastic film festivals, including SXSW Sydney, Chattanooga Film Festival in the US (we won an award!) and FrightFest in the UK. The experience has certainly boosted my own profile, and that of Sneaky Films, the company I founded with my producing partner Taylor Thompson.

Soon after our debut at SXSW Sydney, we were introduced to Elusive Fish, a boutique independent distribution company based in South Australia that works with a small, curated slate of distinct Australian films. Their focus on new and innovative forms of distribution also suited the kind of release we wanted for Bunny Rabbit. They loved the film and came on board, taking Bunny Rabbit on an event screening tour of cinemas in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.

We approached the screenings a bit like a band going on tour. Rather than opening quietly for a week and disappearing, like a lot of independent films do, each screening became an event. Our lead actors, Kate Wilson and Ontrei, travelled with the film along with myself and Taylor. We moved between these amazing boutique independent cinemas, each with its own character, it was like going on a tour of Australian cinema history.

After every screening we stayed for a Q&A and met the audiences who’d come along. For a small independent film, that kind of direct contact is rare. Hearing how people reacted in the room, and answering their questions face to face, gave us a connection with our audience that a standard release doesn’t often allow.

Perhaps my favourite memory was standing outside the theatre, listening to a bunch of people who’d just watched the film while they debated its meaning.

Beyond the festivals and screenings, which have been amazing, getting Bunny Rabbit into the movie-going audience’s consciousness has been a real challenge, and the road to profitability isn’t assured, even (or perhaps, especially) for a microbudget film like ours.

Bunny Rabbit is a weird movie, which probably reflects my own sensibilities as an artist. It’s a body-horror. It’s a post-apocalyptic climate warning. It’s got some action, but it’s also a quiet film at times, as much inspired by Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s pensive, static camera as it is by George Miller’s frenetically paced wasteland. It stars a wonderfully talented, yet unknown actor in the lead role, surrounded by a cast of (mostly) newcomers.

So while the film is (I think!) an interesting watch, it’s also very challenging to market and advertise. It’s been promoted as a horror, which it most definitely is, but communicating the vibe of Bunny Rabbit, while still making our trailers and content as exciting as possible, is a delicate balance for a film that’s so eclectic.

Taylor and I, along with Elusive Fish, looked at the distribution of Bunny Rabbit in three phases: festivals, cinemas and VOD, with an ongoing focus on organic audience building through our social media platforms (@bunnyrabbit.movie, like and subscribe!). We also looked at our success through three metrics: Accolade, Exposure and Financial. These are the three things that will help us make our next film.

At first we weren’t sure about waiting for festivals but Elusive Fish were keen to pursue this avenue for the film. The festival circuit is another interesting, and often inefficient, part of this industry. It’s heaps of fun, that’s for sure, but I think a lot of independent films fall into the trap of paying to enter as many festivals as possible, and the FilmFreeway system tends to encourage that. There’s a lot of bullshit festivals out there, so be aware.

Elusive Fish and Sneaky Films worked together to create a highly curated strategy, taking into account whether certain festivals were worth delaying our release for, and balancing the momentum from SXSW Sydney and the screening tour against what an international festival might do for the film. Budget was another factor too. Festivals are expensive to enter, so every submission needed a clear reason it might work and a clear goal for what we wanted out of it.

Our patience paid off: we went on to win the Cult Classic Award at Chattanooga Film Festival, and we’re now alumni of that festival. We also had our UK premiere at FrightFest and with the support of Screen NSW, we were able to travel to the UK for the festival, which was another incredible chance to meet a whole new audience.

Closer to home, SXSW Sydney (RIP) was especially great. We met a load of people who helped widen our film’s reach and recognisability, and who gave us plenty of free advice on how to better position ourselves in the market.

It’s actually a fucking tragedy that SXSW has been cancelled… the film programme we were a part of was exceptionally well crafted, and Jordan, Felix and the wider team who made it happen deserved better. We also loved our experience at Perth Horror Film Festival and The Vision Splendid Outback festival.

For us, festivals were less about selling the film to a distributor or getting a sales agent, as we were already working with Elusive Fish, so it was more about building the initial audience for Bunny Rabbit. Especially if you’re going for genre festivals like we did, you’ll find a tonne of people in the audience who’ll love your film and tell everyone they know about it. Word of mouth is a powerful thing and not to be underestimated.

We’re glad we avoided the more traditional route of going through a sales agent or an established distributor. For us, it just didn’t seem like the right fit. We had heard too many stories of films being bundled in with a pile of other titles and released without a strategy of their own. We put a lot of care and effort into this project and we wanted a distributor who really understood and loved the film and who would help us really champion it.

That’s what we found in Elusive Fish. Co-founders Maisie Fabry and Errol Burns have worked with us collaboratively right from the start. We’ve had regular catch ups and in-depth discussions about the positioning and audience for our film, we’ve worked together on the creation of key art and assets, and planned and enacted the social media launch and its growth. Maisie has over a decade of experience in the industry as a Producer and so she really understands things from that perspective. They also brought an energy and enthusiasm to approach things differently, to try new things and activate audiences directly through a research and data-led approach that we hadn’t seen before.

For anyone unfamiliar with how distribution normally works, this might sound like the obvious way to do things. In a more traditional setup, though, once a distributor takes on your film, you might receive a brief outline of the release and a mock up of the poster or a trailer edit, if you’re lucky. Beyond that, they tend to run with whatever they think will be best for the film. Don’t get me wrong, distributors have plenty of experience and tools to make those calls, but it feels like a missed opportunity not to involve the filmmakers more closely. We knew the film, we knew the audience and we wanted to keep advocating for it.

Transparency can be a sticking point too. You often don’t get to see metrics or information on where your film has gone or who is engaging with it. This was another thing that drew us to Elusive Fish, as they were keen to create transparency around everything in the distribution process. Everyone sees the same numbers and we all make decisions together. This way we can all see what is working, what isn’t and can adapt to try and fix it. Four brains are better than one and as a filmmaker it can often feel like you’re working in a silo, so it’s really refreshing to have experienced people with different skillsets and knowledge to
bounce off.

Along with that, we happen to have something decent up our sleeves: experience in marketing, advertising, graphic design and editing. Taylor and I both worked for a long time at Junkee Media, once one of Australia’s best-known youth publishers. We’d both spend a fair chunk of time during that journey in audience-building. I was Junkee’s first-ever video hire, and spent years making short-form videos. Taylor ran Junkee’s studio, which produced all our commercial partners’ content.

That background meant we were reasonably confident that we could build an audience for Bunny Rabbit, which I think has been a success. There’s certainly awareness of it in Australia’s filmgoing community, and we’ve started to crack the US audience too: most of our social media followers are now in the States.

Creating an engaged social media following for a film is a fine line. You can’t just keep putting trailers, or scenes of your film, in front of a social audience and expect them to engage with your content. You’ll need to inject some personality, which is why, if you head over to our Instagram, you’ll see a lot of content featuring me on-camera, voicing my sometimes ill-informed opinions about filmmaking, other films and movies in general. Partly that’s me just having a bit of fun, but it’s also strategic: people on social media want to see other people, not products.

Digital Marketing has also become something really essentially to our approach. We think digital marketing is something all indie filmmakers should get on board with or, at the very least, try to understand, because as evil as Mark Zuckerberg is, Meta have created some extraordinarily powerful tools for filmmakers to reach their audience. Used well, those tools mean an independent film like ours can find the specific people most likely to love it, anywhere in the world, without a studio-sized budget.

On October 2, Bunny Rabbit will be available to rent or buy worldwide and we’re really confident that of the 8 billion people on the planet, we can find at least a few hundred thousand who’ll pay to watch it.

If you love film and want to support the people who make it, the most direct way is to rent or buy Bunny Rabbit through our own platform at http://www.bunnyrabbit.movie. For anyone interested how we made that happen, it’s basically a re-skinned Vimeo OTT site, so Vimeo will get a small cut of our profits, but nothing coming even close to what Amazon, Apple or YouTube would take.

As artists, filmmakers and storytellers, the most important thing is for people to watch and engage with the work we have poured ourselves into so we’re able to make our next film. By approaching distribution a little differently, and working with innovative people like Elusive Fish, we hope that more people will get to engage and enjoy Bunny Rabbit.

We’ve spent the past year building towards this moment. We’ve loved our experience at festivals, cinemas and with our online community and we are grateful to everyone who has watched it, reviewed us on letterboxd and engaged with us so far.

We can’t wait to bring Bunny Rabbit to its biggest audience yet. This is just the beginning.

Bunny Rabbit is available to rent or buy now via http://www.bunnyrabbit.movie

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