Geralyn White Dreyfous is a legend in the film world. Her independent executive producing and producing credits include the Academy Award winning Navalny (2022); Academy Award winning Born Into Brothels (2004); Academy Award Nominated And Peabody Award winning The Invisible War (2012), Academy Award Nominated And Emmy Award winning The Square (2013), and Emmy Award winning 16 Shots (2019). Geralyn has also had multiple festival winners and nominees such as Miss Representation (2011), Meet The Patels (2014), Alive Inside (2014), The Hunting Ground (2015), Bending The Arc (2017), The Judge (2017), Step (2017), Be Natural (2018), Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (2018), Always In Season (2019), The Great Hack (2019), Us Kids (2020), and The Truffle Hunters (2020).
Last year she was also an executive producer on Ian Darling’s Aussie favourite The Pool (2024).
Geralyn is a Founder and Board Chair of Utah Film Center, Co-Founder of Impact Partners, and a founding member of Gamechanger Films. She has been recognised by Variety and the International Documentary Association for her significant contribution to documentary filmmaking.
Irresistible was lucky enough to sit down with Geralyn at Sundance to hear her thoughts about the future of the film market, and who has inspired her along the way.
What were your highlights from this years Sundance Film Festival?
I thought The Alabama Solution was incredible. I loved Middletown. All That’s Left of You was one of ours that was such a labour of love and full of humanity. Tiger was a beautiful short film by Indigenous artist and elder Dana Tiger. The Librarians was brilliant and could certainly be screened as a cautionary tale anywhere in the world.
How many projects were you attached to at Sundance this year?
I had seven films there, six documentaries and one feature. So, the first weekend was crazy with all the premieres. They all went well and were well received. But not one of them sold, so that was frustrating. Two of them do have a distribution from public television in America already, but nothing else. It’s a really interesting time. We’re trying to figure out how can we keep supporting these films that aren’t being bought, and then aren’t being seen and having the impact that they deserve.
What do you think has changed about film festivals?
There’s a professor at UCLA that teaches a class on festival strategy, and I think festivals have really changed, they’re almost a form of alternative distribution now for filmmakers. But they’re also exhausting and expensive. I don’t how sustainable it is for filmmakers to keep showing up to festivals thinking someone is going to buy their film. It used to be you got into Sundance and you had a 50% chance of getting your film sold. Now it’s one in ten or twenty get sold. There are issues with the market, but it also could be that festivals need to program some films that are a bit more commercial. There’s not enough buying to justify all the infrastructure around a big festival like Sundance if there are no sales.
Can you see the knock- on effects in the industry?
A publisher of a media platform told me this year that they couldn’t afford to bring so many writers next year as they were no sales to write about. So, you can see how the impact of the marketplace will have an effect across other parts of the industry, then there’s less economic development, and then less of a reason why you have to be there. It used to be if you were a buyer anywhere in the world, you had to show up to Sundance. I just feel like so much is changing that we can’t predict. From my point of view, we’re financing films because we believe in film as a tool for social impact and change, but we also just love stories, and think it’s part of how we’re human and how we connect to one another. We don’t want to give up on the potential of films, but we’re being faced with new realities about what will be bought. We’ve been pretty much told unilaterally by the streamers that until we can grow an audience that’s bigger for documentaries then they’re not going to be bought.
How is the interpretation of viewer numbers changing?
When you have a global platform, you need to have a film that will attract at least 2 million views. That’s a lot for documentaries. We see films that we think can get 50, or 100,000 views, and that could be sold to different territories. But in the subscription model, if you have 193 countries and the film is only being seen by say 200,000 people, it’s either the algorithm is being lazy and is not finding its audience, or there’s not enough interest. I feel completely confident that people will love these films, they just don’t know that they love them yet. I’m spending a lot of time thinking about how you grow the audience, how do we use technology to amplify and make the films more accessible. Make them part of people’s brain diet.
What’s next for you to tackle this issue?
We’ve started a new platform called Jolt.film, which is designed expressly to put films out there. They can be transactional video-on-demand, or free community impact screenings. It’s also a way of generating data and numbers for filmmakers so they can prove there is an audience for their films.
Who has been a mentor for you in your career?
A professor of mine called Robert Coles used to publish a magazine called Double Take, which focussed on non-fiction storytelling and photography. Through that and working for the magazine I got interested in the moral imagination of non- fiction storytelling, being as, if not more, interesting than fiction.
After I moved to Utah, Robert Coles invited me to come and think about programming non- fiction storytelling at Sundance. We launched something called DocHouse, and then he launched a whole program to make documentary films the siblings, not the step-children, of the festival. It changed the market place.
I would say Robert Redford and the whole Sundance Film Festival has really influenced me.
Do you remember the first time you came to Sundance?
I first went in 1999. My first film was made in 2001, and I was programming some photographers and non- fiction storytellers then as well. My first film that was in Sundance was Born Into Brothels in 2004. I’ve seen the festival change enormously from a something small to a something very large, but I haven’t missed a Sundance since 2001. We had very few documentaries back then and now they’re 50% of the program. In fact, The Best of Fest this year was a documentary that we were involved with, and the next four runners-up were all docs, so the audience response is really exciting.
Who for you are Modern Heroes out there in the filmmaking world?
There’s just some incredibly resilient talent out there. I love Andrew Jarecki, he had The Alabama Solution this year. I love Alex Gibney and we just did The Bibi Files together. I tend to like people that will speak truth to power, and that is becoming harder to get distribution to do. Amy Berg was at Sundance with It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley which was great. Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing were there with a film we financed Folktales, they’re just great filmmakers. I love Liz Garbus’ work; she had two films at Sundance, Enigma and Sally. Rory Kennedy didn’t have a film this year but she was there and I’m a big fan. Isabella Castro is an emerging talent and we were part of her film about Selena Quintanilla. She’s on a great trajectory.
Do you think early career filmmakers have to do everything?
Especially early on and in documentaries, if you don’t have a track record, you’re often doing everything. Later on, there are directors that produce as well, but more often I see a lot of documentary filmmakers who might executive produce someone else’s work, as they are helping talent emerge. It can flip back again. I think when filmmakers start a company, in order that they can pay for overheads and continue to work with the same editors, they have to produce others work in order to keep the lights on.
What kind of issues come up for you during the filmmaking process?
There’s always something in every film production that drives you mad! For the recent production All That’s Left of You, we had real difficulty accessing finance as it’s a Palestinian drama. They were scouting in Israel when October 7th happened, so you just have to stop. A big skill is being able to pivot and deal with problems, which often means finding extra finance to manage a change. We had a film in Alabama which was having such a bad heatwave that people were passing out. There are so many reasons why you might have to shut down productions.
Who are your all time favourite on screen talents?
That would have to be Cate Blanchett, Laura Dern, and Olivia Wild. Olivia is really interesting in that she directs and produces and stars in her work. All of these women are pretty epic. I actually spoke to Cate Blanchett the other day about Yulia Navalnaya, I’m sure someone’s going to make the film of her extraordinary life, and I think Cate could play her brilliantly.
Besides Sundance, which are your favourite festivals?
Hands down my favourite festival for documentaries is CPH:DOX, I’ve been going there for the last 5 years. They have a great pitch session and I really enjoy seeing all the presentations. My favourite festival to go to as a film lover is Telluride as it’s small and highly curated. I love Locarno too; it’s an amazing cultural event and a great community who come together to watch films under the stars. I’m on the jury this year of Sarasota Film Festival in Florida which will be really fun. I love Santa Barbara, they have some beautiful venues, real community support, and I love the people that run it. The Hamptons International Film Festival is another one of my favourites. Woodstock and Camden International Film Festivals are two others that have become really important regional festivals.
Have you been to any Australian festivals?
I was supposed to come last year to Sydney Film Festival for Ian Darling’s film The Pool, but I couldn’t make it. It’s on my list to get down there very soon. A lot of our films do get seen in Australia as Madman Entertainment is so good at buying up rights to our films, and they get good distributions.
What do you hope people are thinking about in the filmmaking community?
These really practical questions about the creative economy need to be wrangled. I still feel these stories can break out and they can make an impact, and they’re worth getting behind. We just have to figure out how to make it work.
