Here’s how you make an indie movie in 2026

On a busy street a young filmmaker walks into traffic This is a shoot but for your phone screens For weeks now this young crew has been relying on social media and funny content to get the word out about their film As they crisscross India in a caravan their pit stops double up as trailer screenings NGO visits and the occasional scenic halt for a quick reel Months earlier the same team was detained in Germany for trying to publicise their film without permissionThis is the team of Nukkad Natak a social drama set to release on February 27 on the big screen And they are doing all they can to market and distribute their film from their own pocketAnother firsttime filmmaker Sriram Emani is preparing for his film Jam Boyrsquos world premiere just blocks away from where immigration policies are written in the US For a film about an Indian immigrant who may never be allowed to leave the country premiering at the DC Independent Film Festival 2026 in Washington DC on February 15 this is no easy featNeither project has a studio or a marketing budget worth the name Together Nukkad Natak and Jam Boy offer a sharp snapshot of what making it looks like todayDirected and produced by Tanmaya Shekhar Nukkad Natak is an independent Hindi feature The film follows two college students who are forced to confront life outside their elite campus after being expelled and sent to work with children in a nearby basti The idea Shekhar says came from growing up around an IIT campus and seeing ldquotwo Indias existing within a few kilometres of each other without ever meetingrdquoFrom the start the film was conceived as independent ldquoI always knew this would be an indierdquo he says Years of pitching scripts taught him how slow and uncertain the process could be So he wrote practically avoiding scenes he couldnrsquot afford to shoot Even then money ran out more than once ldquoThe day we finished shooting we didnrsquot have money to pay all the vendorsrdquo he admits Fundraising continued long after the camera stopped rollingSpeaking about the experience he says casting especially a 13yearold girl from the basti was one of the toughest challenges The team conducted acting workshops in government schools near their shooting location slowly building trust ldquoWe didnrsquot want a preachy filmrdquo Shekhar says ldquoWe wanted something emotional where people connect to the charactersrdquoBut finishing the film was only half the battle Releasing it without a producer or distributor meant inventing a new playbookSriram Emanirsquos movie Jam Boy is about an Indian immigrantwho may never be allowed to leave the USThat playbook is now playing out on Instagram feeds and city streets With Architaa Chawla joining as head of marketing and PR in the final months the team launched a roadtrip campaign across India They are currently visiting cities where the film would screen meeting audiences directly performing with children collaborating with NGOs and documenting everything online They have made humorous reels launched a series called How to Enter Bollywood created a Hindi alphabet song and turned their own learning curve into content ldquoWe wanted to connect directly with peoplerdquo Chawla explains ldquoThe film itself is called Nukkad Natak So we went to the nukkadrdquoThe nowviral Germany arrest happened during an overseas festival run when the team tried promoting the film on the streets without clearance Instead of burying the incident they posted about it The honesty workedTheir strategy also leans on data One key metric interest numbers on BookMyShow ldquoIf we can show one lakh people are interestedrdquo Shekhar says ldquowe can tell theatre owners that audiences existrdquo For small films competing with stardriven releases show timings are everythingLead actress Molshri says the pressure is constant ldquoIf this doesnrsquot work we go homerdquo she says plainly ldquoItrsquos all or nothingrdquo But the team has also seen something else on the road Young artists in smaller cities recognising their own futures in this journey ldquoThey tell us lsquoIf your film works maybe we can do this toorsquordquo says ShekharJam Boy unfolds in a far quieter way Written directed produced and performed by Sriram Emani the dystopian short film follows a successful Indian immigrant in the US who begins to realise that freedom especially the freedom to leave may be slipping awayThe film draws directly from Emanirsquos lived experience ldquoOnce I went to the US I became very hyper aware of all the parts of myself that I was erasing to belong mdash my name my food my accent my habits They want your brain but not your food or your culture That contradiction felt like something we needed to talk aboutrdquo he says The film asks what happens when the model immigrant story stops feeling like success and becomes a performanceEmani chose scifi because it allows fear to be visualised In Jam Boyrsquos world visas are needed not to enter the US but to leave it The anxiety is familiar ldquoI should not be afraid to get on a flight and see my momrdquo he says ldquoThat happens in jail not in a country you live inrdquoFood becomes the filmrsquos emotional anchor a memory a resistance and an identity rolled into one ldquoThey can change how you dress or speakrdquo Emani says ldquoBut they canrsquot change how you eatrdquoUnlike Nukkad Natak Jam Boy has taken the festivalfirst route The film will premiere in competition at the DC Independent Film Festival on February 15 followed by screenings at the Boston Independent Film Festival and the DisOrient Asian American Film Festival For Emani festivals were always a strategy not an afterthought ldquoMaking the film is only half the work The other half is figuring out how it enters the world As a debut filmmaker today you are not just a storyteller You are building a community a distribution strategy and a conversationrdquoHe adds that where a film premieres shapes how it is read DC he felt was the right place to frame the story as emotional rather than partisan as he wants the film to be a conversation about belonging rather than policy alone ldquoFilm festivals were never just about screening the movie for me They are where the film starts a conversation with audiences policymakers other filmmakers Where a film premieres becomes part of its identityrdquo he explainsThe response has surprised him ldquoI underestimated how much it would resonaterdquo he admits The film has sparked QampAs community conversations and interest from programmers and distributors who scout festivals for new voices Emani sees this as part of a larger shift As film equipment is cheaper and barriers to entry are lower itrsquos increasingly easier to make a film But attention however is harder to hold ldquoIndie films grow through communities before they grow through algorithmsrdquo he says Distribution he believes is no longer just a business decision but has become storytellingWhat connects Nukkad Natak and Jam Boy isnrsquot genre or geography but the absence of a safety net One film fights for screen space in Indian theatres The other fights to start a conversation in policyheavy rooms Both are navigating an industry where studios feel distant money is scarce and visibility has to be earned inch by inchNeither route guarantees success but both reveal a generation of filmmakers refusing to wait for permission Could these two films act as case studies into how firsttime filmmakers can break into the industry Quite possiblyWhat they do reveal is how independent filmmakers canrsquot simply rely on their filmmaking skills alone As Emani puts it ldquoIndependent films today grow through communities before they grow through algorithms Unless you have very deep pockets for marketing word of mouth and genuine connection are the only ways forwardrdquo