Why One Indie Producer Is Refusing to Let Her Latest Film Disappear on Streaming

Longtime producer and president of the Board of New York Women in Film & Television, Kim Jackson is used to fighting hard for her projects. Her latest, “The Plea,” follows twelve sharply divided jurors deliberating a controversial case. Ahead, Jackson explains why she won’t let this one “disappear into the blackhole of the streamerverse.”

Kim Jackson is a long-time independent film producer at Evotion and is behind films like “Blue Caprice,” “King Cobra,” and “Trust Machine: The Story of Blockchain.” She also serves as president of the Board of New York Women in Film & Television.

When I read the first draft of “The Plea,” a creative swirl turned into a strange synchronicity of events and positioning of people. Partially inspired by what was happening in Alabama, it felt like a movie was inevitable. I’ve watched the dismantling of Roe v. Wade, and it infuriated me.

There was an interesting story developing in Alabama. Embryos at an IVF clinic had been destroyed. Whether it was accidental or on purpose wasn’t the point. The owners of the embryos wanted justice. These women wanted some recourse over the loss of their reproductive plans. Who is responsible for the murder of their future children?

When I discovered what was going on in Alabama, I had already made the decision to quit producing movies. Movies were supposed to have the power to change the world. I wasn’t so sure anymore. It no longer brought me joy, and I was getting tired of fighting for exhibition and distribution. I’d been producing independent films for a long time. I started at a studio, but that kind of life wasn’t for me. That kind of corporate structure and hierarchy isn’t for me. I was young and wanted the freedom to express myself as a filmmaker. Anything and everything was possible then. You need that kind of delusion in a healthy measure to make indie films that the industry is not asking for.

More than twenty years and twenty films later, some have made money, have distribution and been acclaimed. Most have not.

You have to really love movies to be an indie producer. We have no union representation. No insurance. No pension plans. No benefits. Cast and crew can retire with some semblance of security. Producers are on their own. It is an unsung and mostly unheralded position at the indie level.

The producer is also left holding the bag when everyone else has moved on. Years later, there’s still work to be done managing a film’s intellectual property rights and corporate vehicles. And then there’s the matter of distribution. Always distribution. Every part of the filmmaking process seems to have eager participants and collaborators until you get to the distribution phase. Yes, there are many ways to engineer greater probability for success when it comes to distribution, but it only comes down to one thing and one thing only, there is much greater supply than there is demand. Basic economics and market dynamics.

The incident in Alabama kicked off in 2020. By 2024, a lower court initially dismissed the civil case and stated that embryos count as property, not people. Interesting… when does that property turn into a person? The Alabama Supreme Court disagreed with the lower court. The justices stated that a 1872 Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applied to all unborn children, regardless of whether they are inside or outside the uterus. Embryos have the same rights as children. Fascinating. This was the moment when the swirl of a movie started forming around me.

I was surprised this wasn’t bigger news across mainstream media. The ruling had created legal and criminal liability risks for fertility doctors. Multiple IVF clinics in Alabama temporarily paused their services and treatments. The debate regarding fetal personhood and access to fertility care was beginning. And what was fascinating was that women and couples, both pro-life and pro-choice, were being affected.

It also created the beginnings of a criminal legal structure around embryos. How far could the courts take this? If a woman had several embryos in an IVF clinic, could the state force her to carry all of them to term? And what about the sperm donor? What say do they have?

“The Plea,” inspired by this case and written by Zach LeBeau, Dean Imperial, and Scott Organ, hit my desk. Twelve months later, we were in pre-production. Its themes of an ever-divided America, society’s addiction to technology and personhood were timely, and it had to be made now.

It takes so much time, energy and money to make a film. You can spend one hundred million dollars, or you can spend one million dollars, either one can bring an audience to catharsis. As a journeywoman producer, my forte has been toward the lower million-dollar end of the spectrum. The path is specific and unique in this budget range. The upside is greater. The control is greater. Investors tend to be OK with only a percentage of investment returned in the form of a tax credit and deductions and losses claimed on tax returns. Making money is a bonus. A hit movie is a bonus. It’s about the art and message, or it’s supposed to be.

Every film festival cycle, there are panels and speeches about the ever-changing industry, how it’s broken and how it could be fixed. You can’t just make a film anymore without planning from the very beginning how it will be experienced by audiences. Is it commercial or art house? Is it intended for the big screen? Is it straight to streaming? Are you supposed to watch it on your phone? You need to be aware of the type of film you’re making, who the audience is and how you will reach them.

In the case of “The Plea,” we made a stylized black and white film to be experienced in the cinema with other people. Streaming just won’t do. We will refuse a distribution deal that results in no theatrical, no minimum guarantee, and no marketing dollars. I can’t waste my energy having told this story just to have it disappear into the blackhole of the streamerverse. And it’s an opportune time for our film, as microcinemas and art house cinema consortiums are on the rise.

We have control over very little in this chaotic, ever accelerating, ever expanding world. What we do have control over is precious. It’s an interesting dance for a producer to exercise control of a production. What to exert force and will over, and what to let take its natural course. It’s the same in life. A movie, just like life, is a series of decisions and the effects and consequences of those decisions. As I get older, and time becomes more important to me, I get more real with myself. I’m probably never going to stop making films. If I’m inspired, it becomes an uncontrollable, irresistible compulsion. But something needs to change. Do I need to change?

“The Plea” became one of those ideas that made all the broken things about the industry I had been fixated on less of a concern. It shifted the focus back to where it belonged, how to tell this story in the best possible way that reaches into the hearts and minds of the most people possible, in the event it does make it out into the world. It forced me to evolve my understanding of filmmaking. It doesn’t matter if movies have the power to change the world. I don’t know if they truly can. But what I do know is that movies have the power to change my world.

“The Plea” will world premiere at the 2026 Woodstock Film Festival on Friday, October 16.