As ‘Christine’ Turns 10, Rebecca Hall and Its Filmmakers Fear a Series of Corporate Bankruptcies Could Make the Film Disappear

Exclusive: Released in 2016, "Christine" was embraced by critics, but the failure of its distributor and financier have left its future in question.

Last weekend, the filmmakers behind “Christine” gathered at the Telluride Film Festival for a tenth anniversary screening of the acclaimed indie drama. When the film opened in 2016 it drew raves for its sensitive portrayal of mental illness and for the devastating lead performance of Rebecca Hall as Christine Chubbuck, a news anchor who committed suicide on live television. And yet, just a decade later, the film is ensnared in a series of corporate bankruptcies that have its creators worried it may become inaccessible, if not vanish entirely.

“It feels terrible because this is this is definitely a film and a performance that I’m incredibly proud of, and I know that it means a lot to a lot of people,” Hall said via Zoom hours before the anniversary screening. “So the idea that it could just sort of disappear is insane to me.”

After “Christine” debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, a new indie distributor called The Orchard swept in and brought the U.S. distribution rights. Though it was nominated for Indie Spirit honors and won critics group prizes, the film never got the attention that many believed it. In fact, Hall’s performance is sometimes cited as one of the greatest Oscar snubs.

“They didn’t have the resources to capitalize on the acclaim and the other accolaids that the film received,” Hall said. “They just couldn’t afford to market it in a big way, so the release suffered from that.”

However, the filmmakers had a positive experience with the studio, praising it for embracing a movie about a challenging subject.

“The fact that they bought the movie and they put it out there was huge,” said Antonio Campos, the film’s director.

Part of the appeal for the filmmakers was The Orchard made a point of being more transparent than other distributors. It initially shared not only its box office results, but also its digital sales and rentals.

“They were like ‘this is our thing, we’re going to demystify film accounting,'” remembered Craig Shilowich, the film’s writer and producer. “They had a portal for filmmakers where you could see all the receipts coming in and out, and that was rare.”

The first hints of trouble started in 2019 when The Orchard was rebranded as 1091 Media and one of its principal backers, Sony, divested from the company. Initially, the portal was still up and running, but it would go down more frequently.

“They always seemed to have had good reasons for it,” Shilowich said. “But it became a promise that they didn’t keep over time.”

In 2022, a company called Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment bought 1091 Media and its catalog of films. But two years later, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment failed and was placed into Chapter 7 liquidation. That’s where things get really murky for the “Christine” team. In trying to disentangle the film from Chicken Soup’s bankruptcy, they discovered that Great Point Media, the London-based financier of “Christine,” had also gone bankrupt following the death of its founder, Jim Reeve.

“There was essentially no one to talk to about the fate of our film except for government-appointed bankruptcy trustees in two different countries,” Shilowich said. “And there are a bunch of other smaller distribution outlets, like Redbox, the DVD kiosk company, involved. So it’s actually a very large, extremely complex bankruptcy case, and some or all of our rights are involved.”

They are still hoping to find a way to extricate “Christine” from the wreckage and have talked to other filmmakers whose work has become caught up in the bankruptcies.

“If the creditors aren’t claiming it, I want to know, ‘Well, can I have it? Can I buy it? Like, what can we do here?'” Shilowich said. “We’re not only unable to get a satisfactory answer, but really to receive any response. So the movie’s in limbo now, and it’s not clear how it’s going to resolve.”

Until a chain of title is reestablished, “Christine,” which had previously built an audience on Netflix, isn’t being licensed to streamers or cable. That means it’s getting harder and harder for people to see it.

For Campos, the experience has taught him about the need to be vigilant about the fate of his work.

“I had this naive belief that when you sold your film to some place, they would take care of it,” Campos said. “You thought they would at least know where it was and how to get access to it and certainly who owned it? And then, when this happened and you realize that the person that’s going to care the most about your work is you. This was just a lesson that you have to be looking out and you have to keep checking in.”

The filmmaking team has been able to celebrate what they accomplished in bringing Chubbuck’s story to the screen. Not only did they have an anniversary event at Telluride, but they’ve shown the film at Brooklyn’s Nitehawk and the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York. Hall, who says she doesn’t like to watch herself, managed to sit through one of the screenings.

“I had some distance from it,” Hall said. “I was just really struck with what a special film it is, and the scope of it, and the ambition of it, and the filmmaking. It was ahead of its time. In the very tumultuous 10 years since it was released, a lot has shifted in the way we think about mental health. And I’m proud of how we treated the depression that my character was experiencing with so much compassion. It’s an important film and I think it deserves to carry on being seen.”