A closer look
Maya Deren didn't just pioneer the American avant-garde with her surreal 1943 film Meshes of the Afternoon; she practically invented the relentless indie-filmmaker grind. Disgusted by the commercial studio system, Deren realized no one was going to distribute a silent movie about grim reapers and multiplying keys. So, she simply rented out theaters in Greenwich Village with her own money, printed her own promotional flyers, and bullied intellectuals into buying tickets, bypassing the entire corporate distribution network through sheer force of will.
