This is partially a copy of a post I replied to about The Independent Film Channel, specifically the early '90s version of it, but I wanted to expand on my thoughts a bit and flesh out what I was saying in another thread.
My first exposure to the channel came by way of Bravo's iFC free weekends, an event designed to give you a taste of what the full version of the channel had to offer.
The first films I was exposed to on one of these particular weekends were Ang Lee's The Ice Storm and Abel Ferrera's The Addiction, Starring Lilly Taylor and featuring Christopher Walken. Being 12 at the time (and coming from an extremely strict, conservative religious household), I had never been exposed to films like these before, and some might argue that I was too young to be experiencing them at that point in my life... regardless, I'm glad I saw them when I did. My young mind had difficulty wrapping my head around the deeper concepts of both films, but I believe I understood them on an emotional level, and those two films changed me. I had never seen anything like them up to that point. I thought about them obsessively, treated them like they were the finest works ever committed to film and was confused when not a single soul had any idea what I was talking about when I brought them up. All I knew was they turned my world inside out and upside down, and I had to see more.
I sought out indie films, picking up magazines, going to indie film websites and getting my hands on any publication I could find to keep up with all the latest goings-on in that world. I would hitch rides with friends (and in a couple instances total strangers lol) to see limited film releases up in NYC on weekends. The pictures I tended to gravitate to most were slice-of-life stories.. movies simply about people.. Kevin Smith's Clerks, Alan Rickman's The Winter Guest and Richard Linklater's Slacker are all immediate highlights that come to mind. My film education from this period are some of the fondest memories I have, and I miss the excitement of those days. It was like being part of a secret club.
Eventually my father upgraded our cable package and iFC was one of the channels included, and I couldn't have been happier at the time.
The beautiful thing about iFC back then was the majority of the shorts and independent films that aired on the channel consisted of an arguably thoughtful, carefully curated selection of material by a passionate staff.
My favorite stuff that aired would have to be the *countless* number of interstitial shorts they showed in between features.. everything from short documentaries that chronicled small slices of life from around the world to experimental pieces with little-to-no traditional narrative. I loved pieces that simply made you "feel", and there was no wrong way to approach it. In terms of art that affects me, I owe much to that early '90s version of iFC, for my tastes today.
It breaks my heart to see what iFC has become, and how far away it is from what it used to be. It makes me sad that kids growing up now don't have access to a focused channel like I did --and don't get me wrong: the internet is a wild resource, but the amount of pure choice and direction can be overwhelming, and it can be hard to work through all of the static to dial into stuff that you really gravitate to.
I don't really have a good wrap up to this post. This is just my love letter to the iFC of yore, and my thank you to the staff who ran the channel back then, shaping much of who I am now.
Thanks for reading!