Today we’d like to introduce you to Manon de Reeper.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
When I was growing up in The Netherlands, I already knew at an early age that I wanted to be a movie director. I never pursued it, though, and when it was that time to choose what I wanted to do after high school, I went to University to get degrees in Psychology and Criminology. Never did I lose my passion for film, however, and many of my studies I dedicated to learning more about how we learn from movies, from a psychological and criminological standpoint.
When I got out of University, my now husband and I were about to move to Australia – he got a job there, and I always encouraged him to find a job abroad because I’d always wanted to move abroad. Once there I found out I was excluded from any law enforcement jobs (governments often don’t hire temporary residents), and for most other jobs in Perth, mostly an oil and gas town, I was way overqualified. So, turning once more to my love for movies to keep me busy, I started blogging about movies, but in a very in-depth, analytical way, inspired by my academic studies. I wrote about movies almost every day and wrote about 400 movie-related articles in the first year and a half.
Apparently, what I was doing appealed to people – I decided I couldn’t keep doing what I was doing on my own and invited a few people to join me. And now, almost five years later, I’ve hosted hundreds of writers and have around 100 active contributors, we have a handful of editors, and have published over 4000 long-form articles on movies. We are Rotten Tomatoes certified, and Film Inquiry’s writers are about 50/50 male/female, which is pretty rare among film publications, and it’s something I’m very proud of.
I moved to the US late 2017 to be closer to the film industry, and that has paid off. I now frequently go to LA for meetings, I and my team are invited to attend all the biggest film festivals around the US and the rest of the world, and, most excitingly, I am now also moving into production myself, as this year I am producing a horror short film I wrote, and have a handful of other projects I’ve written over the years that I am working on getting made, and have joined other projects as a producer, too. I’m definitely getting closer to fulfilling my dream of becoming a director!
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth road. I often felt very lonely in Perth, my husband was at work during the day, I knew absolutely no one in the area, and I felt like I was dedicating a lot (a LOT) of time to what was probably just a pointless hobby that wasn’t making me any money. I also felt that online (film) journalism, with so much clickbait and low advertising income, had become an absolute wasteland, and I was trying to do the exact opposite of what other outlets were doing. Often I felt like just pulling the plug.
But the more people joined me, the more I felt that I couldn’t just give up. At some point so many people had invested time into Film Inquiry, it became more and more of a job and an obligation and a point of pride for me to keep it going. But that has most definitely been the biggest challenge for me – having that obligation, that responsibility to keep it going even though sometimes I really didn’t know what the point was anymore.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Film Inquiry – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Film Inquiry (filminquiry.com) is an online film magazine. As we put it succinctly in our mission: “Film Inquiry is a progressive, independent film magazine that aims to redefine film journalism. We publish in-depth, high-quality articles written by a diverse group of people; without falsely baiting your attention, we offer genuine, passionate insight into the world of film.”
What sets us apart from other film magazines is a few things, and they are also what I am most proud of: we offer in-depth, long-form film criticism (which is pretty rare nowadays), we discuss mainstream films but also pay particular attention to independent film, we host a very diverse group of writers (50/50 male/female and many people of color) who are from all over the world. We are also very outspoken in our support of female filmmakers.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
2019 is looking to be our best year yet – we are predicting enormous growth in traffic (we saw a 430% increase in 2018) and it feels like all the hard work everyone has done is finally starting to pay off. We have teams scheduled to go to all the big festivals around the world again this year and will continue to produce high quality, long-form film journalism. In the next few years, we will expand into real-life events (e.g., awards events, panels, mixers, etc.), webinars and online education, paid memberships, and more. I’m incredibly excited about Film Inquiry’s future!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.filminquiry.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Facebook: http://facebook.com/filminquiry/
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/filminquiry/
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