Today we’d like to introduce you to Benjamin Koppin.
Hi Benjamin, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
Right out of film school, I got a job working for Lionsgate in their horror department. We handled most of the EPK content for different horror releases. Through this experience, I got to film behind-the-scenes content/interviews with some of my directing heroes including Ridley Scott, Francis Ford Coppola, Guillermo Del Toro, Sam Raimi, and George A. Romero (among others). This was an amazing education to see how different filmmakers handled their sets and that there wasn’t one “right way” to produce, complete and release a film. Each filmmaker has a different style and path, and your “superpower” as a filmmaker is your unique point of view.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Currently, we are releasing a raw “faith film” entitled Pastor’s Kid in theaters on March 15, which I wrote with my wife and directed. The film carries an R-rating due to drug use throughout and language. This film has been the hardest project I have ever undertaken due to the realistic way we wanted to tell the story. It wrestles with the tension between religious hypocrisy vs. authentic faith. Being raised in the Christian church in the Midwest, I often encountered this struggle and it took years for me to find the courage to bring this discussion to the screen. Based on one of my friends’ true stories, the film shows the raw realities of dealing with childhood trauma while also giving hope for freedom in the future. My goal wasn’t to make anyone out to be the villain but to show real people with real struggles on all sides. Christians in the “faith film industry” won’t touch our film because of the raw R-rated nature, and that has been hard to take their constant criticism. They keep saying if we had made it cleaner and PG then we would make more money from the film. But I just couldn’t bring myself to compromise this story and as soon as we screened the film to real audiences, we found a huge wave of support for the honesty we are expressing. People are ready for the hard discussions, and they want to feel seen!
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about 1988 Films?
My wife and I recently launched our very own film distribution company, 1988 Films, to support all of our coming releases. Each year we produce at least one independent feature film using the equipment we’ve accrued over the years doing commercial work through our other brand, Ironside Films. This has given us the ability to make high-quality-looking indie films whenever we want, often just getting actor friends together and building the stories as we go.
After being taken advantage of by a “predator distributor” (who still has one of our films for five more years…), we vowed to never have that happen again. So, we did the homework and created 1988 Films in 2023 and started releasing our backlog of indie films. Since then, we have signed deals to release our films on VOD and physical media, and our first theatrical release is in March 2024. We are very much building the plane as we fly it, but we’ve streamlined the entire filmmaking process from film conception all the way through release in-house.
Here are our most recent films that are available on VOD: Return to Me, Kill A Prophet, Burn My Money, Martin Luther King Jr. Legacy. And our film Pastor’s Kid will be in select theaters nationwide March 15, 2024.
What do you think about happiness?
Creating films with friends and playing is what makes me happy. Getting back to being kids running around with VHS cameras and just making films without a care, it’s just now the cameras are RED cameras instead.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://1988-films.tv
- Instagram: https://www.
instagram.com/1988.films/?hl= en - Facebook: https://www.
facebook.com/profile.php?id= 61551498481928
