Self Distro Summer ’25: Filmmaker Ari Ali and her documentary Ben Between Africa

This summer, I’m following two independent documentary filmmakers interested in finding new alternatives to the classic distribution system. The film industry is changing, so filmmakers must change along with it. Feel free to follow along on Instagram via the hashtag #SelfDistroSummer25 and my @CastelliniFilmSchool, as well as here on Medium, where I’ll be checking in with them and helping share their insights ahead of an end of summer virtual panel!

Who are you and what do you make?

I’m Ari — a queer Yemeni-American filmmaker. Over the past two decades, I’ve directed short films and collaborated on a range of feature-length documentaries and narrative films.

Over the last seven years, I’ve focused on directing and producing Ben Between Africa, a personal and historical documentary, and this summer I’m focusing on getting the film to audiences across America and possibly abroad.

The Story Behind Ben Between Africa

It started in the fall of 2017, at my cousin’s wedding in Pennsylvania. Between toasts and small talk, I overheard a family friend ask my mom a question that surprised me: “Do you know anything about Ben’s final letter?”

Growing up, my mom’s brother — my uncle Ben — was someone we never talked about. I knew little about him and even less about my mom’s childhood as a Mennonite missionary kid in Ethiopia. It was a part of our family history that felt distant, foggy, and mostly unspoken.

After the wedding, I couldn’t shake the thought of Ben’s final letter. Did it really exist? If so, who had it — and could it hold answers not just about his death, but about the silence that followed and the lasting impact on our family?

What began as a simple question became a seven-year journey — one that started with a letter and led to something much deeper. I found myself uncovering the hidden story of my family’s years in Ethiopia and the ripple effects of Ben’s untimely, mysterious death. Ben Between Africa became my way of making sense of it all: the unresolved grief, growing up between intersecting cultures, the trauma of boarding school, and the threads still shaping our family today.

What does success look like for your doc, in your ideal world, even beyond this summer?

Since wrapping post-production, I’ve hosted a series of private and community screenings, and I’ve been moved by how deeply the film resonates. Former missionary kids, third culture kids, and members of the Mennonite community have seen their own stories reflected back — but what’s surprised me most is how strongly it connects with viewers who have no direct ties to those worlds. I think that’s because, at its heart, Ben Between Africa is about something universal: the longing many in my generation feel to have honest conversations with our parents and grandparents about the harder parts of our shared histories. That desire to understand where we come from — spoken and unspoken — runs deep.

In my ideal world, success for this film starts with reaching the niche communities most directly connected to its themes. From there, I’d love to see it become accessible online so that it can continue finding a wider audience. I’m currently in the early stages of developing two new documentaries, and I hope that the care, craft, and perspective that went into Ben Between Africa will resonate within the documentary community and open doors for me to keep making the kinds of films I feel uniquely positioned to tell.

What’s your current distribution plan for summer of 2025?

This summer, I’ve decided to take the film “on tour.” This idea came out of something I noticed during screenings earlier this spring: people would often come up and ask how long I’d be in town, and if I could come screen the film at their church, retirement community, or even a friend gathering. So I started building a flexible, grassroots screening tour in a handful of cities across the U.S. where I know there are strong Mennonite communities. I’m collaborating with local organizers in each place to host events that feel right for their community.

Each screening is a little different — one is happening in a church on a Saturday night with multiple Mennonite congregations invited, while another will take place in a local brewery. The tour kicks off in Oakland, CA, where I’ve lived for years and built a solid film community. Launching it in my “hometown,” surrounded by people who’ve supported my work, feels like the perfect way to start. I’m also hoping that the audience will help spread the word — online and in person — to keep the momentum going as the film travels. At the end of the summer, I’d like to regroup on next steps for the film based on what I learned and the people I met along the way.

What are the data points you’ll be particularly concerned with?

There are a few data points I’ll be paying close attention to throughout the summer tour. First, I’m really curious to see how many people show up for each screening. So far, there’s been a lot of enthusiastic interest, but turnout will help me understand how much that translates into actual engagement.

After each screening, I’ll be collecting audience surveys to get a better sense of who’s showing up, what resonated with them, and how they’d like to stay engaged. I’m not just interested in showing the film — I want to understand what kinds of conversations or community gatherings people want to have afterward, and how the film can be a catalyst for that.

I’m also experimenting with a “pay-it-forward” model rather than selling tickets. Each screening is free, with a suggested donation to help fund the next one. I’m really interested to see how sustainable this approach is and whether it creates a stronger sense of collective ownership around the film’s journey.

Lastly, I hope the tour helps clarify where the film should live next. Should I pursue a platform like PBS or Kanopy? Would this audience be more inclined to rent or purchase the film through something like Kinema or Vimeo? I’d like to have a streaming plan in place by the fall, since I’ve heard from several audience members who want to share the film with their families during the holidays.

Walk me through the plan- what are your hypotheses, where did you get the idea to try this particular strategy, and has this plan changed at all prior to putting it into practice?

Over the past two years, as I’ve been wrapping up the film, I’ve also been diving deep into the evolving world of distribution. In 2023, I attended the Getting Real conference in LA, hosted by the International Documentary Association, where I connected with filmmakers who were one to three years ahead of me in their distribution journeys. A common theme kept coming up: how tough — and expensive — it is to get into festivals, and how distribution deals that follow don’t always align with a filmmaker’s goals or values.

That led me to take a six-month course with Jon Reiss at 8 Above, where we focused on building customized distribution strategies aimed at reaching niche audiences directly. It really opened my eyes to the many creative paths a film can take to find its people.

Then, earlier this year, I saw a band called The Rainbow Girls perform. They talked about their DIY tour — the hustle, the lack of big profits, but also the deep satisfaction of connecting with their audience night after night. Something clicked. I saw the clear parallels between a touring musician and a touring filmmaker. That’s when I decided that a grassroots, cross-country screening tour — centered on real connection with audiences — felt like not just the most rewarding path, but the most aligned one for this film.

At the end of the summer I’ll have a better idea of the benefits and downfalls of this plan, I am sensing that although it will be a fun and engaging way of bringing this film directly to the audiences that want to see it most, it’s probably not a sustainable approach to maintain a career as a documentary filmmaker

Follow her independent distribution journey on Instagram with the hashtag #SelfDistroSummer25 and the @CastelliniFilmSchool account! And find more from Ari and her film on the official website www.benbetweenafrica.com/

Bri Castellini is an independent filmmaker, a romance author, and, regrettably, a podcaster. She’s known for the 2017 short film Ace and Anxious (writer/director, 165k+ views on YouTube) and for her podcasts Burn, Noticed and Breaking Out of Breaking In, covering the USA television show Burn Notice and practical filmmaking advice, respectively. She can lick her elbow (not clickbait). Full work history and ways to hire her as a consultant can be found on her website BriCastellini.com