Tina Kakadelis
Spend any amount of time around the film industry and it won’t take long for someone to say that Hollywood as we know it has no future. No one wants to go to the movies anymore is what they’ll tell you, but many, myself included, would argue that’s just not the case. Another dissenting voice belongs to that of the production company Raw Daisies. Founded by Katie Elle Weinstein and Michael Feder, Raw Daisies is an answer to the startling statistic that global film production is down 20% and US film production is down 40%. Katie Elle Weinstein and Michael Feder sat down with Film Obsessive News Editor Tina Kakadelis to talk about the inception of their company, the inherent political nature of filmmaking, and revolutionizing the industry as we know it.
One of the featured stories on the front page of Variety, a leading Hollywood trade site, recently proclaimed that a Los Angeles “exodus” is happening. Of course, if you pull up the front page of any news site, you’ll find journalists chronicling the unprecedented times we keep finding ourselves in.
“The feeling of doom isn’t just coming from the film industry itself. I think any sober analysis of the times that we are living in should produce a sense of at least concern,” Feder offered. “I think that the film industry has historically met times like this with some great work, right? I think the ’60s is a great example. At the baseline today, the film industry at this moment has simply just gotten disconnected from the basic sense of quality and belief in what movies can do.”
“People have been saying that the theater is dying for thousands of years and it’s still going on right now,” Elle Weinstein continued. “What’s really unique about the film industry is that one person, one company, or one movie can change the entire industry in a night. Whether it’s Warren Beatty in the ’60s with Bonnie and Clyde or an A24 movie like Spring Breakers. There should be a change in the industry and I do think that’s coming. Raw Daisies sets a precedent for that.”
When Elle Weinstein and Feder talk about the 1960s, they’re talking about filmmakers like Agnes Varda, who built her career on weaving politics through her craft. The larger studios are shying away from political statements in their films, looking to appeal to both sides of the aisle, but filmmaking has a long history of pushing the human race forward. Raw Daisies embraces that legacy wholeheartedly and in a grander sense. Beyond subject matter, Feder and Elle Weinstein are concerned with making sustainable art, in front of and behind the camera, with a financial, political, and community focus.
“At Raw Daisies, we have a profit-splitting model because artists should get a portion of the profits. They should be involved in distribution,” Elle Weinstein said emphatically. “That’s really, really important. It’s an essential step of filmmaking, and of art in general. Artists should get a say, not only verbally, but in terms of financially as well.”
“It makes me think of this lecture I sat in at Princeton University about Iranian cinema,” Elle Weinstein continued. “They were saying how America only sees 20 to 30% of the films that are made in Iran. That’s a political decision. How movies are funded is a political decision. A film is political no matter what. I think people should embrace that. I think we should be honest about that.”
“I think the way that well-meaning people have tried to resolve that conflict has been with the topic of the film itself. Or the script itself. I think when we’re talking about politics and film, for us at least, it’s way less politically important and, frankly, less culturally interesting, to make a film that is otherwise funded and produced through the status quo,” Feder expressed. “We are a seize-the-means-of-production company because politics are a material matter, right? They’re a matter of how do we make this stuff? How do we bring it to audiences? How do we make money with this? The whole process.”
“I would say to people who maybe are afraid of politics and film,” Feder continued. “I think maybe what they’re thinking of are really bad movies that treat their political subjects as a sort of veneer, as opposed to a project that’s fundamentally taking the political reality we’re all living in as a baseline and making films from there. That’s how we constitute ourselves.”
“I think the choice to try to ignore politics in filmmaking or in your everyday life is still a political act,” added Elle Weinstein.
By now, you may be wondering why it’s called Raw Daisies and how Elle Weinstein and Feder created the company. The name came from Elle Weinstein, who combined the names of two films, Julia Ducournau’s Raw and Věra Chytilová’s Daisies, that inspired her as an artist. Before they landed on Raw Daisies, they went through a few options that didn’t quite stick.
“Lady Gems,” laughed Feder as he read off a list of name ideas they keep taped to the wall behind them. “We like Lady Bird and Uncut Gems. I think we were personally pretty jazzed about it and then our friends were like, it doesn’t quite sound right, it just doesn’t quite roll off the tongue.”
“I think we started the company very organically and unintentionally at first. We’re both artists, and I think we realized that, much like other artists, there comes a bit of legitimacy when you have a production company and it’s very easy to fill out an LLC form,” joked Elle Weinstein. “We realized that our artistic aspirations were a lot bigger than just making movies. I love producing because I’m able to help others realize their vision, so it just kept growing and growing. Now we’re at this point where all of our other interests are coming in as well.”
Some of their other interests are on center stage in the second year of Raw Daisies’ Summer Fest. Taking place in a variety of venues across Brooklyn, Summer Fest ’25 has events for everyone. From film screenings to merch drops to speed dating, the Raw Daisies team wants to have a meaningful impact on the world around them. Yes, that includes filmmaking, but it also means making connections and giving people the tools to better our planet.
“It kind of goes back to the first thing we talked about, right?” posed Feder. “Your first artistic responsibility is to live in this world. That’s it. You can go to whatever college you want to go to, ascribe to whatever kind of philosophy, work really, really, really hard as an artist, and still might not be fulfilling, at least in our opinion, your artistic responsibility.”
“If people are having their civil rights and liberties trampled upon, it feels to us a little bit strange to ignore that for the sake of being able to put out indie films,” said Feder. “We don’t want to wake up every day and feel like we’re spending our time doing filmmaking while the world crumbles around us. We don’t want to live in this cognitively dissonant state where we have to pretend like all these terrible things aren’t happening.”
Raw Daisies has taken the collaborative ideology of filmmaking in the ’60s, fed it through the lens of techno-modernism, and created something that is paving the way for the future of film. If you’re located in New York, you can attend one of their Summer Fest ’25 events, but Feder and Elle Weinstein don’t want location to limit the scope of their company.
“We’ve been trying to livestream our events too, which obviously isn’t ideal, but we are trying to find smaller ways to engage in cities outside as well too,” Elle Weinstein explained. “In the immediate future, something as small as buying merch helps the mission, because all those profits go toward making the next film. Sharing posts, telling your friends, watching a film, all of these things help.”
“The way we see it is that we’re all in this together. Fundamentally, Raw Daisies is a hopeful vision of the future,” emphasized Feder. “That should not be a unique selling point, but the fact of the matter is, there are not many other institutions, filmmaking or otherwise, that are even attempting to articulate a hopeful vision of the future. We believe in not giving up on the things we care about. If you love all that and you dig all that, then hop on board. We’re starting here and we’re branching out. Come with us.”
