Co-Owners & Founders, Indywood Movie Theater
A dynamic duo of siblings, Hayley and Will Sampson, who grew up in Fort Collins, Colorado, combined their skills (hers is business and sales, his is making movies) to open Indywood, a small movie theater and production space on Elysian Fields Avenue. Indywood, explains Will, is a platform for the independent film community in New Orleans to experiment with new ways to make and distribute movies. “We’ve found that people are very excited and supportive of cinema being brought back to life on the neighborhood level. Furthermore, we’re beginning to generate a community of aspiring filmmakers who are testing their films on the Indywood screen. Many of them have expressed interest in becoming early adopters for the online tools we’re developing.”
Hayley, the financial brains of the operation, says, “My goal is to make Indywood a pillar of the film community in New Orleans. Hopefully we can help facilitate filmmakers making successful films.”
Says Will, “New Orleans is the perfect place to test these new ideas. I, and many other aspiring filmmakers my age, grew up with the idea that Los Angeles and New York were the only cities we could build a career in film. It’s exciting that New Orleans is becoming a major player in film production.”
