TikTok had stayed untouched on Pavan’s phone for about a year when the pandemic broke out, and she, like many other movie buffs, was at a loss when theaters closed their doors for the foreseeable future. Restlessness, fear and boredom set in, and during the height of the isolation she began to use the video platform to keep a personal diary of what she was looking at. In search of distraction and connection, hordes of other displaced moviegoers came up with the same idea, and thousands of creators flocked in and joined a sacred space where love for everything to do with the screen is crucial: film TikTok.
Today the hashtags #filmtiktok and #filmtok have a total of almost 3 billion views, without taking into account the numerous subcategories of the community that branch out into their own obsessive corners of the Internet: #filmtokmusical #blackfilmtok # tiktokshortfilm – the list goes on. Here the makers blur the boundaries of the film content with everything from recommendation videos, critical video essays, crowdsourcing projects to fan trivia and Timothée Chalamet supercuts. At a time when it’s another day, another depressing statistic about women in film, it’s mostly a place where Gen Z female creators are reclaiming, driving, and transforming the conversations surrounding movies.
“Male genius is a myth,” thinks London-based creator Pavan ironically in a voice-over to a video that throughout history advocates forgotten female editors. Her other videos explore everything from our obsession with car sex scenes to meditations on the beauty of black skin in cinematography. “My thing when I talk about film is try to respond to it emotionally,” she explains. “A lot of criticism tears a film apart and looks at its nuts and bolts – how it was made and why, what it means. I always wonder what it feels like to experience the movie first and why we like to see certain movies over and over again – what watching movies gives us. That may not be considered valuable in other areas, but it was well received by TikTok. ”It is young, female film criticism in its most unfiltered, rawest form, cut into visually effective and digestible bite-sized pieces.
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Kristen, a 20-year-old aspiring college student from New York, is another creator who opened her account at the start of the lockdown. Her videos starring Asian-American actors and lesser-known Asian underground films have gained her 13.9,000 followers. “It makes me proud … to implement diversity in this film and film industry dominated by cis-white men,” she says. “I get messages from people saying they saw a movie through my account and that they feel more connected to their identity.” After all, the movie has always been a source of escape and connection, two things that happened during the pandemic sorely miss – often even as a lifeline for some. Kristen’s videos included “Films in honor of suicide prevention” and “Movies That Taught Me It’s Okay To Be Alone” have a mental health focus that resonated with their viewers, generating about 90,000 plays each. “I’m happy [they] got the attention it got because these films got me personally out of times when I felt unstable. “
Not just a self-soothing mechanism, the creators are also aware of the ripple effect of their discourse. What we see has always had a direct impact on culture and society, and as long as conversations in film are unique, it will also be the viewpoints of the masses who consume them. “The dominance of“ Film Bro ”is questioned and undermined on Filmtok,” muses 25-year-old Eva, a creator from Virginia, whose front-facing camera videos sit and pull at the intersection of feminism, film and comedy 1,2 Million likes. “There is a lot to discuss about race, gender and sexuality in film and the darker potential it can have as a propaganda tool or in terms of producing and reinforcing negative stereotypes that really affect people’s lives. The stories we tell as a culture and the funding behind them have a very tangible impact on all of us. “
Nor can it be denied that Film TikTok made a significant contribution to regaining older works that were avoided due to the systematic misogyny that existed at the time. A notable example is the 2009 revenge horror Jennifer’s Body, written by Diablo Cody and with Megan Fox. Now, in the age of social media and the second wave of #MeToo, many TikTok creators have helped popularize the film again and even gain cult status. “I love the way TikTok helped reclaim Jennifer’s body as this wonderful film for young women to explore, how they grow into themselves and negotiate their desires,” says Pavan. “Young women watch this movie and understand how hungry and hungry teenage bodies are. And TikTok is a new space that allows all movie fans to set their own agendas so they can discuss movies like Jennifer’s Body on their own terms. “
Just have to watch #filmtokmusical and remember Bridgerton: The Musical and Ratatouille: The Musical – both TikTok-maintained and crowdsourced projects, with the latter actually becoming an IRL All-Star Broadway production earlier this year – to see that the app offers a rich source of untapped creative talent, and the masses will always be driving the agenda. “It’s crazy to think about it: A certain scene in a movie can go viral on TikTok and suddenly that movie is in the Netflix top 10 for the week – the impact is really huge and unlike any other platform,” says Daisy Connock, a 19 year old student from Staffordshire, England. “On an individual level, the impact may seem small, but I think there is huge potential for successfully marketing films on TikTok that has not yet been fully explored.”
It’s not just criticism that young women get heard on film TikTok. Filmmakers flock to the platform to democratize film knowledge for everyone. Christina Dobre is a 26-year-old filmmaker from New York with 82,000 followers whose instructional videos range from behind the scenes on film sets to etiquette for production jobs to debunking career myths for aspiring women. This corner of the internet has been instrumental in creating a sense of community that many people clung to during the lockdown and that has grown exponentially. “A lot of the friends I’ve made this year are from Film TikTok!” She confirms. “I’ve met some who live in my NYC area, others around the country, and even around the world. It’s really a great place to share our love of filmmaking together. I plan to hold a film TikTok meeting in NYC soon! “
TikTok has been a vital resource in breaking down the elusive ivory tower of cinema and nurturing the next generation of filmmakers. Infrequent hits and information are now easily accessible with a tap of the finger. The student indie filmmaker and director Sarah, 24, Florida, has documented the daily ups and downs that go into the making of her queer coming-of-age film Egghead & Twinkie The project. “When I originally came up with the idea for this film, I was confronted with the criticism that an LGBTQ comedy with a mixed-Asian protagonist was ‘too niche’ for the mainstream audience,” she recalls. “Our reception at TikTok not only showed me that this was not true, but that a lot of people had been waiting for such a story. As a queer, mixed-Asian creative, I made this film for my younger self in many ways. But now I know that there are many others who felt the same way I did when I was growing up, and I’m making the film for them too. “
Although the forum for open discussions on TikTok seems to be more democratic than other spaces such as Twitter, YouTube, Letterboxd due to its creative editing options and the committed audience of Generation Z, as with any Internet community there are always trolls, something the Emmylou, a 20th -year-old creator from New York, after gaining around 15,000 followers in just a few weeks at the start of the pandemic. “I get some pretty awful comments and DMs – ‘You’re a woman so don’t care what you think,'” she says. “Unfortunately, this is only the reality of a woman with a significant number of followers on any social media platform. I worry that closed-minded comments like these could put women and non-binary people off the community and prevent it from growing. “
TikTok has claimed that its community guidelines have tightened this year to protect its users, but developers are finding that they often have to take the moderation role into their own hands. “It’s worse when you’re a woman and, dare I say Black, especially when you’re talking about race in a popular movie,” says Pavan. “You may disagree and this disagreement can become a discussion, but I have no tolerance for rudeness, meanness, racism, transphobia, sexism. I will delete these comments as soon as I see them and I will delete a post when it does attracts too much of it. ” . “
But luckily for her and many other female YouTubers, the majority of their online experience has been positive. “My interests are specific enough and I generally focus on things I want to stand up for rather than things I hate,” she says. “How black skin glows! How Minari remembered my family! How good Jim Jarmusch is for heartbreak! There’s not much to argue about, but when I finally get around to discussing Marvel movies, maybe there will be something. “
Love it, hate it, or just feel the bow on it, the power of TikTok is undeniable. And their creators are well aware of their influence on such an influential platform. Many were approached for job opportunities like internships, panel meetings at film festivals, potential Netflix collaborations – and even a creator was tapped by a director to write dialogue for a short film for Gucci.
Bobbi is a 22-year-old creator from New York whose nostalgic pop culture account ties her 230,000 followers to everything from relaxing ASMR movie history to brooding about the best TV moms. “I think there are a lot of future Oscar-winning filmmakers, screenwriters and directors at FilmTok right now and I think it will be amazing to see where they all go beyond TikTok,” she says firmly. “I think the community will only get bigger and filled with more perspectives and I just hope to continue to be a part of it.”
Is the future of film on TikTok? Time will tell – but his gatekeepers are absolutely convinced.
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