film journalism

Screencap of Suchandrika's first article for Netribution in 2006 with title – "Look Who's Hawking - Meet Welsh Mountain Short Makers Alias McMahon & Jones"

Netribution, 25 years on

Written by Suchandrika Chakrabarti on January 30, 2026. Posted in Discussions, History. No Comments on Netribution, 25 years on

It’s 19-and-a-half years since I first emailed the late James MacGregor, in a state of major excitement: Netribution wanted to republish an article I’d written on work experience about short films!

That was May 2006. A month or so before, my brother and I had been checking out the mastheads of his beloved film magazines in our local Sainsbury’s, so I could find editors’ details and gain work experience (thank you, Hotdog magazine, RIP). That is an extremely mid-Noughties sentence. Hotdog itself was closed down in 2006.

A 2005 graduate with an English Lit degree, I’d been teaching English in Spain, but knew that I really wanted to embark on a journalism career. Hotdog let me interview and review; those pieces led to more stories, which I used for my next work placement; and suddenly I was being published online! You couldn’t have told me that I wasn’t living in THE golden age of journalism.

Upon seeing my article republished on Netribution, I emailed James to offer him another story. He was very warm and encouraging, telling me: “We want to publish good quality material that stands the test of time” – a wonderful welcome. He introduced me to Nic Wistreich over email, and so our story began.

Thanks to Netribution, I attended the London Film Festival for several years through the Noughties as press, darting in a daze between daytime screenings, before my evening shifts at my main job for The Associated Press, working on international breaking news. I had a lot of energy back in those days. Making the press pen at the LFF meant that I ended up on PR lists that were still helpful to me a decade later, leading to the making of the Black Mirror Cracked podcast for the Daily Mirror.

James and Nic suggested that I apply for the Berlinale Talent Campus’s Talent Press scheme, and gave me all the backing that a budding critic would need, like letters of recommendation and website analytics. I was accepted onto the 2008 cohort, and spent the week running around the festival with my colleagues from around the world, working with heroes like The Guardian’s late, legendary Derek Malcolm, and Stephanie Zacharek (then at Salon.com). The friends I made on that trip have led me to travel the world, from Lima in Peru, to finally making it to Brighton, a seaside city less than two hours by train from my hometown of London.

What I’m trying to say is that Netribution changed my life in ways that I couldn’t have foreseen. Twenty years trying to make a living in the quicksand of a constantly-evolving media landscape is tough, but so much of the good I’ve been graced with in my career has come from Netribution.

Now that I’m moving on from journalism to writing and making my own things, I’m grateful for everything I learned about creativity from writing for Netribution, and look back with wonder at the space and time I was given to grow.

Here’s to another 25 years!

Fediverse Reactions

Stephen Applebaum remembered

Written by Nicol Wistreich on March 21, 2025. Posted in 25.2, In memoriam. No Comments on Stephen Applebaum remembered

I won’t pretend I knew him well, beyond one quite legendary evening at the festival that went from an unprintable story with a Hollywood A lister at a premiere party to a punch-up at the TV festival hotel bar. We met a few more times. But I knew some of his work intimately and always looked forward to reading his next submission, the interviews overflowed with insight. He seemed able to coax wisdom and fascinating stories from anyone he spoke with, he had that essential way of keeping them relaxed, I guess. Initially we paid him for a few reviews for FilmFestivals.com, but even when we had none, he continued to send us and upload Q&As that no-one else would publish. I’m not sure if it was so he could demonstrate to the publicists that the interview had been useful, or because he liked what we doing – either way we benefitted.

For Netribution 1 he brought Mark Ruffalo, Kelly Reilly and Michael White at the very start of their film careers, and Jack Cardif or John Boorman late in theirs.

In Netribution 2 he brought so much named talent and stars it made us look like a serious film journal with a budget, when we were completely no-budget bootstrapped. I was only just getting the hang of Netribution’s ‘CMS’ which meant writers could self-publish – and will never forget the night that he got the hang of it too – first an interview with Helena Bonham Carter appeared. Then Lexi Alexander, then Tim Burton. Then came Kevin Costner and Nicole Kidman – all exclusive interviews. I was in awe, and it was probably the pincacle of my experience with ‘user-generated content’ as it became to be known. It’s a great regret I never got to pay him for any of it.

But his impact was much wider – beyond his book on the Wicker Man, he gave Vidal Sassoon his last interview before he died, and managed to get countless confessions and intimate revelations from those he met over the years. He was the first film journalist I got to know, and he taught me a lot about the sometimes humiliating efforts to gain access from publicists, and engagement from interviewees. One I won’t forget is that if stuck for an opening question, he’d go for ‘what was the genesis of the film?’.

I don’t really know how to write a proper obituary for him. I can tell you he started as staff writer on VNU’s What Micro magazine, which you can read from his Blogspot. I haven’t yet figured out how best to memorialise a writer who would have had a public obituary long ago if he’d been film editor of a journal. But there’s nothing – and so for now, in nothing’s space, I’ll revisit his interviews over the coming months and republish some of the highlights and insight from them, starting with what he sent us in 2001.

Before I do, I have to share my biggest regret, of not making more effort to keep in contact with him, beyond the often hostile environment of social media. I didn’t even know he’d died until I checked his Facebook page late last year ahead of reaching out to him about Netribution’s 25th year. The shock of this in part motivated me trying to reach out to everyone I knew back then with this anniversary edition – so to finish here’s a somewhat cliché reminder to re-connect with anyone dear you’ve lost touch with, lest one day you can’t.