This Single DVD Is Traveling Around the Country to Find a Sweet Indie Film Its Audience

For a movie about a marriage falling apart, “Handle With Care” is remarkably good at bringing people together. Since April, a single, hand-burned DVD has been traveling across the country — from New York City to Tennessee, Florida, Rhode Island, California, Nevada, and beyond.

The disc is slowly passing from one viewer to the next inside a heavy black case covered in stickers and names gathered all over the U.S., and its months-long journey isn’t done yet.

“The only thing that I’d be mortified to lose is the notebook,” writer/director Matthew James Thompson told IndieWire. “Everything else can be replaced.”

This strange physical media project looks more like a ransom drop than an indie comedy screener, but that’s the magic of Thompson’s grassroots distribution strategy. Inside the case, custom-cut foam holds the one and only “Handle With Care” DVD. There’s also a portable player, some cables, a remote, special instructions, a grab-bag of collected keepsakes, and handwritten reviews from every person who’s had the oddly delightful divorce film so far.

“It’s kind of a crazy feeling to know you are the only one watching at this exact moment,” one Brooklyn viewer wrote back in July. “It’s just you and the movie.”

‘Handle With Care’Matthew James Thompson

Part nostalgia object and part mini marketing campaign, Thompson’s retro DVD Club is an unusually apt emblem for the weird baggage that comes with making a debut feature today. At a time when many indie artists feel pressured to not only impress traditional Hollywood gatekeepers, but also feed online audiences with a constant stream of digital content, “Handle With Care” is touring the U.S. as a whimsical and radically self-assured experiment.

“We really connected over the kinds of stories we want to tell and the kinds of movies — not just what the stories are, but how we think about the audience and how they’re going to live in our world,” producer Ashim Ahuja told IndieWire. “It wasn’t just the business of making movies for us. It was the life and heartbeat of what it takes to truly create something.”

Inside the ‘Handle With Care’ Traveling DVD CaseAlison Foreman/IndieWire

Effectively turning a mostly obsolete media format into a charming vehicle for buzz, “Handle With Care” was written, shot, and edited long before it became a traveling DVD. That said, its quaint exhibition story does resemble several key aspects of Thompson’s lovely narrative effort.

“I personally have found people to be profoundly good, shockingly good,” Thompson said.

Justin H. Min stars as Cole, a newly single copywriter in New York struggling to get rid of some wedding gifts after his short-lived marriage to Reese (Nicole Brydon Bloom) implodes. Witty and fast-paced but still sweetly skeptical of deep connection, the project’s generally snappy script comes alive through Thompson’s impressive ambition and obvious love for strangers.

Facing the same obstacles as countless other indie features right now, “Handle With Care” proved remarkably hard for Thompson, Ahuja, and their team to place on the festival circuit. The producer said competition in those programming spaces can sometimes resemble more of a bracket system than a true meritocracy, and that the shifting definition of “indie” makes it harder to stand out. “More and more, it requires movies that are already on the calendar, already have distribution and stars who are way bigger than would be in a normal indie movie,” he said.

‘Handle With Care’Matthew James Thompson

It’s true that costly endeavors featuring major onscreen talent can qualify for “indie” categories and edge smaller titles out of potential deals and press through festival competition. But even knowing that, Thompson found it hard not to take rejection as an objective assessment of his potential. “If you don’t get into Sundance and you don’t have a bidding war all night from A24, it feels like your film inexplicably loses value,” he said. “Suddenly, it’s like, ‘What is this?’”

“Handle With Care” eventually premiered at the Rhode Island International Film Festival, where it won the Grand Prize for Best Feature Film and a second category recognizing Min’s acting performance. That success motivated the production to keep looking for its audience, ultimately inspiring Thompson to take the scenic route on the way to proving his debut deserved more life.

On the road with the ‘Handle With Care’ Traveling DVD CaseAlison Foreman/IndieWire

“I do think the work stands for itself without this marketing gimmick or whatever you want to call it,” he said. “Hopefully, they work hand in hand and break through the noise so people really spend some time with it.” The handmade touch is an especially good fit for Thompson, who told IndieWire he skipped film school to learn his craft by shooting skateboarding videos as a teen.

When the “Handle With Care” DVD Club launched in the spring, the now thirtysomething filmmaker sorted through signups by ZIP code and often became his film’s personal courier, carrying the case across New York. Soon enough, his errands also resembled the movie.

(Clockwise from bottom): Matthew James Thompson, IndieWire, Ashim AhujaScreenshot: Matthew James Thompson

“There’d be times I’m standing in the heat on a subway platform, and I’m literally reliving my story all over again,” Thompson said. Relating to his leading man while sharing some especially dicey pictures of him holding the case with one hand while riding a bike, the filmmaker said, “I’m just like, ‘What am I doing? Am I stuck in a cycle? Is this just my life now?’”

Approximately 90 people have signed up since “Handle With Care” started its cross-country trip. Only about 25 to 30 have received the case so far, but Thompson and his team believe it is precisely because the DVD release is slow and small that it’s more meaningful. The debut director said he spent $1,438 on festival submissions but kicked off this DIY distribution network for just $521. Sure, the film is reaching far, far fewer people this way. But picking up the case from Ashim in the Valley, there was no denying the ritual felt like being part of something bigger.

“It’s kind of replicating the Blockbuster experience,” Ahuja said. “I think we miss that tangibility.”

On the road with the ‘Handle With Care’ Traveling DVD CaseAlison Foreman/IndieWire

Thompson’s own Sharpie-labeled disc comes with bonus features, including audition tapes and an enchanting documentary short about the filmmaker’s real-life neighbor who inspired several moments in “Handle With Care.” Constructing the physical package required trial and error, he said, recalling the time he watched a commissioned 3D-printed insert instantly fall apart.

“Foam is much better,” Thompson laughed, also praising the shipping ease of Pelican cases.

Screener links disappear into inboxes, and streaming platforms can turn movies into tax write-offs at a moment’s notice. But Thompson wanted to build something “unable to be affected by an algorithm” and found a concept cool enough that his work can hardly be separated from the extraordinary way it arrives.

‘Handle With Care’Matthew James Thompson

“If you didn’t get into any film festival just so this film could reach people this way,” a recipient outside Nashville wrote earlier this summer, “Well, I’m not mad about it.”

Anyone can request to receive the traveling “Handle With Care” case through the DVD Club section of HandleWithCare.film, which is fittingly presented like a Craigslist listing. The team still personally arranges handoffs when they can, and the movie will have its next public screening as part of the Newport Beach Film Festival in October.

“Cynicism is not wisdom,” Thompson said, echoing the most hopeful idea in his wanderlust debut.