“Compensation” was well-received when it premiered at the 1999 Toronto and 2000 Sundance Film Festivals. But the black-and-white film about two Black couples, played by the same actors, living in Chicago during two different time periods, didn’t entice distributors. With a film half-set at the beginning of the 20th century while capturing the everyday life, love, and struggles of deaf characters, director Zeinabu irene Davis adopted the cinematic language of silent films of the era — which was apparently was a non-starter for potential buyers.
“In the film’s first 15 minutes, distributors were running out of the room because I didn’t have any dialogue,” said Davis on IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. “I was like, ‘Wait, wait, wait,’ but they had no interest in it at that particular time.”
By all accounts, the film was warmly embraced by its first audiences, receiving positive reviews, including from hometown critic Roger Ebert. But without a distributor, “Compensation” went largely unseen after its initial festival run. It’s a film that survived based on word of mouth and the education distribution market.
“All of my work is with educational distributors like Women Make Movies, Third World Newsreel, and Cinema Guild. If those institutions didn’t exist, my films would have been lost, so to speak, because as a filmmaker, I don’t want to have to deal with doing invoices, or whatever college or community group is wanting to show it,” said Davis. “I could keep being on the creative side of filmmaking, and these organizations really saved my work, and the work of so many filmmakers because they existed, and they reached out to those audiences who wanted to see the film.”
Between those audiences that did seek out the film via educational distributors and a new generation of film critics who championed it, the reputation of “Compensation” has grown tremendously over the last 25 years. In 2024, “Compensation” was selected to the prestigious National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. In recent years, programmers —most notably Ashley Clark, now the curatorial director at the Criterion Collection — have put the film in front of cinephiles.
Criterion and the UCLA Film and Television Archive also oversaw a restoration of the film, which Janus is releasing in theaters — that’s right, “Compensation,” 25 years after its premiere, is getting its first proper theatrical run.
Davis called the restoration a “rejuvenation,” mainly because of how the film has improved in the process. The 4K scan of the original 16mm negative brings out more detail, while going from a mono to 5.1-surround audio unlocks the incredibly detailed and layered soundtrack Davis sweated over back in the 1990s. Davis is most excited about the film’s new open captions, designed by hard-of-hearing filmmaker Alison O’Daniel.
“I think we got used to watching films with captions. We got used to experiencing the frame in a more inclusive way. I think audiences are ready now to receive ‘Compensation’ in this rejuvenated format that didn’t exist back in 1999,” said Davis.
When the restoration premiered at the 2024 New York Film Festival, Davis was not only inspired by the packed house and enthusiastic response, but by the relatively young age of the Lincoln Center audience in attendance. Davis didn’t express any bitterness about how long it’s taken her film to be discovered; it’s actually quite the opposite.
Davis said, “The fact that young people are willing to watch a black-and-white movie ‘unknown actors,’ and experience this film, I won, man. I won.”
“Compensation” is playing at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center in New York, and opens at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago, on February 28. For more information about upcoming playdates in other cities, please click here.
To hear Zeinabu irene Davis’ full Toolkit interview, subscribe to the Toolkit podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. You can also watch the full interview below, or subscribe to IndieWire’s YouTube page.
