Full disclosure: I've been friends with Candler for quite some time, and as such should probably abstain from offering an opinion on the film itself. I'll just stick to the facts: jumping off bridges is Candler's second feature film, and her first working in tandem with producer Stacy Schoolfield. The picture had its world premiere last March at the SXSW Film Festival, which led to substantial acclaim, further festival screenings and some tentative interest from distributors. But instead of waiting around for a deal to fall in their laps, Candler and Schoolfield took matters into their own hands and announced that they would be self-distributing the film. They've been on the road with it ever since, but they're taking a more iconoclastic route than most self-distributing indies.

The film is about the effects of suicide and different ways in which people respond to it. Although her narrative is focused on a single family and their loss, Candler underhandedly suggests that the repercussions of suicide reach far further, that they are as social as they are personal. Noticing that the film struck a chord with certain audience members, she and Schoolfield decided to openly court suicide counseling and mental health groups and almost immediately found a whole new audience opening up to them.

The film's theatrical tour will hit its peak the first week of November, with an engagement at New York's Pioneer Theater on the 3rd and the 4th and a consecutive bow in Los Angeles. This will be followed by a government-sponsored screening in Washington DC. Even though they were up to their ears in preparations for these screenings, as well as making preliminary steps towards pre-production on their next feature, Kat and Stacy found time to sit down with me at their base of operations in Austin, Texas and discuss their self-styled manner of distribution (and even as we talked, they were on the phone with one of their lead actresses, who was trying to find an art house theater in Tennessee where the film was about to screen).