Searching for Indie America

Two filmmakers hit the road to examine how mom-and-pop stores were faring against big-box retailers across the U.S. Here's what they found

by Jeffrey Gangemi

In early 2005, husband-and-wife filmmaking team Hanson Hosein and Heather Hughes spent 52 days driving 13,000 miles through 32 states with a video camera. Their mission: to document how mom-and-pop independents were faring, faced with fierce competition from big-box retailers, as well as how small communities were changing across America.

They set rules for their trip, which included only shopping and eating at independent establishments and avoiding interstate highways. The result is their video documentary, Independent America, which came out in November, 2005. Hughes and Hosein produced the independent feature on a shoestring and never found a distributor, but the film has been steadily gaining in popularity through word of mouth. And since Yahoo! (YHOO) began featuring clips of the film on its site starting in mid-December, response has become more widespread, with record visits to the film's Web site and strong DVD sales.

Hughes and Hosein are both accomplished television news anchors, writers, and producers, who have worked for CHBC Television in British Columbia, NBC News, USAID, and MSNBC in southern Africa, Iraq, Israel, and throughout the Middle East. The couple recently spoke with BusinessWeek.com reporter Jeffrey Gangemi about what they found on their travels and what they hope their film conveys to the world. Edited excerpts of their conversation follow.

To view a trailer for the film, go to www.independentamerica.net.

Where did you get the idea for Independent America?

Hosein: We've pretty much lived around the world, in New York, Paris, Tel Aviv, Montreal, and Toronto. In all those cities, we always had good relationships with independent and small businesses.

After we got married and moved to a smaller town in British Columbia, we were quite surprised by the proliferation of big-box stores in the area. We got worried about the smaller, independent retailers and restaurants. In 2003, when I got back from covering the war in Iraq, we thought we would take a road trip down the Pacific Coast Highway to see if we could figure out whether mom-and-pop stores were really dying or not. A couple of years later, we decided to film a national documentary about the phenomenon.

Are mom-and-pop on the ropes?

Hughes: It depends where you go. There are some places that have been devastated by chain retail, and there are some areas that are absolutely thriving. There are a lot of small businesses going out of business, and a lot of downtown areas that we drove through that were absolutely empty, total ghost towns. I wouldn't say they're on the ropes, but they're not always going to be there. Because if we don't shop there, pay attention, or engage, then they won't be there.

Are independents banding together at all to fight the chains?

Hosein: We went to Durango, Colo., because we heard that the Starbucks (SBUX) had been vandalized twice. We found that there are three independent coffee shops on the main street, and rather than compete with each other, they started a program to defend themselves against Starbucks. It's called "think globally, drink locally," and it involves sharing promotions and coupons among the stores.

In many communities, there's a sense that you have to come up with a new way of thinking. You can't sit back and rest on your laurels, hoping people are going to support you.

Hughes: Another very powerful place for us to visit was Barre, Vt. There's a farmer there by the name of Todd Murphy, who opened a diner just so that he could source local meat, produce, and to help farmers have a way to bring their products to market. He tries not to source any products from more than 50 miles away.