celebrating 20 years of The Independent Film School
What: Join Ela Thier in a live reading of excerpts from her new book, How To Fail as an Artist, My Best Tips.
TIME: Saturday, January 17, 12-1:30pm Eastern*
Who: Event is free and open to the public. Everyone’s invited, but RSVP is required.
Why: To mark our school’s 20th Anniversary!
READERS:
Narrator & Ela – Ela Thier
Mr. Stop – Memo
120-year-old-Ela – Aba Woodruff
22-year-old-Ela – Lauren Shaw
Ela’s understudy – Mathilde Dratwa
* This is a one-time event, marking 20 years of The Independent Film School. Recording won’t be available.
Scroll down for a description of the book.
ABOUT THE BOOK
If you’ve walked away from your art, or feel like you’re about to, you’re in great company.
For decades, Ela Thier tried to “make it” as a filmmaker, only to discover that the real enemy wasn’t (only) industry gatekeepers and enough pass letters to wallpaper New York City. It’s also the foul-mouthed sock puppet named Mr. Stop who lives inside her head.
In this raw, hilarious, and compassionate memoir, Thier shares her lifelong relationship with failure, the painful pursuit of success, and the magic sauce that keeps bringing her back to the joy of doing the work. Spanning each of the five decades of her life as an artist, each chapter reads like a confessional pep talk for anyone on the edge of giving up.
An anti-hustle manifesto, How to Fail as an Artist will help you quit seeking that “break”, and recover the joy of making stuff.
Perfect for fans of The Artist’s Way, Big Magic, and War of Art, this is the book you reach for when your creative spirit needs a laugh, a cry, and a flashlight.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ela Thier has been writing screenplays for nearly 40 years, and receiving pass letters for about that long.
In carving her own path, she wrote, directed, produced, and sometimes performed, in her award-winning feature films, Foreign Letters and Tomorrow Ever After. In 2026 she’ll be releasing her new feature film, 109 Billion Followers, a comedy-drama co-starring J.K. Simmons and Nina Arianda.
She’s currently in development on feature films with notable attachments, has created numerous award-winning short films, and is the Founding Director of The Independent Film School. When she’s not working, she spends time with her nephew and pretends to be interested in baseball.
ABOUT THE INDEPENDENT FILM SCHOOL (IFS)
Founded by Ela Thier in 2006 with a class of eight students, The Independent Film School (IFS) has grown into a global community of over 65,000 artists and over 2,000 enrolled students. IFS has been described as “not a film school, but a movement.”
At IFS we don’t promise access to fancy agents (who will never read your script). We don’t sell opportunities to rub elbows with celebrities (they’re not better-looking than you). And we don’t ruin artists by encouraging American Dream style fantasies that leave everyone feeling bad about themselves.
What we do promise – and deliver on – is restoring our students’ enjoyment of their creativity.
We do this by building our students’ skills, confidence, community, and body of work. For many, IFS isn’t just an education – it’s a turning point.
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