Canonization of a film can proceed directly from grassroots self-promotion

Evidence

Prizing spontaneity, Cassavetes did not edit out blown lines and awkward miscues. Shadows was a movie about getting into show business acted by people in the same position. … Jonas Mekas first saw Shadows in November 1958 at one of the three free midnight screenings Cassavetes organized for prospective exhibitors at the Paris Theater. Knocked out, Mekas championed the film to which his journal Film Culture gave its first annual Independent Film award. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 38

Categorization

• SEED: Article angle: the free midnight screening as an early example of DIY distribution seeding critical recognition — how an artist used intimate direct audience cultivation to kickstart institutional validation.
• XREF: Parallels the literature on avant-garde scenes creating their own critical infrastructure, e.g. how Mekas functioned like early Village Voice or Cahiers critics. — connects to: Canon formation works by foreclosing certain questions while foregrounding others. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 484