The struggle to reach cinema audiences in the wake of the pandemic was one of the main subjects under discussion at Doclisboa’s panel, ‘State of the Art Audience Development: practices, methods and tools in different windows,’ staged in collaboration with Creative Europe Media.
“During the pandemic, there have been three moments of confrontation and we are now in the third,” said programmer and filmmaker Christopher Small from Prague -based platform DAfilms.com, the Czech-based streaming arm of Doc Alliance. The first, he suggested, was in March 2020 when “everybody realised they still wanted to watch films and so they watched them at home on VoD.” Then came a period in which it became clear the pandemic would last for more than three months and streamers tried to engage their audiences in a more long-term fashion.
“And now, with the pandemic out of people’s minds, we are grappling with how to get people still to watch films…after a prolonged period in which the platform was the only option.”
French industry veteran Thomas Ordonneau, executive director at distributor-producer Shellac, talked about changing trends in specialist arthouse releasing in France. At Shellac’s cinemas, he said, arthouse films are performing better later in the release rather than when they are first launched.
“On the majority of films, the numbers, the admissions, were better maybe of the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth week than on the first, second, third or fourth week,” Ordonneau observed.
This is why films are being given longer runs, he added.
“Let’s say that instead of giving you 30 screenings in three weeks, we will give you 30 screenings in eight weeks,” he explained. “We will have the time to work on the film and create a link between the audience and the film. And the audience will have the time to organise itself to see the film. We all know this feedback, ‘oh, I wanted to see the film but it was already too late.’”
Anette Dujisin of independent VoD platform Filmin which operates in Spain, Portugal and Mexico, talked of Filmin’s “constant search for content.”
This quest is now leading the company to venture into production. Filmin has become one of the first European platforms to create its own content - and has already produced a TV series and documentary in Spain. “In Portugal, they have a plan to do it in two or three years,” Dujisin said. “It’s very expensive…from streaming to producing, it is a big jump but it’s something that I personally would really like to do.”
Most of Filmin’s subscribers are women between 40 and 65. “The most difficult audience to reach and engage is [aged between] 18-25,” Dujisin acknowledged.
Filmin uses social media, CRM newsletters, digital campaigns and free trials to promote its content. “We see our audience as a niche audience. We are not here to try to compete with major platforms like Netflix and HBO. We work with cinephiles,”
The platform divides its viewers into two groups, the ‘loyals’ and the ‘acquisitions.’ The former are subscribers who’ve been with Filmin for at least six months. The latter are those who’ve just joined. There are different home pages for each group. The one for newcomers will focus on the more mainstream titles - Oscar and Palme d’Or winners, films from major directors. Meanwhile, established subscribers will be “challenged” with less obvious choices.
“We don’t think of ourselves as an alternative to traditional cinema exhibition but more like a complement,” Dujisin explained. “In terms of what works well on the platform, we notice that if a film works well in a theatrical release, it does work well on the platform. I don’t think we are stealing films from each other. I think it is quite clear a successful film in theatres will be a successful film in VOD.”
At the same, the Flimin exec added, for films that are “not so successful theatrically,” streaming is often “a second chance.”
Portugal’s lack of cinemas
Doclisboa festival director Miguel Ribeiro talked passionately about the struggle to get documentaries seen in Portuguese cinemas when there are so few available screening venues.
“In Portugal, more than three million inhabits live in a city that has no cinemas,” Ribeiro stated. “We see a lot of amazing working being done but, at this moment, there is no way to access them.”
Lisbon itself has only two cinemas outside the multiplexes. “It’s really a dramatic situation. It’s not just about people not watching them, there is no placer to watch them,” he said.”
Ribeiro expressed the hope the festival will push viewers to seek out independent documentaries throughout the year. The festival already organises 6.doc, a programme through which it showcases titles from the Doclisboa programme for a one -week distribution window in cinemas in Porto and Lisbon. “We treat the screening in the way we do at the festival. We invite the filmmakers as much as possible to the Q&As,” he said. “We try to bring the city to the cinema.”
Ribeiro also talked about Doclisboa’s regular screenings for schools through which it “brings kids to the cinemas” during the festival and tries to nurture the cinemagoing habit at an early age.
Marketing consultant Nicolò Gallio, an alumnus of the TorinoFilmLab audience design programme, drew a sharp distinction between audience awareness and audience engagement. The first goal is to make people aware your film exists, he said. The second, he continued, is to encourage them to buy tickets. He called this process ‘conversion.’
“Allow me to use the word ‘product’,” Gallio said. “People don’t like the word ‘product’ when you talk about film but somehow film is a product because otherwise there would be no industry. [‘Product’] is not a bad word in my opinion.
He encouraged documentary producers to be more realistic and pragmatic in the way they target viewers.
No comments yet