The Venice Production Bridge panel on ’Visibility for Diversity - Promotional Strategies for Arthouse Cinema’ saw industry experts outline an action plan through which the challenges faced by the independent theatre sector may be addressed.
European Member of Parliament Salima Yenbou, the keynote speaker at the event on September 2, stressed the “crucial” role arthouse cinemas have in promoting industry diversity, and called for new strategies to draw the public back into these theatres.
“It is essential today to make arthouse cinemas dynamic again so as to support the diversity they offer, and in doing so offset the dominance of the mass markets and the large production companies,” she said.
Yenbou’s concerns were echoed by other panellists. “Diversity is key to arthouse cinemas,” said Alen Munitic, founder of Kino Mediteran, a circuit of independent arthouse venues in Croatia.
“On the sales agents’ side, we are in a chain, and if the cinemas are closed and the distributors don’t release films, then they do not buy films,” said Carolina Jessula, head of marketing at The Match Factory. “It all piles up.”
The panel, moderated by Screen International editor Matt Mueller and hosted by the International Confederation of Arthouse Cinemas (CICAE), identified collaboration, fairness, digital marketing, personalisation and education as strategies that may create more scope for arthouse film visibility.
Christian Bräuer, president of CICAE and CEO of Germany’s Yorck Kino Gruppe, said horizontal collaboration within the industry, including networks and mentoring, as well as vertical collaboration with distributors would help.
In addition, he added, “Fair regulation and fair markets are key, and also with public film funds we need a more holistic approach. We need movies that actually show the diversity we have, but the European cinema industry doesn’t actually reflect all the diversity and the complexity and the richness we have.”
Romanian producer Ada Solomon, who is deputy chairperson of the European Film Academy, said a three-tier approach was required, combining “education, curating and diversity”.
“The only way for arthouse cinema to travel and to reach the diversity of the audience is through these three channels. The audiences are very diverse and we cannot do it with a one-size-fits-all recipe,” she said.
“We – from the sales agents to the distributors through to the exhibitors and the festivals – need to find ways of ensuring we speak the language of the audience. This is a key element to integrating the chain of life of films.”
Solomon called for a strategic approach that ensured “diversity not only in content but also real European diversity in terms of approach of circulation, and how to approach each product in terms of specificity”.
Addressing issues of quality and pricing
Digital strategy and marketing have shown promising results post-pandemic in relaunching arthouse films, according to some of the speakers.
“International posters and more generally additional marketing all helps, as they also extend the life of the film,” said The Match Factory’s Jessula.
“During the pandemic we launched a VoD platform and this also continues to draw in the audiences for independent films. In parallel we promote through Instagram and are also now looking at TikTok as a way of developing communication with young people,” said Munitic.
“The problem with social media though is that it is moving so quickly that you already have to devise a new strategy for next year,” he added.
Other instruments arthouse exhibitors could use to jumpstart attendance in theatres is cutting theatre ticket prices in targeted promotion schemes, suggested Frédéric Boyer, artistic director of Tribeca Film Festival and Les Arcs Film Festival in France.
Solomon said an incisive way of appealing to independent film audiences would be to address the issue of quality, which she said was questionable in some instances.
“We are facing a crisis of overproduction because today it is not costly to make a film thanks to technology. Films that should exist are the films that matter, and the films that are relevant,” she said. “There is more and more content, but not better quality.”
This was confirmed by Boyer, who said “even though we find a lot of films we want to help and support, it is rare to find an extraordinary film we want to promote. The quality of arthouse films has gone down compared to some years ago.”
A word of warning about an upcoming danger for the sector was issued by Bräuer when he called for increased sensitivity to the likely fallout rising energy costs will have on arthouse cinema operators.
“We have a complicated winter ahead,” he said.
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