With the end of the year approaching fast, I figured this was the right time to follow up on the 2022 projects roundup started in my previous post. I left you when I was planning my staying at the Cannes Film Festival, so let’s pick up from there.
The Marché du film at Cannes Film Festival. 
“Viet and Nam” by Vietnamese writer/director Trương Minh Quý, the film recipient of TorinoFilmLab’s Co-Production Fund 2022. 
Online at MFI 2022. 
Live at the “Reach Out! How to Attract your Audience” conference. 
At FEST – New Directors | New Films Festival in Espinho (Portugal). 
Solace23 office in Berlin.
Cannes 2022 was a whirlwind of conferences and meetings: I spent a few days attending every industry event I could at the Marché du Film, especially the ones focused on trends and tech forecasting. So, it wasn’t much about the screenings and parties for me, but rather keeping up with what’s “hot” and finally meeting in person old time friends, partners and clients – I had a few cocktails and pleasant conversations at the pavilions on the beach and at the hotels overlooking the montée des marches.
Film Marketing
From Slovakia to the Basque Country, from Cyprus to Turkey, from Germany to Belarus and the Netherlands, at Alphapanda throughout the year I contributed to marketing strategies for a range of projects that included documentaries, dramas and science fiction films.
In parallel, in my freelance activity, while consulting companies such as the Brussels-based producer Entre chien et loup for their MEDIA slate applications, as well as four SHEX-supported documentaries, at the end of June I joined online the Mediterranean Film Institute for my sixth workshop “Connecting Stories: From Script to Audiences”. This year I spent some time with the teams of the documentary project Honeydew (produced by the Italian Indyca) and Gabriela Gažová’s coming-of-age film Whatever, LOL – you can watch an excerpt of my open talk below.
On 8 July I delivered a crash course on film marketing for the EDUCinema project at University of Bologna’s DAMS Lab. I then consulted Viet and Nam by Vietnamese writer/director Trương Minh Quý, the film recipient of TorinoFilmLab’s Co-Production Fund 2022.
Audience Design and Audience Development Conferences
When it comes to conferences and exchanging stimulating ideas with colleagues from the whole Europe, boy, what an inspiring summer this was! On 9 June I was invited to join the “Reach Out! How to Attract your Audience” conference – in Warsaw and online – curated by the Creative Europe Desk Poland. This was an international event dedicated to tools and methods of building an audience for films and new marketing trends, which is now available to re-watch below.
Then I went to Espinho, Portugal, where on 23 June I delivered a presentation titled “From the Core to the Crowd: The Essentials to Begin With” in the context of a panel fully focused on Audience Design at FEST – New Directors | New Films Festival, organised in collaboration with Creative Europe MEDIA Desk Portugal. I later came back to Portugal for Doclisboa, where on 14 October I presented the keynote “Audience Development for the Film Industry: The Pros, the Antis, And the In-Betweens” at the “State of the Art – Audience Development: Practices, Methods And Tools in Different Windows” conference, within the Nebulae industry activities.
Script Consulting Training
Over the summer I also took some time off to get extra training in script development/story editing. As I found myself working more and more on films at a very early stage of development in the past few years, I felt the need to challenge some of the approaches to scriptwriting and audio-visual storytelling by going beyond overused (and sometimes abused) models such as the Hero’s Journey and the Three-Act Structure, as well as to refine my way of providing constructive feedback to teams of writers/directors and producers.
So, I went to Berlin several times to attend both the “Six Days of Practice” and the “Script Circle” workshops at Solace23 under the mentorship of script consultants Franz Rodenkirchen and Françoise von Roy. It was truly an amazing experience both because of the high quality of the trainers, and for the engagement of the other participants – I cannot but highly recommend it to everyone working with scripts at any level of the film industry.
Now, time to wrap up. Judging by the offers I am getting, 2023 looks like as interesting as 2022 – but this is matter for another post. Until then, have a great end of the year!