The Together Films Marketing Team has had a marathon first half of the year, providing marketing, tech, outreach and production support for five festivals in four months!  Now that we’ve hit a festival-free moment, we’re taking a moment to reflect on all that’s been accomplished. It’s certainly been special to welcome back audiences in person and to feel the buzz of a full cinema again.

Across the 5 festivals which spanned the UK and US (both in-person and digitally), the Together Films team marketed a grand total of 221 films with tens of thousands of cinema-goers returning to a film festival for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although audience behaviours have undoubtedly changed, we were delighted to see a rising trend of in-person ticket sales as audiences build confidence to return to a film festival setting.  This bucks the international industry standard which saw a continued drop in cinema-goers from 2020 to 2021 according to Statistica. It has been heartening for our team, and the film festivals we work with, to see attendees revel in the shared experience of festival screenings, and for filmmakers to have their works celebrated by wide-eyed audiences.

To kick off festival season we got the best of both worlds at Human Rights Watch London (17-25 March) and Human Rights Watch Film Festival New York (20-26 May), launching their first ever hybrid festival. Working with the wonderful team at Human Rights Watch and our cinema partners Barbican (London), Film at Lincoln Center (New York) and IFC Center (New York) we welcomed ticket-holders old and new to watch vital documentaries that embolden minds and inspire. Our Digital Producer, Hannah Gauntlett, was lucky enough to head over to New York to cover the festival in person, meeting filmmakers and gathering audience reactions in real time.