Distribution - A Constant New Reality

Industry Insights – The EFM Podcast is presented by the European Film Market of the Berlinale. Hosted by industry analyst Johanna Koljonen, it delves deep into the rapidly evolving film industry.

This episode reflects on the issues of traditional film distribution and proposes new ways of dealing with them. Between targeted marketing, wider collaboration in the industry, explaining the new role of the curator distributor, and best practice examples of creating an exclusive cinematic experience, guest speakers Ben Johnson and Katarzyna Orysiak-Marrison present opportunities that come with a new reality of distribution in a post-pandemic and digital era.

Ben Johnson is CEO at Gruvi:
The key questions for the entertainment industry are 'who is my audience?', 'why would they be interested in my content?', 'what parts of my story will engage with them?' and 'how do I reach them effectively?'. These are the questions that I have built Gruvi around. Our ethos is all about The Audience: every product we build, every service we deliver, is orientated towards delivering MEANINGFUL answers to those questions. Gruvi is a media-tech company that specialises in working across the value chain of a film’s release. We have products and services that work for producers, distributors and exhibitors. Through this experience, we have an innate understanding of digital audiences and how they interact with films and online ticketing. We focus on how our clients harvest audience behaviour, through the development of gold standard ad operations underpinned by data capture systems, data warehousing and visualisation technologies, and then apply these to the campaign in order to drive optimal engagement and sales.

Katarzyna Orysiak-Marrison is Head of Marketing and Distribution at Gutek Film in Warsaw, Poland.
Working in the film industry for 16 years, specializing in marketing and distribution strategy. With Gutek Film since 2013, responsible for many successful campaigns for films such as: Parasite by Bong Joon-ho, The House That Jack Built by Lars von Trier, Portrait of a Lady of Fire by Céline Sciamma, Toni Erdmann by Maren Ade, Annette by Leos Carax, Drive My Car by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Parallel Mothers by Pedro Almodóvar and C’mon C’mon by Mike Mills; amongst many others. In 2022, Katarzyna produced a new festival for Gutek Film, Konfrontacje Filmowe (‘Film Confrontations’), a festival showcasing, and premiering, an exclusive selection of the most interesting titles from the upcoming season, screened in 24 arthouse cinemas spread across 18 cities in Poland.

The host Johanna Koljonen is a media analyst, broadcaster, and experience designer based in Sweden. She is co-founder of boutique consulting firm Participation Design Agency, and the author of the Göteborg Film Festival’s annual Nostradamus Report.

This podcast episode has been developed in partnership with Europa Distribution, the European Network of Independant Film Publishers and Distributors.

The Berlinale’s European Film Market is the first international film market of the year, where the film industry starts its business. Industry Insights - The EFM Podcast puts a spotlight on highly topical and trendsetting industry issues, thereby creating a compass for the forthcoming film year. The year-round podcast is produced in cooperation with Goethe-Institut and co-funded by Creative Europe MEDIA.

Here you can find the ebook Winning your Audiences by Gruvi, mentioned in this episode.