Earlier this month, we began our dive into conferences as an essential part of the documentary filmmaker’s fundraising and distribution strategy. Today, I want to make it a bit more real for you with a few mini-case studies on films that won with distribution strategies that included conferences.
A conference isn’t just a gathering where you can show your film—it’s a tool for building an authentic connection with the people that will be key to your success. We keep this fact in focus when advising and coaching documentary filmmakers on their fundraising and distribution plans.
Download our free guide: Supercharge Your Distribution.
Before diving into other films we worked on, I’d like to share just a bit about the initial experience that opened my eyes to the power of conferences and this alternative, and extremely effective model for fundraising and distribution. It’s a story I recently shared in more detail here — how Show&Tell came to life.
My last film, Age of Champions, was about athletes competing at the Senior Olympics. We didn’t start our distribution run following the conference and partner-centric Show&Tell approach, though. It didn’t exist yet. Instead, we took the standard approach, premiering at a film festival. Our premiere at AFI Docs in Washington DC concluded with a standing ovation, followed by a glowing Washington Post review. Then, we left DC virtually broke and lacking direction for next steps.
Ten months later, we returned to Washington DC. This time, for a conference of 8,000 staff from senior living communities across the country. This event solidified for us that senior living professionals were our core audience, and connected us with large organizations and companies that became partners, like the AARP and Cigna Health. We’d tapped into a national network of our film’s most enthusiastic supporters!
Conferences were crucial to our success: generating over 3,000 grassroots screening events and $1.5 million in revenue.
The next film we’re looking into is Same God, a documentary Rolling Stone called “a testament to the power of faith”. I consulted for Director, Linda Midgett, on her distribution plan leveraging conferences to fundraise for a PBS broadcast. Linda was able to negotiate for a presentation about her film at an art, music, and story-driven festival grounded in faith-focused social justice.
From her presentation at the festival, Linda raised $200,000 from 3 family foundations in attendance.
The funding allowed her to further expand the reach of Same God through her PBS national broadcast.
Finally, Thank You for Coming is a deeply personal and decidedly comedic documentary focused on Director Sara Lamm’s quest to reconnect with her long-lost biological family after learning she was donor-conceived at age 29.
I helped Sara navigate the process of researching, identifying, and pitching relevant conferences. We worked together to make the important conversations that happen at conferences count. Prior to heading to Roots Tech, the world's largest conference on genealogy, we looked into what companies and organizations were sponsors, found their contacts, and requested meetings. We held 10+ pivotal meetings at Roots Tech, including one with the home DNA company 23andMe.
That meeting brought about a partnership that contributed over $150K in support to fund a PBS broadcast and a 25-event virtual-screening tour.
For a more in-depth look into how we used conferences to make Age of Champions a success, and the steps you can take to do the same for your film, you can download our free guide:
SUPERCHARGE YOUR DISTRIBUTION.
