Five Ideas to Strengthen Film Culture
Today's HFF Takeover from this month's FSCOTM Curator, Swabreen Bakr
Intro
Hello residents of HopeForFilmland and FilmStack! My name is Swabreen and I'm reporting from Philadelphia, where I've spent the past decade in digital marketing across arts and culture nonprofits. Most recently, I've built tactics to drive attendance at local film festivals and promote an independently produced film journal.
Working in the nonprofit world teaches you a lot about community building and partnership since resource sharing is a "rising tide lifts all boats" situation. Which is why it's been heartening to see folks across all sectors of the film industry ideate on how we, as a collective, can strengthen, improve and conserve a 100-year-old industry.
HFF’s The 5: Friday 07.04.25 TAKEOVER Edition
How Marketing Can Be a Film Education Opportunity
The Art of Slow Watching
Foster Cross-Sector Partnerships Between Film and Other Arts Organizations
Where Are the Film Equivalents of Record Stores?
Support Your Local/Regional Film Festival
1
How Marketing Can Be a Film Education Opportunity
Coming from working in the museum world, I've been wondering why going to a movie theater couldn't offer a similar experience to visiting a museum. Museum exhibitions offer storytelling and didactics, why can't the promotional assets for films be more than large posters or cardboard cutouts inside theaters?
While incredible digital campaigns exist, physical elements within theaters can transform exhibition spaces into educational hubs. Marketers can creatively explore storytelling around filmmaking processes.
AMC warns fans to expect 25-30 minutes of ads and trailers, but why must this content be traditional? Running Sony's behind-the-scenes look at their custom cinema camera for F1: The Movie as an ad could excite audiences about technical developments. If brands want impressions before movies start, ads must offer value; in this case, education about industry innovation.
Another example: the "Drivers vs. Actors" digital marketing collateral for F1: The Movie tests Formula 1 drivers and the cast on each other's industries. This could work as on-screen trivia or theater games, appealing to both cinemagoers and F1 fans.
The Odyssey marketing ties its teaser premiere to Jurassic World screenings. Christopher Nolan champions theatrical experience, and this exclusive approach is smart and a callback to pre-internet trailer debuts. Retraining audiences in their expectations of experience around movies is key, as the pandemic trained them to wait for movies to drop on streaming.
Audiences should be given the opportunity to expand their understanding of the medium in the place where it was meant to be shown and created for that purpose.
The challenge: How do marketers build engagement that feeds brains and appreciation for a medium exhibition executives believe might disappear in 20 years?
2
The Art of Slow Watching
Something I've experienced after I started writing about film more here on Substack is that it drove me to appreciate what was happening frame by frame, whether that's how costume design informs the state of mind or intent of a character (see my recent piece on Carrie Bradshaw), or how production design and cinematography collaborate with costuming to create a visually harmonious or mood-altering frames—Passages (2023) is a great film to watch for precisely this.
Film academia teaches analysis: identifying techniques, using analytical frameworks, approaching films through multiple purposeful viewings. Museums have "slow looking," wherein the longer you observe a painting, the more details and color relationships emerge. With moving images, this requires multiple watches, but you can train attention to specific details, like our current FilmStack challenge around sound design.
Becoming an active viewer enables appreciation of film as art. This connects to idea #1: marketers can train audiences by highlighting specific filmmaking processes and providing language to discuss them.
3
Foster Cross-Sector Partnerships Between Film and Other Arts Organizations
The first time I saw Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust was at the African American Museum of Philadelphia. Rethinking screening spaces to reach a cross-section of audiences who are interested in visual art is a smart tactic for both film programmers and museum programmers, there is synergy in their curation.
The Museum of Moving Image's Mission: Impossible exhibition perfectly demonstrates this concept in action. The exhibition celebrates the franchise's commitment to practical stunt work and explores how the series combines technical ingenuity with storytelling. They’re also hosting a slew of screenings that spotlight Tom Cruise’s career and legacy, so museum-goers and film lovers can experience and learn about the art of film in two meaningful ways.
While Titus Kaphar's Exhibiting Forgiveness debuted at Sundance and landed on Hulu almost a year later with minimal promotion, it found new life in the museum space. The film had a screening at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and a splashy premiere at the Gagosian gallery, which represents Kaphar. The lead character, played by André Holland, is an artist, and works shown in the film were later exhibited at the Gagosian gallery. This is a smart way to repurpose production design elements and exhibit new works by Titus Kaphar, who painted those pieces specifically for the film.
Jeanie Finlay shared her audience-building strategy for Sound It Out, a documentary about England's last surviving vinyl record shop: "We took the film out on the road like an indie band. We had vinyl parties, record pop-up shops, and played at music festivals."
These examples show how positioning film within the arts sector can change the perception of it being just a form of entertainment. These types of collaborations often attract people who are already invested in supporting arts but who might not watch a movie on the big screen more than one or two times a year. They're exactly the audience that film culture needs to cultivate to ensure its future.
4
Where Are the Film Equivalents of Record Stores?
A lot of things killed the video store: streaming, digital downloads, generational shifts, concerns about clutter and adoption of minimalist aesthetics, and the lack of marked difference in quality between owning a digital version of a film versus a physical copy.
One of the reasons record stores are thriving while video stores haven't seen the same kind of revival is how each industry treats their products. Criterion aside, there's not a general industry push to buy physical media anymore. But there is an emerging push around novelty popcorn buckets, which range from $25 to $80. Americans are consumers first who love to collect things, how do we get more of them interested in collecting the actual art artifact, the film, versus the promotional item related to the film?
Perhaps it's quicker and less expensive to garner profits from PVOD and SVOD than it is to print physical media and create a whole other marketing campaign around its sale. Obviously streaming plays a big part in this, why bother to buy anything if the film you want to see will be on streaming 45 to 90 days after it debuts in theaters?
Vinyl is very much having a moment. It's art meets commerce meets the best way to listen to an album, it fulfills many basic needs of the music lover. As I was inside a record shop last weekend, I couldn't help but wonder: why aren't there more spaces for in-person film discovery that aren't movie theaters? In LA, there's Vidiots, whose mission is:
"A one-of-a-kind hub for film lovers, filmmakers, and everyone curious about cinema, Vidiots is dedicated to inspiring human interaction around film through communal theatrical presentations and preserving, growing, and providing access to its diverse DVD, Blu-ray, and rare VHS collection, showcasing the work of emerging, master, and underrepresented artists, and producing unique and affordable film events, and vital education programs."
While I'm 100% behind digital community building, having more spaces to discover and experience film IRL can only be a net positive. As I mentioned in ideas #1 and #3, it creates an opportunity for film education and commerce. Criterion is definitely onto something with the Mobile Closet they’ve activated at various film festivals. And I think it goes back to establishing film as an art form worth supporting and conserving.
Perhaps we'll never achieve mass adoption of physical media purchases for film again, but as we've seen, content disappears from streaming platforms overnight with no recourse for creators or audiences. If we want to preserve these works, owning a copy is one way to support that mission.
5
Support Your Local/Regional Film Festival
When I worked in film festival marketing, a major part of my strategy was to focus on the communal aspect of the festival, the atmosphere with folks who were excited to support work that was a reflection of their lives, showcased their history, and provided an atmosphere that felt like a safe space to discuss and reflect upon issues relating to the community specifically.
I got to witness the work of indie filmmakers who were deeply committed and unapologetic about creating culturally specific work that created deep resonance. It's one of the reasons why people keep coming back year after year.
The smaller film festivals that happen in cities like Philadelphia are a great incubator to understand what audiences actually want out of contemporary storytelling and what is connecting with them. They're also the places to see work that is pushing boundaries in various ways.
I encourage you to take a moment to research local film organizations within your city and make it a point to help them with their mission, either by buying a festival pass, becoming a member, providing a one-time or recurring donation, or volunteering at one of their events.
Conclusion
The future of film culture can be built by all of us, one intentional choice at a time.
You can do your part and help put these ideas into action:
Practice slow watching by rewatching a favorite film
Buy physical copies of films and support indie filmmakers by purchasing their merch, dvds or vhs
Research your city's film festival and buy a pass or become a member of your local arthouse cinema
These approaches aren't individual tactics, they're interconnected strategies ensuring film culture thrives. When theaters become educational spaces, audiences develop deeper viewing skills, physical discovery spaces flourish, festivals build community, and arts organizations collaborate across disciplines, we create ecosystems valuing film as both art and entertainment.
Recommended Reading:
Should Cinemas Embrace the Responsibility of Film Education by
Jeanie Finlay: A Creative Approach to Audience Connection via
Inside the Wild Plan to Turn Movie Theaters into Fitness Centers by
What Does an Audience Forward Ecosystem Look Like by
Where to Buy Physical Media in 2025 by
No Really, How the Hell Do We Fund the Art We Care About Right Now by
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“The future of film culture can be built by all of us, one intentional choice at a time”
Love this and thx for the shout out 🙏
So many thanks for this Swabreen and Ted. I suspect — or find myself, in part, willing into existence — the notion that film will indeed have its ‘vinyl’ moment, either through a resurgence in DVD and Blu-ray or some other yet unknown robust format to satisfy the best of all worlds at a fair price — something we can own, with nary a fear of losing digital access in sight.
Case in point: I wanted to watch Pope Of Greenwich Village the other night — hadn’t seen it since it came out, and had a hankering for some early Eric Roberts / Mickey Roarke magic. That’s the blessing of streaming. However, only after viewing did I discover my instinct must’ve somehow been coincidentally if not mystically motivated, given the film was about to leave Amazon (for good?) 3hrs later.
Alongside this, lately I’ve found myself feeling about cinema the way I did about vinyl: I want to hold it in my hands. I want to explore the cover art. The hidden layers and meanings. I want to be able to watch it when I want down the road, without feeling beholden to some arbitrary algorithm / bean counter boardroom decision to pull it off my digital shelf just when I finally want to do so. With projectors generally cheap and ‘good enough’ to help us suspend our disbelief that we’re watching a MOVIE on our walls or pull-down screens, there is currently no excuse for most of us to jump into that value (if indeed it is a ‘value’ for you) other than current Blu-ray price points. But canny distributors looking for the exit as Hollywood 2.0 collapses will see the wisdom to re-create if not re-educate fans, as you rightly say, starting with easy (read: affordable) accessibility to these films if they know what’s good for them.
I also love the idea of the slow-watch movement; in Molise the slow food movement abounds and is similarly a practice where every next morsel is meant to be savored as much as the last. And what was once considered a fringe food movement is also quietly (albeit effectively) edging toward the mainstream. Same thing will happen with film I predict — as long as the aforementioned players who emerge from Hollywood 2.0’s shakeout glean enough good sense to rally behind: a) the inevitable (re)emerging ‘blue ocean’ market of tangible assets that could in theory form the second pillar of: b) a better, if not more popularized (read: less pricey / bourgeois) price-fluctuated ‘RyanAir’- type exhibition model, we might just have the ticket(s) and film-lined shelves many of us have been waiting for.