Spotlight on Shorts: Promoting short films in new media

How can your film hit the headlines? How to create buzz and hype around it, and will it pay off? Who writes about short films and why? We are going to talk about it with the founders and editors of media and platforms where short films appear more often than once in a blue moon. How do they promote the shorts? Is it a lucrative business or hard grassroots work? Can publicity affect the success of the film? What is the future of media promoting short films? These topics will be faced by panellists from various European countries who will have an opportunity to present trends and best practices relating to the promotion of films in the media (not just the Internet).

Moderator: Dominik Sołowiej

Panelists

Thomas Humphrey, Shorts Cineuropa
Thomas is an alumini of the 28 Times Venice Days Jury, and has written for Cineuropa about shorts and feature films from a number of Europe’s leading film festivals. He has also written for sites such as Screen Anarchy, Cinema Jam, and Nisimazine, and he has worked with the BFI on a number of their flagship festivals, including the London Film Festival. He co-founded the Nottingham Alternative Film Network (NAFN), a community cinema group that is committed to championing short films – something which lead the Network to receive a special mention in Cinema For All’s “Film Society of the Year” category in 2016.

Tara Karajica, Yellow Bread. A Short Film Magazine
Tara Karajica is a Belgrade-based film critic and journalist. Her writings have appeared in “SydneysBuzz”, “Indiewire”, “Screen International”, “Variety”, “Festivalists” and “The Film Prospector”, among many other media outlets. She was a participant of the 2013 Locarno Critics Academy, the 2016 Berlinale Talents – Talent Press and a number of other film criticism workshops. Tara is a film programmer at the World of Film International Festival in Glasgow, Scotland, a board member of NISI MASA and the Serbian correspondent for Film New Europe. She is also a member of the Online Film Critics Society and the Women Film Critics Circle as well as the recipient of the 2014 Best Critic Award at the Altcine Action! Film Festival. In September 2016, she founded “Yellow Bread”, a magazine dedicated entirely to short film.

Mathieu Lericq, Format Court
Mathieu Lericq teaches Film Studies at Aix-Marseille University. Since 2009, he collaborates as film critic at the French online magazine FORMAT COURT which covers daily news from the world of short films. He published about forty articles and interviews, mostly dedicated to European directors (Aki Kaurismäki, Ena Sendijarevic, Pavel G. Vesnakov, Łukasz Konopa, Vladilen Vierny, Grzegorz Jaroszuk). Besides, he currently writes a PhD thesis dedicated to the political value of bodies within Eastern European cinema of the 1970’s and 1980’s.

Eva Pa, KINEČKO
Eva graduated from Law studies at Comenius University in Bratislava and Directing and Producing Studies at Film School in Zlín. In 2010 she co-founded the Kinečko magazine, where she works as a executive producer and editor. She also co-founded FILMTOPIA company, which shapes itself as a distribution laboratory for researching new ways of distribution, especially for independent cinema. In 2014 she joined production company Bfilm, where she works as a producer of animation. In her spare time she focuses on shooting experimental films.