SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE: Among the conference sessions held on the opening day of Durban FilmMart 2016 was a discussion on sales, distribution and marketing of films, hosted by the National Film and Video Foundation. The panelists included Marie Lora-Mungai of buni.tv and Restless Global, Mayenzeke Baza of AAA Entertainment, Helen Kuhn of Indigenous Films and Clive Fisher of Ster-Kinekor.
At film markets and conferences, the emphasis often falls on the problems of scriptwriting and production funding and pitching, with little attention having been paid in the past to sales agents, marketing and distribution. This led the NFVF to host a session that spelled out clearly the role that sales agents, distributors and exhibitors could play in the success of a film.
Baza’s opening argument was that filmmakers are so passionately involved in their stories that they cannot see clearly what audiences actually want, or are unlikely to be able to assess accurately and impartially, which market is best suited to their work. This, he says, is where sales agents come in. These agents, holding global sales rights for the films in question, seek out markets around the world where the content in their portfolios can best be sold.
The distributor’s role is somewhat different, Kuhn explained. Unlike sales agents, distributors deal in particular territories and so seek out content that is likely to find audiences in those specific regions. Kuhn emphasised the fact that there are more options now than ever in terms of distribution and that filmmakers need to look beyond cinema, which was once seen as the holy grail of distribution. Cinema, she explained, is severely limited in terms of reach and massively expensive to boot. Video-On-Demand (VOD) is a growing distribution platform across Africa and the old DVD is rapidly losing ground, with 1000 units per title now considered a high figure, especially for a locally-produced film.
Lora-Mungai added that the choice of distribution platform must depend on what is available. Cinema is simply not an option in most of Africa. Where it is viable, such as in South Africa, it is severely limited by the uneven distribution of theatres. VOD is more easily accessible to all, but the choice of business model (T-VOD or S-VOD) is still unpredictable, added to which VOD platforms are still not profitable and content owners should use them mainly as a means to get their work seen, not to get a return on investment.
The relationship between the filmmaker and the sales agent and distributor is a symbiotic one, Baza says. “The filmmaker’s job is to tell a story; the sales agent’s job is to sell the film.’ The implication is that the filmmaker ought not to try doing the sales agent’s job or vice versa. “Don’t design your own marketing material,’ Baza advises. “Leave it to the people who know how to sell your film.’
Kuhn agrees: “The biggest part of the job for a distributor is to sell the film – to get audiences into the cinema or to rent it on Box Office or whatever platform they choose. Once they’re in, thanks to all the marketing that’s been done, everything else that the marketing team did up to that point might evaporate. Then, all the power is in the hands of the filmmaker.’
