Moving People with Motion Pictures: Marketing for Film Festivals

Film festivals are a celebration of creativity, storytelling, and cultural exchange. They offer filmmakers a platform to showcase their work, and audiences a chance to experience diverse and creative perspectives. However, with the growing number of festivals around the world, standing out and driving engagement has become increasingly challenging. With the Cineverse and Downtown Los Angeles Film Festivals, my teams attracted audiences, engaged participants, and created memorable experiences online and at the theater.

Shelly Regner with Sunday Smith and Joshua Moreno at Los Angeles Cineverse, September 2025

Filling Seats: The Audience for Indie Film

When I joined the management team of the Los Angeles International Cineverse Film Festival in 2022, the audience for independent films had just experienced a significant shift following the height of the pandemic and streaming platform changes. It's always been an uphill battle for indie filmmakers to produce, finance, and shoot films without the assistance of studios, distributors, streamers, or networks. And yet, the demand for films offering profound storytelling and diverse perspectives remains. According to the US Independent Film Audience & Landscape Study by Kerith Putnam of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center, nearly one‑fifth of American adults describe themselves as “definite fans” of independent film (52M) and independent documentary (57M). Between 2022 and 2023, an estimated 36.7 million people watched independent films in theaters or on small screens. Going into the current year, interest in indie cinema has only grown — especially around film festivals.

A white paper from the CEO of Eventive, a platform many festivals use for ticketing and operations, notes that average festival attendance rose from roughly 5,600 tickets issued per organization in 2021 to more than 7,500 in 2025 — an increase of about one‑third (34%). Traversing this rebound from the pandemic became a defining part of my work as a festival manager in Los Angeles. Working for two different festival brands, I would need to employ a diverse range of tactics to draw attendees to each one.

Cineverse: Gathering the Indie World

Los Angeles Cineverse is a small-scale, indie film festival with annual screenings in the heart of Hollywood, Los Angeles. Part of an alliance of indie festivals around the world, LACV aims to get filmmakers' work seen both in the U.S. and globally. Selected works have the opportunity to win a variety of awards, accolades, distribution opportunities, and prizes. Promoting this festival as the first US-based festival for its parent company, CinéCiné, I'd spearhead the creative direction of its tone, message, and visuals to introduce brand newcomers to a whole new world of indie excellence.

As the Festival Manager, I shifted the brand voice of our social media channels from generic cinephile musings to a call for small filmmakers to make bold, creative choices with gusto. Initially our pages featured posts aimed at portraying a myriad of film fun facts, motivational quotes from unrelated celebrities, and behind the scenes footage of popular media. Initially the thought was that by associating ourselves with prestige cinema, we would attract general audiences seeking a high-end experience at the theater.

Of course, I saw this as antithetical to our mission as a festival. To change course, I leveraged our own winning filmmakers' media and credentials to establish our festival as one made by  and for indie artists, rather than A-List actors.

This change in strategy required consistent communication between past and present award-winners, who would go on to create an incredible lineup of participants in our annual screenings. 

I'd also create content that leveraged the festival's identity as a Los Angeles-based event. This way I could play into the city's strength as a prime location where the world of cinema gathers. As our approach also highlights those entering the American market for the first time, this would help to pique the interest of foreign filmmakers seeking a Hollywood premiere. As a result, filmmakers from France, Los Angeles, and elsewhere would do exactly that. 

With films of such high quality, I was also emboldened to create ads that included their iconography to highlight their involvement at our event.

With deliberate shout outs towards our award-winners, city, and of course, our wonderful sponsors, I was able to  host sold out shows in East Hollywood, as well as New York following a similar strategy. What was most impressive about the turnout was the fact that filmmakers travelled across the country and even overseas to attend our events, vindicating our global appeal.

Downtown Los Angeles: Campaign for a Film Capital

The DTLA Film Festival is a 501(c)(3), IRS-tax-exempt charitable media-arts nonprofit organization dedicated to showcase the works of filmmakers from groups traditionally underrepresented by Hollywood, reflecting the unique cultural and ethnic diversity of downtown Los Angeles and its surrounding communities.

Since it was established in 2008 DTLAFF has screened more than 1,200 films of all genres, making it the largest film event in Downtown L.A. by the summer of 2023, when I'd joined the festival's team in time for its 15th anniversary.

As the Social Media Manager for DTLAFF, I worked to develop a posting strategy that would drive up hype for the festival's multi-day screenings with regularly scheduled filmmaker spotlights, panel promos, sponsor shoutouts, and trailers for our feature showcases. Working alongside a squad of college interns, I gathered media from filmmakers, partnered publicists, sponsors, and the festival director to create a constant stream of media in the month leading to our big week. As was the case with Cineverse, this required a shift in tactics.

In the previous year, DTLAFF had taken a straightforward approach to promoting the event and its lineup of filmmakers, opting for reposts of entertainment news articles and posters with minimal information on the creatives bringing their films to the many screens of the Regal L.A. Live theater complex.

While this helped to create touch points for our tickets pages, it didn't provide our followers with enough details to inform the purchases of each ticket - especially considering the festival's commitment to highlighting Latinx filmmakers in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month. Going forward, I aimed to bring that focus on heritage and creative direction to the forefront of our communications. As one of our largest premieres took place during the Día de los Muertos of 2023, I couldn't resist creating this poster to kick off a month-long campaign to get people excited to attend the festivities.

From here I'd share more information on the creative backgrounds and mission statements of our feature filmmakers in a spotlight series including BTS media from their press teams. Alongside filmmaker cross-posts, this helped to give attendees a much stronger incentive to move past our social pages to our ticket pages for each of our feature releases.

I'd also be sure to help provide a better sense of DTLAFF's unique selling point by sharing information on panel guests and our own event trailer, which highlights the festival's legacy in the city as a center for creatives to celebrate its spirit of resilience and cross-cultural vibrance.

By the time our festivities had begun, I also made sure to include information on the different programs of each day the festival ran. This helped to garner last-minute attendees for the screenings that our followers may have missed in the days leading up to the big week. Alongside our ticket purchasing guides, these posts would ensure that our followers would have plenty of opportunities to become audience members.

Following this campaign, DTLAFF had sold hundreds of tickets to fill out L.A. Live with attendees ready for their red-carpet moments. Cast, crew, and fans of films reflecting the city’s scrappy nature gathered for a week that I’d never forget. This was the last event hosted by DTLAFF before it rebranded to become the Hollywood Park Film Festival, which certainly closed out that chapter of its identity with a bang.

From the Black Mirror to the Silver Screen: Conclusion

When I studied at LMU’s School of Film and Television, a shared dream of many of my classmates was to become an “indie darling” – someone who could become prestigious, famous, and respected coming from small beginnings. Since I graduated from LMU, I always wondered if that dream was even possible for folks like myself.

Luckily, I get to see that happen every year in my line of work. With each festival, I see more and more artists from the world over come to Los Angeles to share what they believe people should see on the big screen. From action-packed feature premieres to intimate short romances, I get to promote the work of people who exemplify the beauty of cinema: sitting, standing, and clapping for the people who can’t help but to make their voice heard through the camera. Independent filmmakers might continue to struggle finding mainstream appeal in the days ahead, but the impression they leave on me and the folks at these festivals will last as long as we’re willing to listen. I, for one, am still on the edge of my seat.