Interview with EAVE Marketing Workshop Heads of Studies Alya Belgaroui-Degalet and Sarah Calderón

"We are now looking to intensify and scout projects in postproduction stage and in the series space."

By Lilla Kadar

Alya and Sarah, you are the Heads of Studies of the EAVE Marketing Workshop for the 8^th edition this year. Do you remember the first edition and your expectations and feelings about starting this work?

Alya Belgaroui-Degalet: I remember exactly how Tina (EAVE CEO Kristina Trapp) came to me with this big and ambitious project. I was nervous about being up to the task, but working with Sarah made everything easier. Her great efficiency and shared vision reassured me about designing the workshop, and thanks to her and Tina, I felt surrounded by supportive, empowering women, warm and welcoming people who push you to your best.

I have to say that after 8 years it's still a lot of fun. We initially drew from our various marketing experiences, following a film’s journey from production to release. We follow a film from the point of view of international sales and distribution, we prepare for the world premiere with PR and journalists. We also talk about national distribution, and at the end of the sessions we always try to think outside the box, make a suggestion for the next step, for the future. The workshop adapts every year; the first sessions stay the same, but the last ones evolve with new ideas, reflecting marketing’s constant changes.

We work closely with long-standing tutors, like Boris Pugnet and Michael Arnon, and more recent ones that joined us along the way like Manori Ravindran, Elena Neira, Guillaume Boscher and Elie Nebot. The presentations also reflect what we have done in previous years and they are in constant motion because we exchange a lot of information and case studies throughout the year. Many of us work together in other capacities and this allows us to be in constant contact.

Sarah Calderón: I can only mirror Alya’s words. Although at the beginning it seemed like a huge task, being with Alya and backed up by Tina, we all felt the vibe of an incredible team right away. We were very quickly surrounded by an amazing collective of mentors that mix charisma and the highest standards in marketing. Our priority is to keep both at the same level. As co-heads of studies, we really complement each other’s knowledge and skills and we have the same vision about many aspects. When we don’t, we get to easily convince the other one and for the best.

Both Alya and me had children in between this workshop and being co-heads of studies allowed us to assure the good work and support each other in our personal lives. Because of our tandem, we’ve been able to also develop our careers very steadily in parallel to our EAVE tasks. 

Did the pool of participants change over the years?

Alya Belgaroui-Degalet: Yes, in the early years the workshop was more producer orientated because EAVE is so famous for the EAVE Producers Workshop. Now there's still a large proportion of applications from producers, but it’s more balanced and we try to create a balance in the selection as well, because the idea of the workshop is to create a network where the atmosphere is non competitive, where we are happy to meet a big variety of professionals because we can learn from them. So now we have a good balance of producers, distributors, sales agents, professionals working with platforms, funders and representatives from festivals and markets, from many different countries. This mix adds value to our discussions and plenary sessions, representing all areas of marketing.

With Sarah, we have developed this idea even further: At each plenary session, we ask 1-2 participants to take the stage to speak for 15 minutes about their work and achievements. The "EAVE idea" is that we are not in a teacher-student relationship, but that we all have our experiences to share. To balance different profiles, while most participants are around 30, we also welcome younger talents with 2-4 years of experience. Having varied perspectives is enriching, especially in marketing, where image evolves rapidly. A mix of newer participants, often more connected to social media, and experienced participants with more stories creates a dynamic, impactful workshop. The goal is not to debate each country's audience in detail, but to share as many ideas as possible and be honest about which work well and which don’t - drawing from our own mistakes. Learning from mistakes can often be more valuable than from success stories!

Some national funds have told us they changed their funding systems to better support marketing after our workshop. For example, Eurimages came to the workshop last year because they were working on a new funding system with a focus on marketing, and we exchanged a lot with them about what could be helpful for the film. We realised that the new EUR 50,000 support scheme implemented ideas and structures from our workshop.

Sarah Calderón: In the last years we’ve been able to put an important focus on inclusion when it comes to the selection. Many regions in the world don’t have a developed audiovisual marketing trade and their films struggle to break through the noise of the international marketing, so the workshop is crucial for them. Through tactics like the EAVE scholarships and affirmative action, we often welcome BIPOC participants coming from all over the world including South Africa, Nigeria, Brazil and Colombia, for example. The ethnical and cultural background enrich the selection and the perspectives towards audience thinking.

Are some projects being successful after the workshop?

Alya Belgaroui-Degalet: THE SETTLERS and LIVING LARGE have been successful Marketing Workshop projects recently: LIVING LARGE won a main award in Annecy and was nominated twice for the European Film Awards 2024, while THE SETTLERS received the FIPRESCI prize at Cannes 2023. HOUSEKEEPING FOR BEGINNERS won the Queer Lion in Venice, the Silver Q-Hugo at Chicago, and was nominated for the European University Film Award in 2023, THE ORDINARIES was nominated for the LOLA Awards 2023 and for the Crystal Globe at Karlovy Vary in 2022. TOTEM won Best Children’s Film at Cinekid and scooped the Grand Prize at the NYICFF in 2022.

In terms of projects, we try to pick a mix of projects in development and post production, both independent small projects and larger projects, so we can work deeper or differently depending on the film. This year we have selected 2 documentaries, one per group, and we have even selected TV series, so we are also diversifying in terms of format. We're not just looking at film marketing, but also platform marketing, because that’s a very different market: people watch films on their mobile phones or other devices.

Sarah Calderón: Some years ago, we also had LAMB, represented by New Europe Film Sales, which became a very important film in the arthouse-genre space, it was in Cannes and received the Prize of Originality of Un Certain Regard, it also won at the 2021 European Film Awards, won Best Film at the 2022 Edda Awards, and was sold everywhere.

Through our alliance with Europa International, we train several sales agents to work hand-on-hand with producers. We have had The Match Factory, True Colours, Charades, Autlook Film Sales, mk2, Goodfellas, Films Boutique, Intramovies, Heretic, LevelK, and more.

We are now looking to intensify and scout projects in postproduction stage and in the series space. We need more advanced projects to work with more certainty and clear images in certain sessions. Marketing in development stage is crucial but sometimes it can get a bit vague and we want to be crystal clear about the use of marketing tools across all stages. We are currently looking into possible institutional partnerships to boost the participation of postproduction stage and series.

What do you find relevant for producers and for marketing professionals to learn, to focus on in order to be successful in today’s film business?

Alya Belgaroui-Degalet: How you differentiate yourself from others, how your film is special – that’s what you should emphasise in order to do good marketing. You should also create an audience, a fan base or followers as quickly as possible who will follow the project from the beginning and be there when it is released. Those are my two most important pieces of advice. Always think differently and don’t be afraid to not use the same tools for different marketing efforts. Don’t be afraid to say: let’s talk about this film in a different way.

Sarah Calderón: For us is all about a strategic structure along the production phases and giving importance to the marketing narrative and the images. What we try to show along the week is how your project can grow from the simplest concepts to implementing sophisticated tools in digital promotion, like AI and VOD marketing. These new things will never work if the basis is cracking. Alya, Michael, Manori and myself work in areas like international positioning, early audience identification, PR to get the basis very clear. Participants end up realising how important it is to start early and they leave the workshop with a very clear structure of what they need to do at every step.

Another important part of our job as heads of studies is opening to new mindsets. For example, Elena Neira, specialist in VOD marketing, does a wonderful job making us dive into the mindset of the streamers and making us shape contents for them. She also uses Think Data reports, developed by The Film Agency, to open up ways to use data and gain capacity of negotiation and empowerment. Through EAVE’s investment, participants get a free subscription of six months to Think Data reports allowing them to discover the competitive advantage of working with data analysis and shading a light into the VOD numbers.

How do you tackle AI at the workshop? Do you personally use AI in your daily job?

Alya Belgaroui-Degalet: We introduced a plenary and a group work session on AI at the Marketing Workshop. AI is scary for many people because it is a new tool that we need to understand. It takes some time to get used to it, but that was also the case when the mobile phone or the internet came along. Once you understand it, it’s not that complicated. We aim to explore how AI tools can be useful in daily life or marketing. I often use ChatGPT to correct English in important emails and brainstorm new ideas, like a film title, as a final step to add fresh perspectives to my own work, to help me think differently. When working on a film, we use AI to create initial poster concepts based on keywords, helping producers visualize the mood, though it won’t replace designers or photographers.

At mk2, we are focused on the future of AI in cinema. We even introduced an AI experience room in the theatre where visitors can explore new tools for 10 minutes before a film. An mk2 team member keeps us updated on the latest AI tools, which is a great resource. He, Elie Nebot is working now with us at the EAVE Marketing Workshop opening our minds and eyes to the fascinating opportunities AI can bring to film and audiovisual marketing.

Sarah Calderón: Yes, we are actually implementing AI as the most recent adoption giving participants an overview of the opportunities, but also showing them a critical approach. We invite them to be early adopters while remaining very critical in many ways and to define their red lines according to the emerging legislations and good practices. We also make them aware of the impact on the environments and in politics and try to promote a responsible use always in synch with humans. This year we used mainly ChatGPT and Midjourney at the working sessions and participants worked on their own teaser posters, stills, thumbnails, titles, loglines and briefings for designers / photographers. They felt much more confident with the tools and discovered the usages in a very positive way.

We create synergies with other workshops like the EAVE AI Skills Booster and the EAVE Producers Workshop where we can exchange with other experts like Espinar Gabriel, Creative Director of The Film Agency and Petri Kemppinen, tech consultant. In this way we can stay fresh and informed about the developments of AI.

Page published 14 November 2024. Updated 28 November 2024.