Asked where cinema operators should invest today if they want to remain relevant a decade from now, three industry executives gathered at the ICTA Barcelona Cinema Technology Experience did not begin by naming a projector, screen or sound system.

Christof Papousek, CFO and managing partner of Cineplexx International, led with quality and customer experience. Howard Kiedaisch, CEO of Digital Cinema Distribution Coalition, suggested that audiences increasingly approach out-of-home entertainment with a “go big or stay home” mentality, though he cautioned that what motivates customers varies by market and cinema.

Juan García, operations manager at Spanish exhibitor Odeon Multicines, was more emphatic, during the panel which was moderated by Marion Rosset, President of ADDE.

“For me, it’s identity, identity, identity,” García said. “It must be aligned with your idea of what cinema is for your customer. It’s not about one size fits all.”

That answer became a useful shorthand for much of the discussion that followed. Cinema operators are being presented with a widening range of premium screens, immersive sound systems, branded formats and alternative uses for their auditoriums. But the central question is no longer simply which technology produces the best technical result.

It is whether the technology fits the cinema, its market and its audience – —and whether the economics allow the exhibitor to pay for it before the next upgrade cycle arrives.

Different Technologies for Different Cinemas
García spoke from direct experience operating both premium LED auditoriums and advanced laser projection systems, including Christie’s CINITY format. Rather than positioning one as the inevitable replacement for the other, he argued that they offer different capabilities.

An emissive LED screen can change the way an auditorium is used. Because it does not require a projector or a completely darkened room, García sees the potential for cinemas to function more like adaptable event venues or even television studios, accommodating presentations, live events and community programming alongside conventional film screenings.

“It’s not about black or white,” he said. “It’s not about whether you prefer this or that.”

Laser projection and LED can both provide exceptional images, García argued, but they may suit different applications and different communities. Traditional projection also retains an important advantage: flexibility. A projector and screen can be installed or adapted in spaces where building a permanent LED wall would be impractical.

That distinction matters because technology purchases are often discussed as if the industry is moving toward a single future. García’s argument was that cinemas should instead begin with the experience they intend to create and the audience they are trying to serve.

The technology comes afterward.

When the Screen Is Ready Before the Movie
The limits of a hardware-first approach are particularly evident in the rollout of cinema LED.

García said Odeon’s LED auditoriums are still primarily presenting standard dynamic range versions of films because the supply of properly mastered cinema HDR content remains limited. The screens may be capable of far more, but the content pipeline has not yet caught up.

The problem is hardly unique to LED. Every new format creates what Kiedaisch described as a familiar chicken-and-egg dilemma.

Studios may be reluctant to create, manage and distribute another version of a film until a format has built a meaningful installed footprint. Exhibitors, meanwhile, are unlikely to make a substantial investment until they know there will be enough films to support it. Technology suppliers need both sides to move at roughly the same time.

Each additional format also adds complexity. Studios already manage numerous language, accessibility and technical versions across global markets. New premium variants require additional mastering, delivery, storage and quality-control work, increasing both labor and the possibility of mistakes.

The panel briefly discussed Disney Infinity Vision, the studio’s attempt to identify qualifying exhibitor-branded premium auditoriums and make them more recognizable to consumers. As Celluloid Junkie reported separately, Disney has positioned Infinity Vision primarily as a marketing and audience-navigation program rather than another consumer-facing technical specification.

Kiedaisch suggested Disney may be uniquely positioned to make such a program work because of its consistent supply of large-scale franchise titles. For exhibitors, however, the appeal is straightforward: a studio with considerable marketing resources would be helping audiences understand why certain auditoriums merit attention.

That may prove as important as the technology itself.

Four Questions Before Writing the Check
Papousek offered the panel’s most practical framework for deciding which investments are likely to create long-term value.

The first consideration is the economics of the market. Ticket prices, disposable income and the potential size of a premium surcharge differ considerably by territory. Cineplexx introduced certain high-end experiences earlier in Austria than it did in Serbia, Papousek noted, because Serbian ticket prices were roughly half those in Austria.

The second consideration is local history and audience expectations. Has the market previously supported premium presentation formats such as 70mm? Are moviegoers familiar with large-format cinema? Do local distributors support the necessary versions? In markets with a strong amusement-park tradition, motion-based or effects-driven formats may have more natural appeal.

The third factor is competition. Exhibitors must understand which systems are already available locally, whether a second mover can introduce something meaningfully different and whether contractual exclusivities affect the available choices.

Only then comes the fourth question: financial feasibility.

What is the capital investment? Can the system be financed as an operating expense rather than purchased outright? Will the supplier provide funding support? How long will the equipment remain commercially useful, and how quickly can the cinema recover its cost?

Papousek’s conclusion was bluntly pragmatic: the technically best system may not be the right technology for a particular cinema or market.

A less ambitious installation with a sustainable business model is more valuable than a spectacular auditorium whose economics never work.

The End of the 50-Year Projector
The pressure is greater because the digital cinema replacement cycle bears little resemblance to the equipment economics of the film era.

A 35mm projector could remain in service for decades. Digital cinema equipment may need to be replaced or substantially upgraded every seven or eight years, Papousek said, requiring exhibitors to begin planning for the next investment well before the current one has been fully depreciated.

The original conversion to digital projection was made possible in large part by the Virtual Print Fee model, which redirected some of the distribution savings from eliminating film prints toward exhibitors’ equipment costs.

There is no equivalent industry-wide mechanism funding today’s transition to laser, HDR, LED or the next generation of premium formats.

At the start of the digital rollout, cinemas could sometimes add a modest surcharge for a digital presentation. Early immersive sound installations could also command an additional fee. Those technologies eventually became standard, and the surcharges disappeared.

Exhibitors now face the prospect of repeatedly investing in technology that customers may soon regard not as premium, but as the basic price of admission.

Premium Pricing Requires Recognizable Value
Papousek said audiences remain willing to pay more when they recognize the added value, when the film suits the format and when the overall experience delivers on its promise.

That recognition cannot be assumed.

He cited a Cineplexx location in Vienna where a premium auditorium was installed within a cinema better known for arthouse and crossover programming. Some customers arriving for a weekday afternoon screening encountered a EUR €17 ticket and reacted by asking, in essence, whether the cinema had lost its mind.

The technology may have been impressive. The positioning was wrong.

Papousek also illustrated the demanding economics behind a large premium-format investment. An auditorium may need to generate somewhere between 70,000 and 100,000 admissions annually to produce sufficient incremental revenue. With a EUR €5 net surcharge, the exhibitor might retain approximately EUR €2.50 to EUR €2.75 after the film rental split.

That can produce meaningful additional margin, but a system costing EUR €1 million – —particularly once financing costs are included – —remains a difficult calculation if its useful commercial life is only eight years.

Auditorium capacity matters. So does film supply. A premium room that performs exceptionally for a handful of tentpoles but sits underutilized during the rest of the year will struggle to justify its cost.

A Format Needs a Story
Papousek argued that a successful premium format requires more than equipment installed at the end of the production chain.

“The PLF high-quality experience needs a bigger story,” he said. “It starts at the beginning, with the creation and the work with the filmmakers, and it ends in the cinema auditorium.”

Filmmakers, studios and technology companies must collaborate if a format is to become recognizable and desirable. James Cameron’s association with “Avatar,” Christopher Nolan’s advocacy for IMAX and large-format film, and Denis Villeneuve’s work on the “Dune” films demonstrate how filmmakers can become ambassadors for a presentation experience.

Without that connection, exhibitors are left trying to market technical distinctions most customers neither understand nor necessarily care about.

Papousek also stressed that not every film belongs in every format. A spectacle-driven release may benefit from the largest screen and most advanced sound system available. A smaller arthouse title may be better served by a more intimate auditorium, careful programming and a cinema whose identity matches the audience.

Both can represent premium experiences. They simply offer different kinds of value.

Innovation’s Less Glamorous Backlog
Kiedaisch introduced another complication: while the industry discusses advanced screens and immersive formats, it has still not completed some of digital cinema’s basic technological housekeeping.

Trusted Device Lists, which identify equipment authorized to receive encrypted content, remain cumbersome and are often collected through manual processes. Security keys are still distributed by email. Advance ticketing remains inconsistent in some European markets. Live-event delivery lacks the standardized, integrated workflows needed to scale efficiently.

“There are still basic things that we don’t necessarily get right on the technology and operations side,” Kiedaisch said.

The Trusted Device List problem is particularly illustrative. The industry has discussed creating a global, non-proprietary system for years, but commercial interests and questions over ownership have repeatedly stalled progress.

“Ownership of the address book of the industry should be a pretty clear, simple thing to overcome,” Kiedaisch said, “but we’re still not there yet.”

None of this is as easy to market as a brighter screen or a new premium brand. Yet those foundational systems determine whether films, keys, live events and new formats can move efficiently through the theatrical ecosystem.

The cinema of the future will need both visible innovation and less visible infrastructure.

Audiences Still Come for the Film
For all the attention paid to projection, LED, HDR and immersive experiences, the panel ultimately returned to content.

“No one wakes up and goes, ‘I want to go see a big projector,’” Kiedaisch said.

Audiences choose the film, concert, sporting event or shared experience first. Technology can enhance that choice, make it more memorable and persuade customers that leaving home is worthwhile. It can also give exhibitors new ways to use their auditoriums and reach communities that traditional movie programming may not serve.

But it cannot manufacture demand for content audiences do not want.

That does not make technology secondary or unimportant. It means the investment has to support a larger idea: the cinema’s identity, the film being presented and the expectations of the audience buying the ticket.

García summarized the challenge by looking beyond the equipment itself.

“I look to the cinema, not the technology,” he said. “What are you doing with it?”

For exhibitors considering their next major investment, that may be the most important specification of all.

Editor’s note: This feature is part of Celluloid Junkie’s coverage of the 2026 ICTA Barcelona Cinema Technology Experience. See more reporting from the seminar below.

More from ICTA Barcelona

• Disney’s Andrew Cripps Explains the Strategy Behind Infinity Vision
• The Best Cinemas Aren’t Competing With Netflix. They’re Competing With a Night Out
• Cinema Technology Has Never Been More Sophisticated, So Why Is It Still So Disconnected?

The post Cinema Technology Is Advancing Faster Than the Business Model Supporting It appeared first on Celluloid Junkie.

When cinema executives talk about competition, the conversation usually turns to streaming. Netflix. Disney+. The endless supply of entertainment now available from the comfort of the living room.

Karl Geraghty has a different view.

“Netflix doesn’t worry me at all,” said the head of Stella Cinemas. “The theatre down the road worries me more than Netflix.”

Geraghty was speaking during the International Cinema Technology Association’s Barcelona Cinema Technology Experience as part of a panel featuring the organization’s 2025–2026 EMEA Award winners. Moderated by CinemaNext’s Araceli Vaello, the discussion brought together Geraghty; Gregory Theile, CEO of Germany’s Kinopolis Group; and Tomasz Jagiełło, CEO of Poland’s Helios Cinemas.

Their companies operate very different businesses: a single-screen destination cinema in Dublin, a major multiplex circuit in Poland and a technologically ambitious new-build cinema in Hamburg. Yet they arrived at remarkably similar conclusions about what makes audiences choose one cinema over another – and, increasingly, what makes them leave home in the first place.

Competing for the Entire Evening
For Geraghty, Stella Cinema is competing not only with other cinemas, but with restaurants, cocktail bars, theatres, concerts and every other leisure activity vying for consumers’ limited time and discretionary income.

Stella’s goal is therefore not simply to show a film. It is to become the place people choose for the entire evening.

“We don’t just want “The Devil Wears Prada’ to do well,” Geraghty said. “We want Stella to be the ultimate place to go and see it.”

That philosophy influences everything from food and beverage to marketing and customer service. With only one screen, Stella may attract a completely different audience from one week to the next. The cinema therefore adjusts its cocktails, promotions and style of engagement to complement each film and the customers likely to attend it.

“The experience we’re selling for ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ would be very different from the experience we were selling for ‘Hamnet,’” Geraghty explained. “We have to pair the experience with the film.”

At Stella, that proposition is marketed as “a proper night out.”

“People will get dressed up to come to Stella,” Geraghty said. “They’re going to us because of the cocktails, the food and the level of service. That is what we sell.”

The Experience Is Only as Strong as Its Weakest Touchpoint
The emphasis on hospitality was notable given the setting. This was, after all, a cinema technology conference. Yet throughout the discussion, technology repeatedly took a supporting role to design, service and the complete customer journey.

That did not mean technology was unimportant. Theile stressed that excellent projection and sound remain essential. Kinopolis’ award-winning HafenCity cinema in Hamburg includes the city’s only Dolby Cinema and its only auditorium with D-BOX seating.

But technical excellence alone cannot rescue a disappointing visit.

“The experience is always as strong as the weakest touchpoint,” Theile said. “You might have 4K laser projection and Dolby Atmos, but if the waiting line is too long, if the app doesn’t work or if the restrooms aren’t clean, people will leave the cinema saying it wasn’t worth the money.”

Content can bring audiences through the doors despite an unremarkable building, Jagiełło acknowledged. But exhibitors cannot assume that will be enough to build loyalty.

Theile made a similar distinction.

“If you have the best and most modern theatre but you don’t have the content, nobody will show up,” he said. “The other way around, they might come once, but not a second time if the experience doesn’t meet their expectations.”

Creating Places People Want to Share
Jagiełło argued that moviegoing has become less habitual since the pandemic. Audiences increasingly respond to individual titles and the urgency created by concentrated marketing campaigns.

“People go to see the movie, not to go to the cinema,” he said.

That makes it more important for the cinema itself to become a destination – an interesting place where customers want to spend time and tell others they were there.

“Cinema must become a place people like to visit,” Jagiełło said. “They want to take a photograph and inform their friends that they are here, and their friends want to be there as well.”

Helios now considers social-media shareability when developing new projects. At one cinema, a decorative wall made from vintage VHS tapes became an unexpectedly popular backdrop for customer photographs.

“It has nothing to do with technology,” Jagiełło said. “It’s just an idea – creating funny, entertaining places where people would like to take a picture.”

Kinopolis approached its HafenCity cinema with a similar goal. Customers reach the lobby by escalator beneath a dramatic ceiling installation made from approximately 9,000 suspended tubes. The visual surprises continue through the bar and into auditoriums that have each been given a distinct design.

“It’s about surprising customers,” Theile said. “It’s about surpassing their expectations.”

He cautioned, however, that exhibitors should not simply install an obvious “selfie point” and expect customers to cooperate.

“The customer won’t take the bait,” Theile said. “It’s really the whole surrounding. They have to feel it.”

The most effective social-media marketing is therefore organic: a photograph of a cocktail, a glimpse of an auditorium or some other detail that communicates that a customer is enjoying an experience worth sharing.

For Stella, that peer-to-peer recommendation is particularly valuable.

“I don’t think most of our audience are necessarily going to Stella because of the company or because of me,” Geraghty said. “They’re going to go because their friends have told them, ‘This is the experience.’”

Premium Must Be Something Customers Can Feel
The panelists also questioned whether the cinema industry sometimes overestimates audiences’ understanding of technical specifications.

Jagiełło framed the issue in practical terms: Which investments will customers actually pay more to experience?

“People are ready to pay for recliners,” he said. “They’re not ready to pay extra for sound. They’re not ready to pay extra for picture quality.”

Customers may pay more for a recognized premium brand that incorporates superior projection and sound, Jagiełło added, with IMAX providing the clearest example. In that case, audiences understand and trust the overall proposition without necessarily knowing how the technology works.

Theile agreed that exhibitors and suppliers can become too focused on specifications.

“We overestimate the capability of our customers to understand what we are doing,” he said. “They have no idea about nits, foot-lamberts or resolution.”

There remains an audience for distinctive technologies, especially when a cinema offers something unavailable elsewhere in its market. But visible or tangible improvements – recliners, additional space, comfort and hospitality – are often easier to communicate and monetize.

The cinema industry may also be concentrating too much of its innovation inside auditoriums.

“I’m missing lobby solutions,” Jagiełło told the technology suppliers in the room. “Everyone is focused on the screen, the picture, the sound and the chairs. But the experience is not only here. The experience starts at the door.”

Charging More Without Leaving Audiences Behind
All three exhibitors supported charging appropriately for better experiences, though their different business models produced very different pricing realities.

Stella charges EUR €23 (USD $26) for a standard ticket, which Geraghty said is by far the highest cinema ticket price in Ireland. Nevertheless, the 215-seat venue regularly sells out.

“I don’t see any reason why cinemas should be paid less, or why people should pay less for cinemas,” he said. “But we have to up our experience. We have to up our game.”

Helios operates in a market where tickets generally range from approximately EUR €5 to EUR €10, with the upper end reserved for a genuinely premium experience. Jagiełło said pricing data showed that some customers would adjust the day or time of their visit to secure a lower price, while a much larger group appeared relatively insensitive to such differences.

That creates room for a broader price range, preserving affordable entry points while charging more for experiences with clearly higher value.

“Premium must be premium to stay premium,” Jagiełło said. It also requires standard auditoriums and standard seating against which that premium can be measured.

Theile likewise warned that the industry cannot allow cinema to become unaffordable. Operators need premium options capable of commanding EUR €17, EUR €18 or EUR €20 while also maintaining prices that allow families and more cost-conscious customers to attend.

The Refurbishment Trap
Behind the discussion of design, technology and pricing was a more difficult economic problem.

Many multiplexes are now between 20 and 25 years old. They remain profitable, Jagiełło said, but not profitable enough to finance the substantial investment required to transform them for contemporary audiences.

“Most investment goes to prime locations and prime cities,” he explained. “There are thousands of cinemas where there are simply not enough resources to transform them.”

The result is a refurbishment trap: buildings that generate enough money to continue operating in their present form, but not enough to fund the changes needed to remain competitive over the long term.

“If we do not adapt and if we do not change, many cinemas will have no road for further activity,” Jagiełło warned.

That challenge extends well beyond Poland. Across mature cinema markets, exhibitors are confronting venues that still function but no longer surprise, delight or provide audiences with a compelling reason to choose them over every other possible night out.

The panel offered no single formula for overcoming that problem. A boutique cinema in Dublin cannot be operated like a national circuit in Poland, nor can every existing multiplex reproduce the architecture or technology of a new-build venue in Hamburg.

What the three operators shared was a belief that investment should begin with a clear understanding of what customers value – not with a checklist of what a modern cinema is assumed to require.

Content remains essential. Technology is fundamental. But audiences judge the evening by everything surrounding them: the building, the seating, the service, the cocktails, the queue, the app and even the restrooms.

Award-winning cinemas are not necessarily created by doing more. They are created by making better choices.

And their competition is not simply Netflix or the multiplex across town. It is every other memorable way a customer could spend the evening.

Editor’s note: This feature is part of Celluloid Junkie’s coverage of the 2026 ICTA Barcelona Cinema Technology Experience. See more reporting from the seminar below.

More from ICTA Barcelona

• Disney’s Andrew Cripps Explains the Strategy Behind Infinity Vision
• Cinema Technology Is Advancing Faster Than the Business Model Supporting It
• Cinema Technology Has Never Been More Sophisticated, So Why Is It Still So Disconnected?

The post The Best Cinemas Aren’t Competing With Netflix. They’re Competing With a Night Out appeared first on Celluloid Junkie.

On a busy Friday night, a modern multiplex can look like a small technological miracle.

Digital cinema packages arrive through a delivery network. A theatre management system schedules and plays them. Projection, sound, lighting and building controls are automated. Tickets, concessions and loyalty transactions flow through a point-of-sale system. An audience member may use an app for audio description or another language.

“Six sophisticated systems, six brilliant pieces of engineering,” said Till Cussmann of Vista Group during the “Connected Cinemas” panel at the ICTA Barcelona Cinema Technology Experience. “But here’s the problem: half of them don’t really speak to each other.”

That disconnect remains one of the cinema industry’s most persistent operational contradictions. Individual systems have become extraordinarily capable, but employees still re-enter information, export spreadsheets and manually transfer data between products inside the same building.

The problem is not a shortage of technology. It is getting the technology to cooperate.

Timo Holtkamp of Gofilex described a content delivery workflow that can send digital cinema packages and security keys into a theatre management system, but offers limited visibility into what happens afterward. At the other end of the chain, Seneit Debese’s Greta app provides accessible and alternate-language versions, but still depends on accurate film and screening information.

Employees as the Integration Layer
When those connections fail, employees fill the gaps. Sophie Doherty of TAPOS noted that some operations managers are still entering information manually at the end of the night.

“For a lot of exhibitors, that would be at two or three in the morning,” she said. “That should not have to happen.”

Doherty added that many point-of-sale providers can automate end-of-night reporting. Sometimes the issue may be training, configuration or a small development request. Still, staff members are too often required to act as an unofficial integration layer.

Why Integrations Require More Than an API
Building a real integration is considerably more complicated than adding a few lines of code.

Asked what had allowed OneCinema to connect programming schedules with projection equipment, power management and building automation, Andreas Stier offered a concise answer: “Perseverance, and a lot of love, sweat and tears.”

The work can involve non-disclosure agreements, API documentation, discussions between developers, access to equipment for testing, remote laboratory sessions and validation inside a functioning cinema. An API, or application programming interface, is a controlled doorway through which one system exchanges defined information with another.

Even when that doorway exists, it must be maintained. A software update on either side can break an integration that had previously worked.

David Ong of Arts Alliance Media, now a Qube Cinema company, said AAM’s theatre management system is connected to 31 different point-of-sale companies, yet many more remain unsupported.

“Who is actually owning that integration?” Ong asked. “And if one side changes their API, that could potentially break that integration.”

The challenge begins with something as fundamental as identifying the film.

Stier said the industry still lacks a single film and release identifier consistently used across markets, cinema circuits and software platforms. The problem multiplies when the same title has several releases, formats, languages or accessible versions. Identifier systems exist, but none has been universally adopted across booking, scheduling, delivery and operations.

Cinema has already shown that standards can work. The digital cinema package, or DCP, standardized how movies are packaged and played, while the key delivery message, or KDM, controls when and where encrypted content can be screened. Neither created a universal language for the data surrounding a show.

The Real Barrier Is Commercial
According to Ong, the main obstacle is not technical.

“It’s definitely commercial,” he said. “I believe every technology problem can be solved. We have a lot of smart people in our industry.”

The real question is whether both companies see enough value to commit development time, testing resources and ongoing support.

“Both vendors, or both platforms, need to see the value for them to be incentivized to put that time and money into that integration,” Ong said.

That does not necessarily mean vendors oppose openness. Software teams have finite capacity, and integrations compete with customer-specific features and product development. Doherty suggested that exhibitors may rank broader integration below tailor-made functionality already requested from their POS supplier.

There are also incentives to keep customers within a single product ecosystem. A tightly integrated stack from one vendor can be easier to install, support and operate than several specialist systems. Doherty said many cinema operators choose the vertical option when available because it is simpler and can produce a better experience.

The danger is that convenience can become dependence.

Stier argued that exhibitors should retain the freedom to choose the best product for each part of their operation.

“It shouldn’t be a walled garden,” he said. “It should be the customer’s choice.”

He was equally direct about claims that allowing another vendor to use an API would expose a company’s intellectual property.

“API is not intellectual property,” Stier said. “The other party defines what they give into the API.”

Providing controlled access to selected information is not the same as handing over source code or unrestricted access. Stier also argued that operational and customer data generated by an exhibitor should remain under its control.

“In my perspective, it’s the customer’s data,” he said. “I think it’s the right of exhibition to forward their data to other parties, and suppliers should enable that.”

What Disconnected Systems Cost Cinemas
The business case for better connectivity goes beyond saving employees from late-night spreadsheets.

OneCinema’s systems can start auditorium equipment before the first screening and shut it down after the final show, reducing staff hours and preventing equipment from running unnecessarily. They can monitor whether servers and projectors are ready, copy content at the appropriate time and alert staff before a technical problem becomes a missed performance.

When a screening fails, the cost is not limited to refunded tickets.

“You have to pay back the ticket price, but the reputational damage is way higher,” Stier said.

Reliable automation also frees employees to spend more time with guests instead of checking that each auditorium’s equipment has started correctly.

Artificial intelligence will not make the underlying problem disappear. AI may improve forecasting, maintenance and reporting, but it can only analyze the information it can access.

“If everything is still siloed, your prediction output, or whatever you’re trying to predict, will always be very limited,” Ong said.

Open Standards or Vertical Integration?
The panel did not settle whether connected cinemas will arrive through open standards, company consolidation or some combination of the two. Consolidation can remove interfaces by placing more products under one roof. Open standards preserve choice and make it easier for specialized suppliers to enter the market.

A neutral industry body or third party could define data standards, certify open interfaces or act as a trusted intermediary between competing suppliers. Yet such a system would still require funding, governance and vendors willing to participate.

Exhibitors may therefore have the most immediate leverage. Ong urged cinema operators to ask vendors about interoperability before signing a contract: Does the platform have an open interface? What is its API strategy? Which integrations are supported? Who maintains them when either product changes? Can the exhibitor direct where its operational data is sent?

Those questions would begin to turn connectivity from an optional benefit into a basic condition of purchase.

As Ong concluded, cinema will finally be truly connected when interoperability becomes “a competitive expectation and not a competitive advantage.”

Editor’s note: This feature is part of Celluloid Junkie’s coverage of the 2026 ICTA Barcelona Cinema Technology Experience. See more reporting from the seminar below.

More from ICTA Barcelona

• Disney’s Andrew Cripps Explains the Strategy Behind Infinity Vision
• Cinema Technology Is Advancing Faster Than the Business Model Supporting It
• The Best Cinemas Aren’t Competing With Netflix. They’re Competing With a Night Out

The post Cinema Technology Has Never Been More Sophisticated, So Why Is It Still So Disconnected? appeared first on Celluloid Junkie.

At Karlovy Vary’s Industry program (July 5-9), a sharp conversation held on July 6 on audience strategy argued that independent films can no longer afford to treat marketing as something that begins after distribution. Moderated by Deadline’s Zac Ntim, the panel, titled “Audience First: Rethinking Film Marketing Before Distribution,” brought together producer Mollye Asher, whose credits include Chloé Zhao’s “Songs My Brothers Taught Me,” “The Rider” and Oscar-winner “Nomadland,” and Mathias Noschis, founder and head of strategy at European film marketing agency Alphapanda.

Asher said her approach to picking projects has changed over time, with the marketability an increasingly important factor. Earlier in her career, the key questions were whether she liked the filmmaker and the script. Now, she also considers whether there is an audience for a project, and whether the market wants it. “I do not necessarily always follow that,” she said, noting that instinct still matters, “but it is something I take into account, because it will also affect the financing of a project.”

Noschis argued that the best time to begin serious marketing work is not after a film is finished, but just before shooting. While producers can start thinking about audiences at the financing stage, too much can still change. Three or four months before production, once the script is close to final, is the ideal moment, he said, because teams can plan stills, interviews, social formats and festival positioning before everyone is consumed by the shoot.

The recommendation, however, also points to a growing pressure on independent producers: marketing is being pushed earlier into the production cycle, even as many teams are still struggling to close financing, secure cast and manage basic production logistics.

Creating Buzz, Prompting Debate
For Noschis, buzz is not something that can simply be manufactured after the fact. At festivals, it already exists in conversations between people asking what they have seen and what is worth catching. Alphapanda’s job, he said, is often to bring those conversations online, so that people beyond the festival can feel part of the momentum.

He cited Golden Bear winner “Yellow Letters” as a case where the campaign anticipated a wider discussion around politics and freedom of speech. By inviting people already active in that debate to engage with the film, the campaign was able to enter a conversation that was already happening. “Online you can never control everything,” Noschis said, “but up to a certain point, we were able to guide the conversation.”

Asher pointed to “Swallow,” which opened just as the pandemic hit, as an example of audience pockets becoming unexpectedly powerful. The film’s themes of female agency and confinement helped it travel online, while partnerships with Planned Parenthood and coverage in Architectural Digest gave it additional routes to visibility. With “Nomadland,” she said, she saw even more clearly how small audience clusters can help build wider awareness.

Partnerships, Timing and Visual Assets
The panel also tackled brand partnerships, still more common in the US than in Europe. Asher said she is currently exploring brands that are already organic to a project, partly for financing reasons but also for broader collaboration. Noschis warned, however, that any partnership must fit the film’s identity. “There is nothing worse, in terms of image, than a misfit,” he said.

That identity work, he suggested, starts with a simple exercise: imagine the film as a person. Is it a 15-year-old skater, or a 70-year-old woman who drinks coffee? From there, producers can ask which brands, influencers or communities genuinely match the film’s personality.

Timing was another major concern. Noschis warned that filmmakers can damage a project by going online too early and revealing too much about its progress. If a film has spent months or even years chasing a festival slot, the industry may start to perceive it as old. “This industry likes fresh meat every month,” he said. Materials should be created early, but not necessarily published early.

Asher agreed, adding that a press announcement only helps if there is a clear call to action, such as a market or financing push. Holding back images can also allow a team to choose the right trade publication for a first look and shape the public perception of the film.

Noschis was blunt about one practical requirement: hire a still photographer. “Get a still photographer to take proper stills, not screenshots,” he said. He added that poster designers need character portraits and images that actually communicate the tone of the film. Too often, he said, comedies arrive with no images that look funny.

In that sense, the discussion made clear that “audience first” is not just a strategic mindset, but a cost line. For smaller productions, the challenge is not only knowing what materials should be created, but finding the resources to create them properly before a distributor or sales agent is fully on board.

Old Gatekeepers Still Matter
The discussion also returned repeatedly to the enduring power of trade reviews. Noschis said buyers still rely heavily on a handful of major trades – Screen International, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline – even as the media landscape has fragmented. “Reviews are still extremely important,” he said, but relying only on them is dangerous. He cited Irish coming-of-age drama “The Quiet Girl,” which initially struggled to secure reviews out of Berlin’s Generation section, but built visibility through social media, later growing into an Oscar-nominated success.

That tension was one of the panel’s most revealing points: while marketing channels are fragmenting across social media, influencers and niche communities, the industry’s core validation mechanisms remain strikingly concentrated around a small number of festivals and trade publications.

For  “The Quiet Girl,” Alphapanda initially leaned into the film’s Irish-language identity as its unique selling point. Later, for the United Kingdom, United States and Oscar campaigns, that element was downplayed in favor of reviews and festival selections, showing how positioning can change throughout a film’s life.

Asked whether festivals still matter, both speakers were clear. Asher said most of her films have depended on festivals to attract distributors, audiences and reviews. Noschis described festivals as essential labels of reputation. For an acquisitions executive with limited time, a festival selection signals that a film is worth watching.

His broader message to producers was direct: thinking about marketing does not mean surrendering the film to commerce. It means being able to speak to sales agents and distributors at eye level. “Trust the people you work with and be ready to lose,” he said, “but have ideas yourself, because that is what starts the conversation.”

The post Indie Film Marketing Can’t Wait Until the Film Is Finished appeared first on Celluloid Junkie.

While much of the global exhibition business gathered in Barcelona for CineEurope, independent cinema operators, art house leaders and film festival allies from across North America met in Chicago for a very different kind of industry conversation.

Organized in partnership, and in something close to spiritual kinship, by Art House Convergence (AHC) and Film Festival Alliance (FFA), IND/EX 2026 brought together the independent exhibition and festival communities for four days of “community education, networking, and industry advancement.” Presented by marquee sponsor Filmbot, the event marked the partners’ second Independent Film Exhibition Conference, following the inaugural edition in 2024 and a standalone Art House Convergence meeting last year.

This year’s event drew 788 registered delegates, up from 728 in 2024, and reflected a sector increasingly focused not only on programming and audience development, but also on sustainability, advocacy, accessibility, staffing, funding and the role independent cinemas play in their communities.

“This conference is not simply another industry gathering,” Natasha Olguin, deputy commissioner of the Chicago Film Office, told delegates during opening night at the landmark Chicago Cultural Center. “IND/EX represents something far more significant. It is where the leaders, visionaries and builders who sustain independent cinema come together to shape its future.”

A Conference Built Around Practical Survival
According to the conference program, IND/EX 2026 was “dedicated to advancing the reach, impact, and sustainability of independent exhibitors and film festivals.” Across its sessions, workshops and networking events, the program reflected the practical realities facing organizations that often operate with limited staff, complex missions and deep community expectations.

The language of IND/EX was notably different from the product pitches and studio presentations that define many larger exhibition gatherings. Its sessions promised “Allies in Audience Building,” “Turning Conversations into Connection,” “Making Membership Mutually Beneficial” and, before everyone headed back into the daily work of keeping independent cinemas and festivals alive, “a collective exhale.”

Sessions covered marketing, programming, operations, accessibility, development, leadership and education, with topics ranging from “Demystifying Grants” and “Real-Time People Management Solutions” to professional biography crafting, media training and improving your improv skills. Other workshops focused on “Thinking Beyond the Gala” for fundraising — valuable for the primarily non-profit organizations in attendance — as well as strategic planning and programming beyond traditional theatres through pop-up cinema and non-traditional exhibition spaces.

IND/EX workshops guided participants all the way from “How to Open an Art House” (case study with plans for the Uptown Film Center in Manhattan through “A Well Planned Future,” and right “Back to the Heart of Cinema.”

The breadth of the program reflected the reality of the independent sector: programming remains central, but running an independent cinema or festival today also means understanding fundraising, data, community engagement, staff development, government relations and audience care.

Ethics, Access and Audience Care
Special emphasis was given throughout the conference to what IND/EX framed as “The Ethics of Exhibition,” including presentation integrity, labor, accessibility and community accountability.

One session asked what the film industry could learn from health and human services, particularly around empathy, safety and awareness in cinema programming and the moviegoing experience. Another addressed immigration concerns, offering best practices for organizations that may need to understand the rights of their businesses, employees and attendees in uncertain situations.

These conversations reflected a broader shift in how many independent cinemas and festivals define their role. If CineEurope often speaks in the language of investment, technology and market share, IND/EX frequently spoke in the language of care: empathy, safety, access, labor, accountability and enrichment. None of this made the gathering any less practical. It simply made clear that, for many organizations rooted in local communities, exhibition is not only a transactional business. It is also a public-facing civic and cultural space.

That theme carried into a session on “The Ecology of Enrichment,” where panelists explored how art house cinemas and film festivals can move beyond the “cold, transactional nature of commercial entertainment.” 

Equally indicative, one workshop suggested “To Write That Down: Refinement for Immigration Concerns.” Such best practices were shared throughout the convention, and not only for “dealing with unexpected agents in your spaces and understanding the rights your business, employees, and attendees have.”

During CineEurope, the same subject would likely have been framed differently. Nonetheless, the more business-oriented people in Barcelona would likely agree with IND/EX participants on the importance of audience feedback, participation and creating enriching cinematic experiences that support long-term sustainability.

Whether framed as art, commerce or community service, the answer increasingly points in the same direction. Cinemas have to give audiences a reason to feel connected to the cinema itself.

Can Mission Drive Revenue?
That tension between mission and revenue surfaced directly in a discussion among leaders from programming, finance and development. The premise was familiar to many in the room: mission and revenue goals do not always point in the same direction.

Emelyn Stuart, an AHC board member and owner-operator of Stuart Cinema & Café in Brooklyn, New York, offered a different view.

“The mission brings in the money,” Stuart argued. The key, she explained, is to answer a simple question: “What does the community need?”

For Stuart, that approach includes listening to the community, keeping prices accessible and treating the cinema as more than a place to sell tickets. During the pandemic, Stuart Cinema & Café was declared an “essential” resource hub by the Governor, after supporting neighborhood residents in ways that included giving away leftover food and helping facilitate virtual viewings of burials across the country.

Today, that community commitment extends to affordability, including a full menu where every item is priced below USD $10, and a taste for conviviality that includes evenings with a free shot of whiskey for filmgoers.

“I believe that you can be a for-profit business and do good — and still make money,” Stuart observed.

The Numbers Behind Independent Cinema’s Resilience
The latest audience data presented at IND/EX suggests that Stuart’s point is more than anecdotal.

Feedback collected from more than 27,000 moviegoers for Art House Convergence found that more than 70% of respondents say their preferred art house destination is “very” or “extremely valuable” to their overall quality of life. Meanwhile, 91% agree that their theatre “elevates the experience of being in this community.”

The survey was conducted for AHC by independent market researchers at Avenue ISR, with additional field data from Rentrak.

“Independent theatres show impressive revenue-generating horsepower,” Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at Rentrak, noted. “Put into circuit terms, they would collectively represent the 13th largest grossing group of cinemas year-to-date in the United States. Independent cinemas that are part of Art House Convergence have seen an 8.8% uptick in year-over-year grosses, and an impressive 38% over 2019.”

The survey also showed that respondents attend more than 10 films annually at their preferred art houses, which represents 55% of their overall moviegoing habit. While that figure has remained steady over the last two years, art houses continue to attract new and younger guests. Nearly a quarter of respondents, 24.9%, first began attending their preferred art house within the last three years. Their average age is 40, compared with the overall respondent average of 51, and 68% of recent attendees are younger than 45.

“Art house cinemas are vital gathering spaces, and an essential component of today’s independent film ecosystem,” Lela Meadow-Conner, AHC’s interim executive director, remarked during the presentation of the results. “Our latest survey proves that audiences continue to rally around their local independent theatres, and despite current challenges, like shifting theatrical windows, media consolidation and arts funding pressure, moviegoer support for art houses continues to grow.”

Film festival attendance is also showing signs of durable growth. Eventive, the independent film ticketing and streaming provider and an IND/EX sponsor, shared five years of sales data covering 15 million tickets since 2020. According to the company, the “post-COVID bounce” has settled into a higher baseline for the sector, defined by deeper engagement.

Average revenue per ticket climbed to its highest level yet, exceeding USD $13 in 2025, while capacity utilization has consistently surpassed pre-pandemic benchmarks, averaging in the mid-50% range.

“Audiences are not merely returning; they are placing a higher value on the shared cinematic experience than ever before,” Iddo Patt, Eventive’s co-founder and CEO, stated. “Whether it’s at the movie theatre and in-person events, virtual screenings, or the intelligent application of new technology, our common goal remains the same: bringing people together around the power of film.”

A Collective Voice for Independent Cinema
For Deirdre Haj, president of AHC, one of the primary goals of the gathering was simple: to recognize the people doing the work.

The conference, she explained, was a way “to say thank you to all the people that work in the cinemas. Without them we do not know who we are as an organization.”

Haj, who also served as the first vice president of FFA at its founding, said the partnership between independent cinemas, festivals and distributors has become increasingly important at a time when independent distributors remain under pressure.

“When we see independent distributors under pressure, getting bought and disappearing, it is incredibly important to bring them closer to the cinemas,” Haj urged. “We must work to shorten the distance between the cinema and the independent filmmaker, who may or may not have distribution.”

Haj also emphasized the need for independent cinemas and festivals to speak with a more unified voice, particularly as the broader media and entertainment business continues to consolidate. Government officials, she argued, often understand the for-profit theatrical model better than they understand independent cinema.

“Those big chains, they have customers,” Haj stated. “We have communities. That’s who we are.”

That distinction, she suggested, matters when policymakers are considering issues that affect film access, repertory programming, independent distribution and the future shape of the film ecosystem.

The more AHC and FFA members contribute to their organizations, Haj encouraged her colleagues, the better those organizations can advocate on behalf of the sector. “We need more movies, not fewer. We need more partner companies, not less. Corporate mergers do not help the public.”

Karen Cardarelli, president of the FFA board and executive director of Facets Film Forum in Chicago, made a similar case for continued collaboration.

“When festivals and cinemas unite, our influence rises, our advocacy strengthens, and our collective voice becomes impossible to ignore,” Cardarelli noted during her opening night remarks. “Not long ago, many of us were wondering what the future of our organizations was going to be. But today, we are not just celebrating a recovery. We are celebrating a remarkable comeback.”

For independent cinemas and festivals, IND/EX 2026 was not simply a conference about survival. It was a signal that the sector is increasingly organizing around a broader proposition: community is not just the emotional value independent cinemas provide. It may also be their strongest business argument.

The post IND/EX 2026: Big Theatre Chains Have Customers. Independent Cinemas Have Communities. appeared first on Celluloid Junkie.

This year, the Mediterrane Film Festival returned to Malta for its fourth edition. While it requires a village to make a successful festival, the MFF is very much the vision of the dynamic Johann Grech, Malta Film Commissioner since 2018. This year, as before, the festival finished with the Golden Bee Awards, held at Malta Film Studios on 28 June 2026. Hosted for the first time by British comedian Jack Whitehall, the spectacular show played out on Malta’s famed water tanks, featuring a 100-meter-long stage with a stunning 60-meter-wide projection screen made of water. 

Several days earlier, Celluloid Junkie sat down with Grech, who was bursting with excitement about the festival and the upcoming show. “It is a message to the world… that our country, [despite] being so small, it never stops us of dreaming big. And the show with the water tank is going to be a bold statement.” ‘Bold’, it certainly was. As Leona Lewis, Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja and Eurovision favourite Destiny entertained the VIP guests, winners included John Cleese, who was presented with the Icon award, and Andy Harries, producer of “The Crown,” who received a lifetime achievement award. Steven Soderbergh’s “The Christophers” won Best Feature Film and Best Screenwriting, for Ed Solomon.

“The festival [has] kept on growing,” says Grech. “We kept on investing, and it kept on growing, and it’s leading us to results.” Each year, he notes, there has been an expansion, with the festival throwing its doors ever wider. “The third year, last year, we opened it for the whole of Europe and the Mediterranean, and this year we opened it for all global nations. So America, Australia, Canada, Europe, the Mediterranean. Malta was always strategic in our history. We were always strategic. And we want this festival to be as strategic as Malta itself to get business here to participate on the global stage, to build up this brand and keep on competing.”

Certainly the inclusion of films like the Australian-made survival tale “Beast of War” in the festival line-up has given the selection a more international sheen. But the MFF has a distinct purpose beyond simply serving up great cinema for the public. “I think it’s the best marketing tool, as the Film Commission, we ever created for the film industry,” says Grech. “Not just for debate or networking… but also for potential co-production. It’s a business tool, a strategic tool to get more business to Malta, putting Malta on the global map. We are inviting producers, directors, studio executives, filmmakers, press to feel it in a tangible way, our product.”

The hugely ambitious Grech has been scheming to make Malta an attractive destination for filmmakers for the best part of a decade now. “We have been always successful in getting [filmmakers here to shoot their] stories, but the industry was seasonal. When I became commissioner, I wasn’t happy about the status quo. Are you happy with 200 people working only for a very short period of time? No. And today we have over 1800 people working in film, mostly the majority working all year round, from one production to another.”

Since the launch of a 40% cash rebate scheme in 2018, one of the most competitive in Europe, the industry has generated EUR €1.5 billion (USD $1.71 billion) in gross value added for the Maltese economy. An independent study, written by the chief officer for economics at the Central Bank of Malta, revealed that since the rebate was initiated, the tax revenues generated by film activity have far exceeded the cost of the rebates. Among other things, the study discovered that the net fiscal benefit to the Malta government amounted to EUR €94 million (USD $107.1 million) between 2018 and 2025. After the period between 2005 to 2017, it marks a four-fold increase, from around EUR €3 million (USD $3.42) to EUR $12 million (USD $1.367) annually. 

“For every one euro that we invest with, the industry generates four back,” Grech explained. “We support the financing of our country, and so we are not a burden on the taxpayer. Actually, in 2023, the film industry was one-sixth of the economic growth in Malta.” Grech pays tribute to the Maltese government, who has backed his vision. “I wouldn’t have done it without the support of government. I lobbied the government to increase rebate, the government did. And when we created this festival, I had the support of government.” 

Location, Location, :ocation
Since Grech took over, Malta has welcomed such huge Hollywood productions as “Jurassic World: Dominion” and “Jurassic World: Rebirth”, and Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” and “Gladiator II,” which returned Scott to the same locations where he shot 2000’s “Gladiator.” More recently, Jason Statham has shot the forthcoming features “Mutiny” and “Viva La Madness” on the island and is currently in Malta for his third project in swift succession, filming the meta-comedy “Jason Statham Stole My Bike.” “We are having repetition of business,” said Grech, who has been smart in cultivating relations with directors and A-listers. 

Last year, as the MFF celebrated a hundred years of filmmaking in Malta, the Golden Bee Awards honored “Gladiator” star Russell Crowe with the Icon award. The actor spoke warmly of his experiences in Malta, and it’s not hard to imagine him returning one day for another shoot. “He’s an ambassador of Malta. He’s a great ambassador and we want to work on more projects with Russell Crowe… We want to keep on strengthening our relationship with him, and with all others who want to keep on putting Malta on the map.” 

Quite how Hollywood views the MFF remains to be seen. Just as the 2025 festival unfolded, the Netflix production “Enola Holmes 3,” a Maltese-set story starring Millie Bobby Brown, was shooting there. Given “Enola Holmes 3” bowed on Netflix on 1 July, just three days after the festival closed, it was a surprise it did not play at the MFF. “They’re very specific on dates, and we were not able to shift the dates, and they were not able to shift the dates,” offered Grech, who is all too aware of the difficulties of luring major studio and streaming premieres to Malta.

While the festival has some innovations, like the Mare Nostrum strand which highlights features and documentaries that explore sustainability and the environment, the curated line-up is chiefly playing films that have already premiered elsewhere. “We are still an infant as a project and we will not compete with other festivals,” said Grech. “We created something of our own, something global that everyone can share and be part of. We are not here to compete with other festivals, but we are here to consolidate our position, Malta’s position, on the global map.”

Where it scores is its film-friendly setting. Alongside this year’s film screenings, panels, and masterclasses (including with director Renny Harlin and actress Famke Janssen), the MFF offered tours around Malta Film Studios and the island itself, allowing directors, producers, location managers and others to scout potential projects and realise what Malta has to offer. “We are giving tours, specific tours, on land and sea, to see the art and the possibilities of Malta,” said Grech. 

Among this year’s guests, British filmmaker Stephen Poliakoff – who participated in the panel “The Character Is Plot,” alongside “John Wick” creator Derek Kolstad – was using his time in Malta to location scout for his forthcoming eight-part political thriller “The Order,” an adaptation of Maltese author Peter Portelli’s novel. All set in the months leading up to the famed Great Siege of Malta in 1565, the series is being produced by Helen Flint, who has already brought the 2026 TV series “Pompei: Out of Time With Tom Hiddleston” to Malta. 

Grech also hopes that Mel Gibson, who visited Malta a couple of years back, realises his long-gestating historical epic, another Great Siege-set story. “It will be huge!” he promised of a project that has morphed from feature film to limited TV series over the years. And, understandably, he’s desperate to see more Maltese stories brought to screen, including World War II-set tales. “Malta, being a British colony, was the most bombed country globally during the Second World War,” Grech stated. “We never surrendered. It’s a huge story, too.”

The day before we met, Grech also announced a EUR €2 million (USD $2.28) fund to train and up-skill crew members, thereby putting further financing into training local crew. “I have more ideas,” he added. “Change is a process, not an ending. And we will take even bolder measures to ensure that we are consolidating and making sure that this model of creating a world class film industry is well created and well sustained.”

How does Grech see the MFF evolving? Will it always be a glitzy showcase for what Malta has to offer? Or can it become a major date in the already overcrowded festival calendar? “We want to grow further. We want to be among other festivals, globally. We want to have a legacy, not just for us, but for the next generations,” he explained. Grech’s desire to use the MFF as a flagship for all that Malta has to offer only looks like it’s going to get more fervent. “It’s never enough!” he said. “‘Enough’ is not in our dictionary.”

Part of his master plan comes with overseeing a purpose-built super-soundstage at Malta Film Studios, designed to provide film productions with both land and sea environments. “It’s going to be a first, globally,” Grech proclaimed. With the permits in place and government approvals granted, it’s another step forward in the evolution of Malta as a major destination for movie productions. “This is about building, creating a sustainable world-class film industry,” he added. “We have the vision, we have the drive, we have the commitment, and we’re going to make it happen.”

The post How the Mediterrane Film Festival in Malta Is Putting the Island on the Map for Filmmakers appeared first on Celluloid Junkie.

The news that Christopher Nolan’s upcoming epic “The Odyssey” would not hold “word of mouth” screenings for influencers was further fuel for the fire of a discussion that has raged in recent years. Is this marketing tactic – where commonly these more favourable, less critical reactions from influencers break on social media before the formal review embargo lifts – actually increasing awareness of these films, or is it devaluing the work of critics, whose more considered takes only get airtime after the breathless first wave of reactions.

The first reactions to “The Odyssey” flooded online after the global premiere took place in London on Monday, July 6. While there were some influencers and content creators in the mix – those who’d been invited to the premiere and/or seen advance screenings ahead of junket interviews – there were notably more mainstream critics and writers sharing first-look reactions, including Variety’s Jazz Tangcay, who called the film “a triumphant, spectacular epic” and the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw (“a colossal origin-myth story of postwar disillusion”). When the film hits cinemas next week, the discourse around the necessity of influencer screenings will surely continue.

It’s a subject that was a central talking point at the 2026 European Film Market (EFM, 12-18 February), which took place earlier this year. Across various panels, conversations about social media marketing were notably less about “going viral” as a goal in itself, and more about whether online attention can be translated into something the industry can bank on, such as ticket sales, streaming subscriptions and durable audience habits. Across panels that ranged from TikTok’s #FilmTok showcase to a broader marketing strategy session on attention scarcity, one tension kept resurfacing: platforms can generate extraordinary cultural heat, but the path from community to cash remains uneven, difficult to measure and – too often – oversold.

That split was clearest on 13 February, when the EFM hosted “From Community to Box Office: How Fandom on TikTok Drives Impact,” an afternoon event framed around the platform’s growing role in shaping film discovery and consumption. TikTok’s Stephen Naughton positioned the platform as an entertainment destination rather than a traditional social network — “You don’t check TikTok; you watch TikTok,” he said — arguing that this mindset matters because users arrive primed to be entertained, not merely updated. He added that the company’s research suggests three-quarters of TikTok’s audience come to the app specifically to find new entertainment, and described the platform as a “24-7 virtual stage” where studios, creators and fans can meet on equal footing.

Naughton’s pitch leaned heavily on the idea that fandom on TikTok is participatory by nature: users do not just watch trailers but remix, analyse and reframe content, helping titles travel across borders in ways that can’t be replicated through classic top-down advertising. He sought to reinforce that narrative with headline figures: in 2025, an average of 6.5 million posts per day related to film and TV appeared on the platform; and, crucially, TikTok has been working with market-research company Media Control to track correlations between virality and theatrical performance. The topline result, according to Naughton: “15 of the 20 most successful theatrical releases in 2025 across Europe were TikTok viral hits,” defined as titles generating over one million related posts.

From Content to Connection
It was a confident argument — but it also underscored the central problem with social media “impact” claims: correlation and causation are easy to blur, especially when the biggest releases are already structurally advantaged through awareness, spend and broad availability. If a title is already set up to dominate the theatrical conversation, it will almost inevitably dominate the TikTok conversation too. The more interesting question is what happens beneath the top tier: can fandom meaningfully lift mid-budget and independent films into wider visibility, and can that lift be reliably engineered rather than hoped for?

TikTok’s preferred answer is “yes — if you treat creators as partners rather than megaphones.” Naughton argued that creator-led content can achieve up to 91% more engagement than traditional advertising assets, and pointed to the company’s work with Constantin Film, where collaborations across more than 15 releases generated over one billion video views. He also highlighted TikTok Spotlight, an aggregation tool that collects official and user-generated content into a central hub, suggesting that structuring fan activity — rather than merely observing it — can help campaigns sustain momentum.

Still, even within TikTok’s own framing, the emphasis was less on replacing conventional marketing than on rethinking what marketing is: less campaign-as-broadcast, more campaign-as-community management. Search behavior became part of that story. Naughton noted that one in five users searches for content within 30 seconds of opening the app, with film-related queries growing by more than 100% year-over-year — an indicator, he suggested, that audiences increasingly treat TikTok as a discovery engine for both theatrical and streaming titles, with real implications for how release campaigns are timed and structured.

Community Spirit
The panel discussion that followed broadened the conversation beyond theatricals into streamer-first dynamics, using Prime Video’s “Maxton Hall” as a case study of a #BookTok phenomenon turned screen hit. Moderated by journalist and presenter Aylin Kazi, the panel brought together Prime Video EU Head of Social Jacky Meire, TikTok creator Melo Nsuka and actress Runa Greiner. If Naughton’s presentation was an attempt to “prove” impact with numbers, the discussion that followed focused on what impact looks like in practice: community engagement as an “extra layer” of storytelling, where fans dissect scenes, debate character arcs and generate an ongoing sense of participation.

The subtext here matters for anyone marketing both theatrical and streaming titles: viewing is no longer a closed experience. Audiences often move straight from watching to TikTok, effectively recreating a shared, communal space around content — sometimes approximating the social energy of theatrical attendance, but with platform-native behaviors, such as commenting, streaming and (doom)scrolling. The talk also returned repeatedly to the idea of creators as trust brokers: recommendations from familiar voices often carry more weight than classic advertising, while behind-the-scenes access and transparency are presented as essential tools for maintaining momentum.

Yet the Maxton Hall example also highlighted a structural asymmetry: streamer launches are already “built” for rapid online conversation, with audiences able to watch immediately once curiosity is triggered. Theatrical releases, by contrast, require friction-heavy conversion: checking listings, choosing a showtime, travelling, paying. Social media can generate intent; cinemas still require action.

That friction came roaring back into focus on 19 February, at another EFM panel titled “Marketing That Works: Turning Change Into a New Advantage,” which approached the same broad subject from a more skeptical, conversion-first angle. Moderated by AC Coppens, the session featured Marina Kosten, USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future; Adriana Trautman, marketing strategist with experience at Paramount and Prime Video; and Oliver Fegan, co-founder and CEO of usheru, a marketing technology company supporting distributors across 30 countries. Where the TikTok session argued that fandom can drive measurable impact, this panel repeatedly asked: measurable how, and at what rate?

Under the Influence
Kosten framed the current environment as a brutal attention economy — “Content is everywhere, and attention is increasingly a zero-sum game,” she said — arguing that marketers often have mere seconds to communicate not just what a film is, but where and when to see it. “If people remember the where and the when, they are much more likely to convert,” she added, stressing that basic clarity is frequently overlooked even as campaigns chase novelty.

Trautman offered a blunt corrective to influencer-era wishful thinking: “Just because you cast an influencer, it does not mean their audience will convert,” she said — and rightly so. In other words, social reach is not the same as audience action — especially when the “influencer” relationship to the title is thin, transactional or obviously paid. In a market that sometimes treats social as a magic shortcut, her point landed as a necessary deflation.

Fegan then provided the kind of statistic that complicates almost any platform-led narrative of conversion: TikTok-driven traffic, he said, converted at just 0.1% when moving from platform to ticket purchase. That figure doesn’t mean TikTok is “ineffective” — it may still be powerful at awareness, discovery and cultural signaling — but it does force a tougher reading of what social media is doing at each stage of the funnel. If the jump from scroll to sale is that small, then campaigns live or die on what happens next: retargeting, repetition, and a cross-platform system that keeps nudging the interested-but-not-yet-committed audience until the friction is overcome.

In that sense, the most actionable ideas in the “Marketing That Works” session were not about chasing virality, but about engineering follow-through. Fegan stressed retargeting as essential — those who show interest but don’t purchase must be approached multiple times, often via automated but personalized messaging. The panel also turned to first-party data, arguing that direct relationships with audiences — through tools like usheru, cinema websites, email lists and smaller communities (including Discord) — are increasingly valuable in a landscape where platform metrics can be opaque and platform algorithms can shift overnight.

The panel’s European-vs-US contrast also sharpened the conversation. In the US, mass marketing remains dominant, supported by budgets that are simply out of reach for most European distributors. Fegan noted, “In Europe, distributors might spend EUR €3,000 (USD $3,425 to market a film in France,” and argued that such constraints force European campaigns to be smarter: niche targeting, community-building and direct audience relationships rather than scale-led saturation.

There was also a recurring emphasis on habit-building. Trautman and Kosten both argued that younger audiences will still go to cinemas, but often for events that feel communal — fandom experiences that resemble concerts or social gatherings. Trautman put it plainly: “They aren’t going for cinema itself; they’re going for connection with peers and shared fandoms.” In that framing, the real competition is not other films but other forms of connection — and the strategic goal becomes making theatrical attendance feel like participation rather than consumption.

Under the Influence
So what were the key takeaways from EFM 2026 overall, on social media marketing for films? Conversations and analysis were more measured than the usual hype cycles, but some contradictions persist.

On one side, TikTok’s case is persuasive in cultural terms: it is undeniably a major arena where audiences discover, discuss and reshape film and TV narratives, and where communities can form quickly around titles, talent and moments. Naughton’s insistence that fandom is “participatory, personal and perpetual” captures something real about contemporary audience behavior, especially when conversation can outlive opening weekend.

This is a point that was emphasised by more recent FilmTok research, released in April 2026. It bears noting that the research was conducted by TikTok and Cinema United, with support from Comscore. The findings proudly claim that TikTok conversation can lead to box office staying power, beyond the opening weekend buzz. Looking at four varied (albeit high-profile) examples — “The Housemaid”, “Sinners”, “Wicked: For Good”, and “Zootopia 2” — the report studies the correlation between increased TikTok activity tied a title, and strong box office holds. Of course, correlation isn’t causation, and buzzy box office hits could be seen to be driving the conversation on social media, rather than interpreting the relationship to be working in the opposite direction, but there were also positive findings relating to increases in #FilmTok and #MovieTok posts (up 55% year on year), and TikTok surveys indicating that 47% of users polled said they’d discovered new films via the platform, and 36% said they’d purchased a ticket as a result. Is short-form social media video the new watercooler?

“This report reinforces what we know to be true: that moviegoing is a cultural experience that resonates deeply with audiences,” said Michael O’Leary, President and CEO of Cinema United. “The data shows that when films connect with communities on TikTok, people come to theatres. That is good for our members, good for Main Streets around the world, and good for the movie industry.” It’s also worth noting that — even if it can’t be said for certain that TikTok is driving users to theaters — TikTok data could be another valuable tool for exhibitors making programming decisions, by indicating which film are still dominating cultural conversations.

On the other side, the more sobering data points from the “Marketing That Works” panel underline that conversion remains the industry’s weak link — and that social media is not a substitute for fundamentals. Availability, clear messaging (“where and when”), repeat exposure, and infrastructure for retargeting and direct audience contact still do much of the heavy lifting.

That’s why some of the most interesting EFM conversations were the ones that implicitly challenged the idea of social media as a silo. Even panels not explicitly “about” social platforms — such as Europa Distribution’s session on co-operation across the film value chain — kept circling back to a marketing reality: audience work cannot be detached from production, sales, exhibition and long-term release planning. The strongest campaigns increasingly start early, build shared objectives across partners and keep communication tight — because, as Spanish distributor Eduardo Escudero put it, “In our market, we only get one shot.” In a world of compressed windows and overstretched attention, that single shot at getting audiences in seats early on in the theatrical run has to be aligned across every link in the chain.

The biggest question, then, is not whether fandom can move audiences — clearly, sometimes it can — but whether the industry is building repeatable systems around that ability. The “Minecraft initiative” type of thinking — meeting audiences inside the spaces where they already play, create and socialise — can sound visionary, and it may well work for certain IP-driven titles and youth-skewing brands. But EFM’s more grounded voices would likely insist on two tests before celebrating any such initiative: show the conversion path, and show the cost per conversion compared to alternatives. Without that, innovation risks becoming experimentation.

Finally, there is the issue of credibility. Social marketing thrives on authenticity; film marketing often defaults to polish. The gap between those two aesthetics is where a lot of campaigns fail. The EFM panels repeatedly hinted at the same underlying principle: the most effective social strategies treat audiences as collaborators rather than targets — and treat creators not as add-ons, but as culturally fluent partners who can translate a film into platform-native language. A film like “The Odyssey,” with the built in appeal of Christopher Nolan – a rare crossover filmmaker as beloved by critics and cinephiles as mainstream audiences – might be big enough to be able to skip influencer screenings. But like many Nolan success stories, it could yet prove to be an exception rather than a rule.

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That was the central argument emerging from the Cannes Docs panel “Micro Cinemas and Macro Impact: Independent Exhibition as a Social and Communal Practice,” held on 16 May at The Viewpoint, Lérins, and curated by DAE – Documentary Association of Europe. Moderated by Jeremy Chua, producer at Potocol and executive director of the Singapore International Film Festival, the session brought together Ruun Nuur, documentary programmer at the Vancouver International Film Festival and co-founder of No Evil Eye Cinema; Kira Simon-Kennedy, film producer and volunteer member of Paris’ La Clef collective; and Can Sungu, artistic director of Berlin’s SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA.

Chua opened the discussion by asking how such spaces address audiences underserved by conventional distribution, in a context where the Marché du Film itself embodies a traditional structure of buying and selling films.

For Simon-Kennedy, the answer lies in programming films that audiences are unlikely to encounter elsewhere. Speaking from the perspective of La Clef, a collective-run Paris cinema, she said the group’s work was driven by frustration with what is typically shown. “One of the guiding editorial lines, if there is one in a giant collective, is movies that aren’t shown elsewhere,” she explained. The aim was not to repeat “the same dead white guys,” but to look around the world for films that open up other histories and political memories.

Simon-Kennedy linked this directly to France’s colonial legacy and to gaps in cultural education. She cited the importance of showing films connected to independence movements, noting that works such as “The Battle of Algiers” had long histories of censorship or limited visibility in France. In that sense, programming becomes a way of “rectifying what’s not taught,” and of pushing back against what she called a “failed canon.”

Sungu argued that independent exhibition spaces can also offer distributors and producers a more meaningful route to audiences than some conventional festival strategies. While acknowledging the continued importance of premieres, he said that a small festival screening in a city may not always reach the communities a film is actually speaking to. By contrast, SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA can sometimes screen a film three or four times, bringing it into contact with communities that are ready to engage with it.

“We are putting a lot of effort into finding the right communities, to bring the right film with the communities that they are really interested in,” he said. For Sungu, the value lies not only in attendance figures, but in the “discourse space” that opens around a screening, where audiences talk, argue, reflect and even dislike a film together. “I think this belongs to the cinema and this happens also in this physical space of cinema,” he added.

Nuur described how No Evil Eye Cinema’s own model emerged almost accidentally. When the collective first toured its programme “Sequence 01: Diasporic Reckoning”, it brought a new film and filmmaker to each town. “What we didn’t know at the time is we were creating a distribution model for this programme of short films that we would take all over the place,” she recalled.

Because No Evil Eye Cinema did not initially have access to sales agents or distributors, it used the networks it did have. Nuur, whose background is in film criticism, said the organisation made a point of inviting critics, editors, writers and festival programmers to screenings so that emerging filmmakers could receive coverage and visibility. The programme mixed first-time filmmakers with more established names, and this created a responsibility to support all of them beyond the single screening event.

Futureproofing Engagement
Looking ahead, Nuur said the collective is interested in working with a streaming platform that could host grouped programmes and pay filmmakers, expanding access beyond physical venues. She also described plans for masterclasses involving contemporary film workers, from cinematographers and directors to archivists and preservationists, as a way to connect audiences more deeply with artistic practice.

Sungu also pointed to SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA’s “Cinema of Harmony” project, launched in 2022, which brings together alternative cinema practices around the world, with a focus on the Global South while also involving European partners. The initiative shares films between micro cinemas, supports subtitling and allows works to circulate across different cities and linguistic contexts. He suggested that these models may eventually create new synergies with distributors.

The conversation became more urgent when an audience member raised the lack of cinemas in low-income neighbourhoods and communities of colour, particularly in New York. Simon-Kennedy responded by connecting cultural access to wider systems of inequality. “There’s an enormous lack of access,” she underscored. “There’s an overconcentration of resources, but not just cultural – like medical, educational – in the wealthiest, whitest neighbourhoods because of racism and segregation.”

Nuur made a similar comparison, saying the lack of cinemas in Black, brown and low-income neighbourhoods resembled the existence of food deserts. “Film, art, cultural centres are a source of nourishment in a way like food is,” she said. He pointed to grassroots initiatives such as Alfreda Cinema in New York and Cinespeak in Philadelphia as examples of organisations bringing films directly to communities rather than expecting audiences to travel to institutional spaces.

For Sungu, the key was trust. He expressed scepticism about top-down outreach policies aimed at BIPOC communities, arguing that meaningful audience-building can only work through organic relationships. “I don’t believe in these kind of outreach policies that some institutions are doing,” he said. “This can only function if the organic relation is basically functioning.”

The speakers also discussed practical tools: La Clef’s printed flyers distributed in local markets, No Evil Eye Cinema’s press outreach and partnerships with institutions connected to filmmakers, and SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA’s use of Q&As, conversations and even WhatsApp groups where communities organise outside mainstream social media platforms.

Across the session, micro cinemas emerged not as marginal alternatives, but as living infrastructures: spaces where distribution, access, criticism, community and care can be rebuilt from the ground up.

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The annual report, labeled by Marché du Film executive director Guillaume Esmiol as “the bible of the Marché du Film,” was introduced in a session that featured Martin Kanzler, deputy head of department for market information at the Observatory; Nicolas Edmery and Elisa Joliveau-Breney, film analysts at the Observatory;  and Naohiro Kaji, director of the Culture and Creative Industries Division at Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. The panel discussion combined global market data, a closer look at Europe, and a special focus on Japan, this year’s country of honor.

A Global Stage
Kanzler said the 2026 edition marked a change in scope. Rather than concentrating mainly on Europe and the country of honor, the Observatory had for the first time added up its country-by-country data to provide broader global estimates by region. Film analyst Edmery clarified that “world” in this context refers to 82 markets, covering about six billion inhabitants and accounting for almost the entire global box office. The Observatory’s figures therefore remain provisional and based on differing national methodologies, but they offer one of the clearest snapshots of the theatrical sector’s direction of travel.

According to the study, 4.98 billion cinema tickets were sold worldwide in 2025, up 3% on 2024 but still roughly 28% below the 2017-2019 pre-pandemic average. Global gross box office rose by 5% to EUR 29.56 billion, remaining around 20% below pre-pandemic levels. The recovery was concentrated in a handful of large markets: the 10 biggest territories accounted for 77% of worldwide admissions and 76% of global box office.

Asia accounted for 54% of global admissions in 2025 and 38% of global box office, making it the largest region by attendance and revenue. The region’s growth was driven primarily by China and Japan, while Europe and Latin America recorded declines. China sold 1.238 billion tickets, up 23% year on year, while Japan reached 188.8 million admissions, a 31% rise on 2024 and its highest level since 2019.

By contrast, Europe fell by 5.4%, from 841 million admissions in 2024 to 795 million in 2025, while gross box office declined by 3% to EUR 6.51 billion (USD $7.59bn). North America was broadly stable in attendance terms, with the US and Canada reaching 780 million admissions, up 2%, though box office dipped slightly to EUR €7.85 billion (USD $9.15bn).

Hollywood’s Waning Influence
Edmery noted that the weakness of US films in Europe was one of the key factors behind the continent’s decline. US titles sold an estimated 48 million fewer tickets in Europe than in 2024, while European films also lost ground because of the absence of major French local hits. Admissions for national films in France dropped by 30 million, even as national films in other European markets collectively grew by around four million admissions.

Despite this, US films remained dominant in most markets. Globally, North American films accounted for an estimated 52% of admissions in 2025, down from 63% in 2019. Asian films, meanwhile, increased their share from 27% in 2019 to 36% in 2025, underlining a clear shift in the composition of global demand.

The symbolic case was China’s “Ne Zha 2”, which became the first non-US studio film to top the global chart, generating an estimated EUR €1.77 billion (USD $2.06bn) worldwide. Four Asian films ranked among the global top 20, including Japan’s “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle – Part 1”, which grossed EUR €690 million (USD $804.25m) globally.

Japan was presented as a particularly striking case. Unlike Europe, where US films still represented around 62% of admissions, Japan’s market was overwhelmingly driven by domestic titles. Japanese films captured a 76% market share, while US films accounted for just 20%, well below their pre-pandemic average of 39%.

Asked why Japan had managed to exceed its pre-pandemic audience level, Kaji, representing Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, pointed first to the competitiveness of local films. “The answer is simply attractive films,” he said, citing “Demon Slayer” and “Kokuho” as examples. He stressed that Japan had achieved this without quotas or major regulatory intervention. “It is a free market,” he said. “People can select over-the-top, Netflix or something like that, but they can also select the movie.”

The three biggest films in Japan in 2025 were all local: “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle”with 27 million admissions, “Kokuho”with 13 million, and “Detective Conan: One-Eyed Flashback” with 10 million. While animation remained the most powerful driver of admissions, Edmery emphasized that live-action Japanese films also performed strongly, with titles such as the aforementioned“Kokuho”plus “Exit 8” showing the breadth of the local market.

Japanese Film Goes Global
The international growth of Japanese titles was another major theme. Kaji argued that around 2020 marked a turning point for the Japanese content industry, as overseas revenues began to outweigh domestic ones in certain segments. “Beforehand, overseas sales were some kind of pocket money, a bonus,” he said. “After 2020, the Japanese film industry started to think this is usual business.”

That change, he suggested, altered investment behavior. If international revenue is no longer seen as a bonus but as a normal part of the business model, larger production budgets become easier to justify. “That is why the quality is rising, and global people find Japanese film,” he said.

The production data also underlined Japan’s scale. The country produced 694 national feature films in 2025, the highest number on record and the second-largest production volume worldwide after India, which released 768 films. By comparison, Europe produced an estimated 2,522 films across all markets, while global theatrical feature production stood at approximately 7,707 films.

Elisa Joliveau-Breney, film analyst at the Observatory, contrasted Japan’s production ecosystem with Europe’s. Europe accounted for 35% of global production volume but only around 10% of global admissions. Asia accounted for 40% of global production and 36% of admissions.

The structural differences are significant. Animation represented only 3% of European production on average, compared with 13% in Japan. Co-productions accounted for 23% of European films, but only around 3% of Japanese releases. Adaptation also plays a much larger role in Japan: according to Joliveau-Breney, nearly all of the Japanese films in the country’s 2025 top 20 were adapted from existing intellectual property, with “First Kiss” being the only exception.

Kaji said adaptation sits at the center of Japan’s content strategy, which is increasingly organized around what the government calls “IP360.” The idea is to develop intellectual property across film, manga, anime, games and music rather than treating cinema as an isolated sector. “Japanese manga, anime and games are very, very charming,” he said. “The film industry can also use these advantages.”

How Financing Options Vary By Country
Financing models offered perhaps the sharpest contrast between Europe and Japan. Joliveau-Breney noted that European films remain highly dependent on public support. Most European films have budgets below EUR €10 million (USD $11.66m), with the average budget standing at about EUR €2.2 million (USD $2.56m). The main financing sources are direct public funding, production incentives, broadcaster investment, producer investment and pre-sales. When direct public backing and incentives are combined, public support covers almost half of the average European film budget; when public broadcasters are included, the public share rises further.

Kaji said this was “very surprising” from a Japanese perspective. “The norm in Japan is private investment,” he said. The Japanese production committee system, he explained, is a private risk-sharing structure in which multiple operating companies invest and take on specific roles. “The production committee is a risk-sharing system,” he said, adding that it works well for medium-sized investment but becomes more complex for large-scale films and international operations.

That system, however, is also evolving. Kaji said blockbuster projects increasingly involve fewer committee members, allowing a smaller number of companies to take larger risks. Whereas committees might once have involved ten or more companies, some now involve only three, while the anime studio MAPPA took on “Chainsaw Man” with a much more concentrated investment structure.

Government policy is also changing. Japan has traditionally favored low levels of regulation and limited direct intervention, in contrast with Europe’s dense system of funds, incentives, quotas, investment obligations and public broadcasters. Kaji said this reflects a long-standing belief that cultural diversity in Japan can be achieved through private-sector activity rather than state intervention.

But export is now giving the government a clearer rationale for action. “For the goal abroad, because of maybe the island country and the barrier of the language, it is difficult for Japanese people to go overseas and reach the global market,” Kaji said. He added that there is growing public and political support for helping Japanese manga, anime, film and games reach international audiences.

Japan’s content-industry support has therefore expanded. Kaji said government support for the content sector had doubled compared with the previous year, while the budget within his ministry had tripled. He linked this to the policy direction of Prime Minister Takaichi’s cabinet, which has identified the content industry as one of Japan’s growth sectors and a means of earning foreign currency.

Cultural Objectives, Global Ambitions
Next, Kanzler placed Japan’s approach in a broader policy context, first outlining the traditional logic behind European film policy. “Most European film policies are traditionally primarily driven by cultural objectives,” he said. “So producing films in national languages, telling local stories, connecting with local audiences. And at the same time, and of course this is closely linked, safeguarding the national film industries, which often are very small national markets.”

He then described three broad European models. “One type puts the producer and the industry at the center, and pursues both, on the one hand, cultural diversity goals and, on the other hand, an emphasis on the strength and the competitiveness of the local production industry,” he said. “That model, in different variations, is the most prominent one across continental Europe.” By contrast, “the UK pursues a very different approach,” with “a clear economic focus” on “GDP growth, job employment and industrial competitiveness as a whole.” At the other end of the spectrum, he added, the Nordic countries often follow what they call a “citizen focus,” where funding cares about “cultural identity and the role of film” and also contributes to “social inclusion and social cohesion.”

These rationales are matched by three main tools: investment obligations requiring broadcasters and streamers to invest in local audiovisual production; production incentives such as cash rebates and tax shelters; and direct public funding, both selective and automatic. “Direct public funding generally is seen as the tool of choice to support cultural diversity and artistic quality,” Kanzler said.

Yet European policy is also moving. Kanzler pointed to the growth of automatic funding and production incentives, suggesting a gradual shift from purely cultural rationales toward more economic goals. Investment obligations are also starting to have measurable effects. French CNC data, he noted, show streamer investment in French film production rising from virtually nothing before the pandemic to a meaningful share of financing in recent years.

What This Means For Exhibitors
For exhibitors, the implications of the FOCUS data are clear but not simple. The global screen base remains resilient, with more than 220,000 theatrical screens operating worldwide in 2025, compared with around 200,000 before the pandemic. The number of screens grew in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, remained stable in Europe and Latin America, and declined by 14% in North America.

But admissions have not recovered at the same pace. The market is more concentrated, more dependent on local breakouts in several key territories, and less automatically driven by US studio product than before the pandemic. Asia’s growth, Japan’s domestic strength and the rise of IP-led export strategies all point to a theatrical market whose center of gravity is becoming more plural.

As Kaji put it, Japan’s policy shift is no longer about supporting culture alone, but about treating content as “an industry of future national growth”. For the global cinema business, that may be the larger lesson of the latest FOCUS research: recovery is happening, but it is being led by markets and models that do not necessarily look like the old Hollywood-centered order.

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Titled “Retention, Reach, Revenue: Growing Cinema Audiences,” the conference’s primary focus was on how to further strengthen the post-COVID recovery of the UK theatrical sector, and while neither the speakers nor the attendees were naive to the ongoing challenges, there was pragmatic optimism in a look ahead that embraced new technology while also going back to basics on the value – in every sense of the word – of the cinematic experience.

The Numbers Game
The conference began with some reasons to be cheerful, with an opening panel from Lucy Jones of Rentrak (formerly Comscore Movies). Statistically speaking, 2025 recorded a 1% increase in annual box office revenue after a plateau the previous two years. This was helped by an increase in saturation releases, which rose to a record 224 last year. That volume presents its own challenges, particularly for exhibitors and programmers, but as Jones put it, “It’s a nice challenge to have, but if you are running a cinema, particularly with fewer screens, it is a real challenge to keep those films on screen to really fulfil their potential.”

Even though numbers haven’t returned to 2019 levels, three consecutive years with UK box office takings in excess of GBP £1 billion (USD $1.34 billion) is extremely reassuring. “We’re back in the billion club that we used to see before the pandemic,” said Jones. 

More reassuring still, takings for 2026 are following a similar pattern to 2025 when tracked weekly, albeit with a slight increase in almost all weeks. But the headline news was that this year is on course to deliver GBP £1.19 billion (USD $1.6 billion) at the UK box office, which would be a leap of 10% year on year, and only 14% shy of the 2019 yardstick.

Another takeaway was the correlation charted between a film’s gross and audiences’ ‘excellent’ approval rating according to Postrak data. There’s a general trend that the films that are most highly rated go on to have the biggest takings, and in 2025 those titles included “A Minecraft Movie,” “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy,” “Wicked: For Good” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” There were outliers that potentially left money on the table (including “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another”), and the chart showing children’s approval ratings versus box office gave the dispiriting indication that there’s no correlation between a film’s quality and its performance (which may feel all too familiar for parents of young children).

In Jones’ closing remarks she suggested wringing every last drop from those crowdpleasing quality releases, and also finding ways to innovate with more tailored, targeted marketing to “connect the right film with the right person at the right time.” If this panel started the conference on an optimistic note, it also signalled some back to basics truths about cinemagoing that bear repeating. Of course, the films need to be good, but it goes beyond that.

Community Centered
Even good movies will only carry a cinema so far, according to multiple panels at the conference that stressed cinema’s value as community hub. This was a key theme in the “Audience Development – Lessons from the Coalface” panel, which was moderated by Clapp and featured UK operators working outside the multiplex model.

Sarah Hulls from the Magic Lantern Cinema in Tywyn, Wales – a one-screen venue that recently celebrated its 125th year of showing films – spoke about the need to adapt their offering, not least because the town has a small and predominantly elderly population. “We’ve become a cultural hub rather than just a cinema,” Hulls said of the expanded offering. Among the community work Hulls described were dementia-friendly screenings and a Welsh-language season, as well as hosting the Spotlight Awards for local businesses and a high-school prom. They even open on Christmas Day to provide food and company for those who are seeking it.

Ben Hammond, of the Ashford Cinema in Kent, described a similar set-up. “That’s the kind of ethos we’re trying to build… We want to be a community and a place where the community can come and relax and hang out, regardless of what they’re here to do. They can talk, they can socialize, they can interact,” he explained. “We’ve got lots of access groups that come and just play board games because we’ve got the space to do it.” While some of the “eventizing” that Hammond spoke of was cinema-themed – including retro screenings featuring live talent Q&As – others were unrelated, such as an international magic convention. “The cinema still ran five screens from morning to night [alongside the convention],” said Hammond. “The cinema operations didn’t change, but we ran a day and a half’s worth of international magic with magicians coming from all over the world. It was completely sold out and a real premium event.”

Even more remote is Mareel, a venue on the Scottish archipelago Shetland, which is 110 miles from mainland Scotland. “Mareel itself is built as an arts center,” said Graeme Howell. “So we’ve got a 340 capacity performance space, education facilities, recording studios, cafes, retail space, cinema screens, and we tick away trying to deliver as much as we can for everyone in Shetland.” Mareel also serves a civic role, acting as a banking hub and a place where residents can top up their electricity meters. “It’s a really diverse mix of the community that makes use of the facilities.”

A separate panel highlighting one cinema in particular – The Station Cinema in Richmond, North Yorkshire – offered a case study in growing audiences by engaging communities not as an afterthought, but as a core strategy. The Station Cinema’s General Manager, Dan Westgarth explained that previous attempts to offer neurodiverse screenings in a quiet schedule gap fell flat. But after speaking to advocacy groups directly, they were able to discover what an appropriate screening actually looks like for their neurodiverse patrons. A similar approach was taken with school groups, the local Ukrainian population, and other underserved groups. Though Westgarth is keen to stress that such a community building is a “long-term relationship, not a one-off transaction,” plugging away with consistency has its rewards. Over the long term, it has built an engaged customer base that now expects and anticipates eventized screenings. And in the shorter term, that commitment to customers can go viral, as The Station Cinema experienced with their dog-friendly screenings, which gained a huge amount of attention on social media and made the national news. Taking an audience first approach and harnessing the power of social media were themes that were reiterated across the conference.

Accessibility All Areas
One of the most illuminating talks of the UKCA 2026 line-up was the panel discussion “Welcoming Deaf Audiences,” led by Paramount Pictures Paul Lofting. Taking part were deaf advocate Tianah Hodding and representatives from Vue, Odeon and Movie House Cinemas. Lofting highlighted the work Paramount has done over the past few years, since they “started to have a look at whether we could knock down some of those barriers and see what we could move or change. And we focused on three areas. They were training, the quality of captioning, and actual programming of captioned shows.” Lofting said that since October 2024, “most Paramount movies have previews one or two days ahead of their Friday opening exclusively in caption format, so we could give deaf cinema-goers the opportunity to be among the first people to experience new releases.”

Lofting presented a pre-emptive riposte to the claim that too many captioned screenings would be off-putting to those patrons who don’t have accessibility needs. For the release of “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” in May 2025, Paramount worked with Cineworld, Vue and Showcase in the UK on a rollout that gave particular attention to captioned screenings. “We agreed with them to play a minimum daily captioned show of the movie over the first nine days of the film’s release in every single cinema that they operate – whether that was twenty screens, ten screens, four screens.” The approach also included ensuring that there were captioned shows during evenings and weekends, which led to “just under 2,000” captioned screenings of that film in its first nine days of release, Lofting said. From all of those screenings, the chains received zero complaints. “We’ve proven it, so now let’s move on,” said Lofting.

Communications consultant and actor Hodding, who is deaf, brought her own first-hand experience to the panel. “I’m very obsessed with film and filmmaking, and I go to the cinema whenever I get the chance,” she said. “I’m currently campaigning to get more friendly access for [Deaf audiences], there’s eighteen million Deaf people in the UK, and we’re constantly growing. And there’s a lot of us who need to be able to go to the cinema whenever we want on our terms, not yours. On a Tuesday at 9am doesn’t work for Deaf people who work 9-5. It’s also quite important to normalize access from the get-go.”

Hodding also explained how restricted access to captioned performances also could impact friends, family and particularly children of Deaf people who would be looking to attend the cinema with the hearing impaired family member. “Imagine you’re looking at a schedule or a program and it says, ‘Oh, you can watch a movie at 10am with sound.’ Anyone imagine that? So not only do we lose out, but also our friends and family lose out as well, just to give you a bit of an understanding.”

Also being showcased at the conference were tech solutions for accessibility from Auracast and WatchWord. Auracast is an assistive listening device that can receive real-time hearing assistance via Bluetooth, and WatchWord supplies smart glasses that can display closed captions (provided by the Digital Cinema Package (DCP)) to the wearer. WatchWord comes with a control that can personalise the placement of the text, as well as colour and size making them a flexible solution (audience members requiring captions can attend any screening and access captions from the DCP, rather than having to wait for a dedicated screening).

The overall takeaway from the session was that accessibility should be a forethought rather than an afterthought, and a lack of preparedness can impact more than just those with accessibility needs, as it can ripple out to affect their families and friends, making cinema a less enticing prospect for a much wider group than might initially be counted.

Know Your Enemy
Another theme to emerge time and again at this year’s conference was using digital tools – such as social media and AI – to enhance your reach and increase your potential footfall, rather than just treating it as the enemy, a competitor to the cinema experience.

In the “From Scroll to Screen: Winning the Fight for Attention” panel, David Cameron, the head of marketing for Vue UK and Ireland, discussed what it meant now that Gen Z audiences were typically spending up to five hours per day on social media. “It’s so important we are engaging and connecting with those audiences, and creating great value because they are spending so much time there,” he said of the chain’s social media strategy. But he also spoke of the value of the comments sections of their social media channels for providing genuine customer feedback.

Carla Boyd, director of digital marketing, international at Cineworld, said that the company sees that online space as “almost like our digital foyer… It’s where the decisions get made on: ‘What films do we want to watch? What merch do we want to buy?’” Boyd also spoke about the digital word of mouth that films such as “The Sheep Detectives” and “Project Hail Mary” have benefitted from. 

On the same panel, the British Film Institute’s (BFI) research manager Paul McEvoy highlighted some illuminating findings from the organization’s Audience Screen Engagement Tracker. “We found in the research that these habituated social media users are not abandoning other content,” McEvoy explained, addressing the perception that so-called ‘doomscrollers’ are never putting their phones down. “They’re actually heavier users of other content. Daily users of short-form [online video] are thirty percent more likely to go to the cinema. They’re nearly forty percent more likely to stream.” Perhaps the most surprising statistic to emerge from the BFI’s research is that only 14% of Gen Z participants said they wanted phone use to be allowed in cinemas. “They really see the value in cinema being a digital oasis [free from phones],” he added. “We also saw that the main reason they go to the cinema is as a social outing.”

A panel on AI (“Reaching Cinema Audiences Across AI Search and Discovery Tools”) suggested how businesses could leverage audiences’ increasing reliance on AI in much the same way search engine optimization looks for gains via browser discovery. A case study on The Living Room Cinema in Chipping Norton explained how marketing company Mojo Works researched the ideal customer profile, planned against real world scenarios and queries (such as “family activities in the Cotswolds this weekend”), and getting the cinema’s website more digestible for the AI tools that are going to be ‘reading’ it. 

“How do we make sure that information is machine readable?” asked Oskars Killo, founding partner of Mojo Works. “That’s a very important thing to take away. There will be different structures and tech related items that need to happen for that.” Among the quick wins are “working with the POS provider and the website team to to set up the backend elements like schemas and JSON [JavaScript Object Notation].” Having a detailed, well-structured FAQ section is also seen as a big help.

Claire Beswick, founder and CEO of The Living Room Cinema stressed the importance of the information being aligned with customers’ day-to-day experience of the brand. “You can’t be just spending all of your time putting together information for the machines to read which actually then gives you an answer which is not consistent with your brand,” she said. Ensuring that your business details are consistent across third-party platforms like search engines and maps was also described as crucial. Valentin Degen, CEO and co-founder of International Showtimes, explained the importance of “surfacing more rich data to the AI so that the user can make more informed decisions.”

If there was the whiff of a sales pitch about the presentation, a compelling case was made for businesses to shore up against these upheavals in consumer behaviour, and provided a less doomy narrative than is often spun about how AI will impact the cinema industry.

State of Play
Perhaps the most illuminating and lively discussion of the conference was the annual Executive Roundtable, featuring key voices from distribution and exhibition. Due to the free-flowing nature of the conversation, attendees were requested to report the headlines without specific attribution, but across the board there was plenty to be positive about. With a group assembled from distributors and exhibitors of various sizes, the panel consistently said they were “optimistic” about the current health of the sector.

The mood was buoyed by the current relative overperformance of films that didn’t fall into the conventional blockbuster template. “It’s not being driven by one particular film,” said one studio representative. “I think we’re actually seeing a genuine shift in audience behavior.” There was a caution expressed about a lack of “spikes” with truly overperforming blockbusters of the pre-pandemic likes of Star Wars and Marvel pictures, but the overall consensus was that the industry was in a stronger place for not placing all hopes on a very select group of bankable tentpole releases, and instead having a more varied slate that was attracting more diverse crowds.

Rebuilding cinema as a habitual experience was also a key theme of the discussion. In part that’s down to the aforementioned varied slate, and the increasing emphasis that exhibitors are putting on premium experiences, from screens and projection to seating and beyond. But alongside this, more than one participant made the point of cinemas needing to reclaim the narrative that it is an expensive pastime. “What else can you go and do for a couple of hours that’s gonna cost around GBP £10?” asked one exhibition representative, while another studio exec pointed out that the price of a beer and cinema ticket have never been closer. Although discussion did turn to the fact that cinema is perceived as expensive, even if the evidence suggests that’s not the case relative to other options for a night out. “I think we have to do a little more work on positioning that in the right [way],” said one participant. “And it doesn’t mean about cheapening [ticket prices]. It’s about just creating the perception of value for money and how we do that.”

If there was a point of tension in the discussion, it was around release windows, and whether it was right for streamers like Netflix to put films into cinemas for just two weeks before they were available at home. The case was made that the audience should come first, and if they really want to see a title such as “Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man” on the big screen, then cinemas need to meet that need. But there was pushback from participants who felt that a longer window was essential across the board, in order to set audience expectations. But if that was a pinch point, the overall tenor of the conversation was optimistic and upbeat.

In conjunction with some of the remaining panels that played out over the two-day session – including talks from organisations working to engage Gen Z audiences with cinema, suppliers looking at ways to improve and eventize the audience experience from the foyer to the auditorium, and even the social media strategies to build advanced buzz and sustain post-release engagement, the generally positive mood seemed to be about embracing the momentum of a recovering box office through best practices rather than an existential-crisis-induced reinvention. If the 2026 figures hold as expected, maybe the mood will be even more ebullient next year.

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