2016 saw Film & Campaign deepen our relationship with Moving Docs, helping the network reach over two million people all across Europe. Moving Docs is a collaboration of niche documentary festivals, event organisers, and distributors from Nordic countries (Doclounge), Greece (Cinedoc), Austria (Autlook), Spain (Docs Barcelona), Germany (Dokfest Munich, Rise and Shine), Poland (Against Gravity), and many others. The initiative is coordinated by the European Documentary Network.

Over the course of the year, in collaboration with the wider Moving Docs family, we undertook a range of activities including an outreach workshop, online training sessions, building social media presence, content marketing, three central outreach campaigns, screenings on different media platforms and a crowdfunding campaign. All of this activity put us at the forefront of exploring innovative ways to foreground the participatory nature of the Moving Docs project, and increase the impact of its documentaries.

Workshop: exploring new funding models

In April, Ben Kempas travelled to Athens to deliver a three-day workshop, a real focal point for the whole project, that brought together all Moving Docs partners in one place to consider core strategies.

Ben was joined by two other tutors: marketing consultant Brian Newman (Sub-Genre, USA) and social media expert Nikko Patrelakis (DOC TV, Greece). Brian’s work on the ecological advocacy documentary DAMNATION: THE PROBLEM WITH HYDROPOWER in the United States provided a fascinating insight into a whole new model for distribution. The film was entirely funded and distributed by outdoor clothing brand Patagonia. This provided a really provocative thought exercise on whether that kind of model could be replicated in Europe.

Online: scaling up reach

2016 was the year that Moving Docs really began to demonstrate what it was capable of online: with an average reach of 9,678 unique users per post, significantly adding to the reach of partners which averages at 2,029 per post. Over the course of the year, this served to push the total combined reach of all Moving Docs posts to over one million, in addition to the partners' own reach of more than 835,000. A particular highlight of this complementary cumulative effect was a Facebook Live Event in support of the campaign for AT HOME IN THE WORLD, about the importance of education for child refugees. The event was broadcast from Athens on 21 September and had a total reach of more than 468,000 unique users.

Online Sessions: strategies and networks

In November and December 2016, we organised two online sessions for partners and staff members connected to each organisation. The first was about Twitter strategies with Ben and the second was a session on Facebook with Ziad Ramley from Al Jazeera English.

A GOOD AMERICAN: a topical twist

Working alongside Moving Docs partner Scottish Documentary Institute, the content-driven campaign for A GOOD AMERICAN, about NSA whistleblower Bill Binney, gave us the chance to successfully engage audiences who we knew were interested in key themes of privacy and state surveillance. Central to this was an extensive series of blog posts by journalist Jen Stout, read by thousands and shared extensively on social media. In addition to exploring issues in the film in more depth, this content also linked the film with the passage through the UK parliament of an Investigatory Powers Act, also known as ‘Snoopers' Charter’, in order to mobilise interest through that key topical concern.

"When you try and find a needle in a haystack, you don't improve your chances by adding more hay." – Bill Binney

Ben also hosted a Guardian Live event at Picturehouse Central, London, which featured Bill Binney, the film’s director Friedrich Moser, and Silkie Carlo, of civil liberties campaign group, Liberty.

Ben Kempas, Silkie Carlo, Friedrich Moser, Bill Binney at Picturehouse Central, London

BECOMING ZLATAN: engaging young people

Alongside Moving Docs partners Doc/it and Cinedoc we assisted their BECOMING ZLATAN campaign, with a particular emphasis on content marketing and social media support targeting a young audience (10-26 yrs old). A series of blog posts on the Moving Docs website were written by writer and journalist Kirstin Innes, offering fresh perspectives on the game. This was taken forward alongside a novel social media competition: #ZlatanStyle was aimed at boys and girls from 6-18 in Greece and Italy, who were asked to upload videos of their best goals online. These were then judged by football experts, with the winners receiving tickets to the film. The competition landed coverage in the Greek national media.

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