Coming Soon, an ongoing editorial feature from Playback, highlights distribution strategies for soon-to-be released Canadian films. Here, we speak to VSC’s VP distribution and marketing Kerry Kupecz about the distribution strategy for This Changes Everything.

The film: This Changes Everything is a documentary inspired by Naomi Klein’s bestselling book by the same title, which examines how various communities have been impacted by climate changes. The film looks at communities and areas from around the world, including the Alberta oil sands, Montana’s Powder River Basin, the south coast of India and Beijing. This Changes Everything had its world bow at TIFF, and was the first-place runner up for the people’s choice documentary award.

Production/distribution credits: The Canada/USA copro is directed by Avi Lewis and produced by Lewis and Anadil Hossain. The film is executive produced by Alfonso Cuarón, Danny Glover, Seth MacFarlane, Bertha Foundation, Jodie Evans, Matthew Palevsky, Lekha Singh, Alysha Sidhu and Shepard Fairey. The documentary co-executive producers include Farhad Ebrahimi, Pamela Anderson, Vivienne Westwood, Susan Rockefeller and Kent Spriggs. Prodcos attached to This Changes Everything are Louverture and Klein Lewis Productions. Video Services Corp (VSC) holds the all the Canadian rights to the doc, as well as the North American DVD/Blu Ray rights. Meanwhile Abramorama holds the U.S.theatrical rights and Film Buff is distributing the film for platforms outside theatrical and hard goods.

Theatrical: This Changes Everything opens theatrically on Oct. 9, with screenings at the TIFF Bell Lightbox theatre and a number of indie cinemas across the country, including Calgary, Hamilton, Guelph, Victoria, Montreal and Winnipeg. The doc will then open on Oct. 10 in Saskatoon and Oct. 14 in Nelson, B.C. Prior to the film’s theatrical bow, however, Lewis and Klein have done a cross-country tour of the film with special screenings in Ottawa, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. The duo will then wrap the tour with a Q & A session at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on Oct. 9 for the film’s official theatrical opening. In addition to the theatrical screenings, VSC is working closely with various activist groups to run community screenings in November. Groups the distributor and filmmakers are working with include The Council of Canadians and Greenpeace, as well as smaller local groups like Parklands in Edmonton.

Overall, the timing of the release was meant to capitalize on the timeliness of various news events linked to environmental issues, such as the Canadian federal election and the recent release of Klein’s environmental manifesto, The Leap Manifesto: A Call for a Canada Based on Caring for the Earth and One Another, said Kerry Kupecz, VP marketing and distribution at VSC.

“Because of the message of the film – using the climate change crisis to build a better world – we wanted to get it out as much as possible before a, the election and b, the [Climate Change Conference] in Paris,” Kupecz told Playback Daily.

Marketing and promotion: The distributor will do print and digital ad buys ahead of the films’ release, along with a heavy emphasis on social media promotion. The filmmakers are also working closely with various activist groups to build buzz around the film, Kupecz said.

“The This Changes Everything team has been working really heavily with community and activist partners across Canada to promote the film, not just with the screenings but coming on board to help us promote existing bookings,” Kupecz said.

Target audience: The natural target audience for This Changes Everything are those who are already engaged in environmental issues and activism, but the goal is to get the film seen by a broad and varied audience, Kupecz said, as environmental issues effect everyone. She also noted the book on which the film is based is a New York Times best seller, and Klein already has a large and established following.

Additional windows: The film will be available for download on iTunes on Nov. 3, with a DVD and Blu Ray released set for January 2016 in the U.S. and Canada.

What makes this film unique? “It’s not another climate change documentary, and the film really starts out saying that,” Kupecz said. “It’s not about polar bears on ice floes. The message of the film and the book and The Leap Manifesto is really that it’s a dire situation and we are running out of time, but that is something we can use to make everything better to build a better world. The message of using the climate change crisis to build a better world makes it a bit different from other climate change docs,” Kupecz said.

Budget/financing: Financing for the $1.5 million (U.S.) film was primarily provided by backers from the United States, along with an Ontario post-production tax credit.