Sometimes it’s traditional publicity, but sometimes it’s cocktails in blood bags that drive audiences to your film.

That was the case with Ariane Louis-Seize’s Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person at the Oct. 13 screening at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox theatre.

“We were giving out cocktails in blood bags and T-shirts and sunglasses … and there were people that were coming in to the Lightbox to see a different movie who changed their tickets because everybody started talking about the film [Humanist Vampire],” recounted Hilary Hart, co-president of the Toronto-based Game Theory Films, which is handling distribution of the film in Canada’s English market, during a panel discussion at the Playback Film Summit

The panel, titled “Finding your audience in the modern film market,” was moderated by Fae Pictures VP of Production Lindsay Goeldner, and also included Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) chief programming officer Anita Lee and levelFILM’s VP distribution Olivier Gauthier-Mercier.

Highlighting the role of exhibitors like the TIFF, Hart said that it helps that a film like Humanist Vampire “has the stamp of being at the Lightbox … they [audiences] know that it’s a certain level of quality.” But, in the case of Louis-Seize’s debut feature, it also helps that it “lends itself really well to fun marketing,” she added.

Lee said “eventizing” new indie releases and channeling the learnings from organizing TIFF’s annual festival to the Lightbox’s year-round programming “is bringing results” for them at a time when “theatrical attendance is down.” She noted that event screenings with filmmaker intros or Q&As create a festival environment for audience.

“We cannot just sit back and book these films. We really need to create a sense of event,” said Lee, noting that TIFF will work closely with distributors on developing those screenings.

A grassroots and community-focused approach, leveraging the following of social media influencers, worked for Anthony Shim’s Riceboy Sleeps. “Reaching out to the second generation kids with big followings, we invited them to watch the film with the filmmaker and go for dinner at Korean restaurants,” said Hart.

The feedback from the marketing team was that the campaign generated “genuine” testimonials from people on TikTok and that “‘you can’t pay people'” to achieve that, she noted.

The film ran in Toronto and Vancouver for over a month, which Hart said was “quite successful” for a film with an unknown cast and modest budget.

But, even with a well-known cast and crew, there still marketing challenges, as Gauthier-Mercier witnessed while overseeing the release of the Montreal-shot surrealist horror Beau is Afraid while he was with distributor Sphere Films. The film is directed by Ari Aster (Midsommar) and stars Oscar-winning actor Joaquin Phoenix.

“It’s a really good movie. But it’s very, very hard to sell,” said Gauthier-Mercier. “If people don’t like the way he [Phoenix] looks, or if they don’t like the story, or if the exhibition doesn’t like the run time, there’s a lot of things that are working against it.”

WATCH THE ENTIRE PANEL CONVERSATION: Available to Playback Film Summit virtual pass holders: log in to the agenda, or register for the event. Sessions are available to view until Dec. 30. 

Pictured (L-R): Lindsay Goeldner, Anita Lee (top); Hilary Hart, Olivier Gauthier-Mercier (bottom)