Ariana Boko, CEO of IFC Films, talks about how Covid has changed the independent film business

Many distributors have expressed their commitment to theater, but few have invested their money the way IFC Films president Ariana Boko has.

The exec is helping to save a century-old movie theater (Jack Nicholson was a rookie!) in Bradley Beach, New Jersey, where Boko relocated from New York during a coronavirus pandemic.

Boko joined a group of people, including New Jersey actor Patrick Wilson, who was interested in reviving the space. A group of investors has bought the building and is raising funds for renovations, planning to reopen it as a three-screen cinema known as The Bradley.

As for her day job, Boko helped oversee the surge in purchases at Indie Distributor, which won seven titles at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and SXSW, including Tandive Newton. the country of god and comedy go around, Aubrey Plaza and Alison Brie are at the front.

Boko spoke in front of the skin. THR About the IFC Films release, release date and day and purchase of titles with AMC Networks affiliates such as Shudder, RLJE and AMC+.

Do you think the Zoom deal will stick?
We got used to the effectiveness of market meetings on Zoom, but what I really missed was in person. [element]. The same concept is watching movies at the cinema, which was also part of the skin, although without air conditioning, which is very difficult, but cannot replace a face-to-face meeting. Last year at Cannes it really went away, which reinforced the fact that I don’t just think it’s going to come back, but it’s going to come back.

Did COVID change your strategy on what you bought?

COVID has shaped our strategy in many ways. Part of that is what we bought because it worked better for the digital strategy. And part of that was also what was available on the market, and a lot of the things that were done during COVID were genre films. They are more packaged and generally not very expensive to manufacture. Our company strategy also changed during COVID, how we would buy. Now, I’m looking for strong divisions like Shudder and RLJE that allow us to use our collective buying power in the market and not act separately against each other.

How did you decide when to partner with RLJE or Shudder?
[Shudder] It has a very specific audience base. They have a very clear idea of ​​the movies they are buying that best suit their audience. In recent years we have come across this space frequently. It is now more profitable to develop our two brands to do what we do best, which is to position the film and the filmmaker from a marketing PR position in the film showcase and build awareness of the film and then partner with Shudder. In the first payment window. So when it comes to them, we create that awareness for the film. We work together on PR and marketing materials to ensure they work for both our platform and our windows.

What was it like to move the pandemic home studios more regularly on a day-to-day basis?

I read recently that (former WarnerMedia CEO) Jason Killar said they made up the day and date. They started. My friends at Magnolia and even Tom Quinn, who started at Radius, we all laugh because we have 15 years of experience filming journeys. I think it’s amazing that the industry has finally moved to where we knew it would always go. Once the exhibition wall came down a bit in terms of windows, it really opened the door for larger companies and studios to experience what we already knew. That is, you don’t lose your audience, but you use a dual stream to grow your audience, to get more for your marketing dollars. When we started the day and date 15 years ago, I remember people saying, ‘You kill movies. How can you do that? “We always took the approach that our goal was to get more people to see the film. We can’t make movies like we did 20 years ago. The audience has changed. Generations are different. Adults will now have different habits than we had at that age.

How important is theater in your business model?
This is still very vital. That’s still how we can actually get our press, our publicity, and our marketing. And you can never post that magical experience when watching a movie in a dark cinema. As soon as we distributors can guarantee the best experience for the public, they will come back. It’s still the cheapest form of entertainment. In terms of going out to nightly entertainment, it really is. I just don’t see this experience going away anytime soon.

Do you think the auteur theater market has fundamentally changed since the pandemic?

It has fundamentally changed, but I’m still not sure if it’s negative. There’s a certain aspect of the audience that we’ve really lost, probably the old art audience. But I think what we’re seeing is young audiences are more involved than they are. This is a bargain and can determine what you get and what happens in theaters. If young audiences are coming to theaters, then as distributors our job is to nurture that audience and engage with that audience. [But also] Don’t miss out on our core art cinema audience of former art curators – make sure they get the movies they’re in. But are you trying to get them back? Not so sure. The general feeling is that we have lost a certain percentage of that audience.

Cinematographers procrastinated during the pandemic and the case has since moved closer to distribution. What do you say to filmmakers who may be frustrated with the ongoing release process?

I felt for so many filmmakers who could never have the festival experience or sell their film to another company. We try to be very, very transparent with our filmmakers. I would say, you know, filmmakers try to have a really amazing support system that guides them through these processes and through transparency. But also try to understand the market and not just the first 30 days but also what the big picture is. How is the life of a movie?

Big streamers get packages in advance and leave small movies on the market. Have you noticed this trend?

We understand and we also participate. We are involved in the early stages, pre-purchase script packages. Competitively, it has become a necessity. Our film was 95% bought on the open market during the year. That’s getting harder and harder these days when you have people like Netflix or Amazon that we can’t compete with in the open market for a finished movie, but we can when we’re in the early stages. It’s easier when those conversations start earlier. Covid stopped production so the purchase was smaller and forced us to move to a place where it was needed. The market did not offer ready-made films.

In a pandemic, you get to work on reopening an old movie theater in a small town in New Jersey. How do I step?
This happened at the beginning of 2020. I have a beach house in this city and in March 2020 when everything closed I decided to move there. This is a very small town in New Jersey and I loved it. I heard that cinema, which was a hundred years ago, started out as a vaudeville theater, and Jack Nicholson was a beginner there. I heard that the Evangelical Church offered him an offer and it broke my heart because he is part of our main street and has created a culture in that area. So I called the mayor and said, “How can I help you?” And it was. I’m sick of it. [Laughs]