“There Is an Audience for Every Film” (Podcast Extra)

Producer Pulkit Datta Reflects on Outreach, Partnerships, and Developing Audiences

Still from Israelism, co-produced by Pulkit Datta. Courtesy of CPH:DOX

As a supplement to the last month’s Distribution Advocates Presents podcast episode “The Truth About Distribution,” Distribution Advocates spoke with Pulkit Datta, a writer, director, and producer with fifteen years of experience working on a wide range of international fiction and documentary projects. During our discussion, which has been edited for length and clarity, Pulkit spoke about the importance of defining success, distribution strategies, and understanding the cultural zeitgeist and when to pivot. His guiding principle is that what we do with a film is as important as making the film.

Next week on Wednesday, April 17 at 2:00 p.m. PT, Distribution Advocates hosts a breakout session at IDA’s Getting Real 2024 conference on marketing innovations, to preview our new Marketing Innovations Fund. This session will be followed by a breakfast with Distribution Advocates co-founders on Thursday, April 18.

Distribution Advocates: Can you tell us a bit about your background—projects you’ve worked on and your roles in those projects?

Pulkit Datta: I did a master’s program at NYU for film studies with the intention of going into academia, but I was also very interested in filmmaking. While there, I ended up helping a classmate of mine who had an idea for a story. By the time we finished, I realized I had actually produced a documentary. At the same time, I was working part-time as an assistant to filmmaker Mira Nair. Her work is more on the fiction side, although she also has a background in documentaries. Because of these experiences, I became equally interested in fiction and documentary. 

Most of my work over the past fifteen years has been in the role of a producer. Being a producer of independent projects means you have to do everything, and because of that, I learned the entire process from creative development through production to what to do with the film when it’s done.

Distribution Advocates: What are your experiences with how traditional modes of distribution operated or currently operate? How do you see the bigger picture and alternatives to that?

Pulkit Datta: Because I came up in the independent film scene, I’ve always had to look for different options and opportunities for getting my films out to audiences. I think the industry ecosystem as a whole teaches us that we should all be on one path where everyone thinks: I made a film, it will premiere at a festival and do the festival circuit. I’ll get a sales agent and do traditional distribution windows and all that. 

And what I learned very early on—maybe it was the type of projects I was working on, or maybe I wasn’t getting access to more traditional resources—was that the system just wasn’t working for me. I felt like there were a lot of gatekeepers every step of the way. I don’t like that system of operating. If someone tells me you can’t go through this door, I will find another door to get through. I also learned that no one really knows anything for certain and there are no fixed rules. Enough people in decision-making roles say the same thing about the journey a film should take, and it somehow becomes a law that we all have to follow. When I realized I was coming up against these gatekeepers inside this system that we’ve all been taught to believe is the “law,” I wanted to find alternative ways of getting my work out there. 

One big aspect of doing that is defining for yourself what success means—both for yourself as a creator, as a producer, but also for the film specifically. The more realistic you can be with yourself and your team about what the scope of the film is and who the realistic audience will be, the better your chances are at success for that film. 

I’ve worked on films that have very different topics. Some are a hot-topic kind of film, some have taken much longer to gradually build, but I think the important thing is thinking a few steps ahead, to be aware of the current moment we are in, and ask: will this film fit into that moment or not? And if it doesn’t, that’s not a bad thing. It just means we have to find another path.

Recently, two feature documentaries that I’m a co-producer on released around the same time. Invisible is about people with a chronic illness condition called fibromyalgia. Israelism is a film from the perspective of young American Jews who are challenging the narratives of the Israeli state. Both films took around six or seven years to make, and both got ready for the world about the same time. On the Invisible team, we were aware that a film about fibromyalgia or chronic illness was not something everyone’s going to want to see. We were realistic about that. We also knew that there’s a lot of people who don’t know what fibromyalgia is, so there’s a big educational climb to teaching people what it is and then getting them to care about it. 

From the very beginning, we were intentional about building a community as we went. We built a brain trust of organizations and experts as partners in the fibromyalgia space. As we were shooting different stages of the film, we posted on Facebook and Instagram to generate interest within the community. We encouraged folks who were interested in the project to visit our website where we had a screening interest form that anyone could fill out and tell us where they were located and if they were interested in watching, screening or hosting the film. That gave us data about where our audience was—a heat map. That data helped us strategize how and where to reach audiences.

We were also deliberate in defining what success looks like for a film like this. The first stage of success for us was that the film was reaching the chronic illness community and making them feel seen and giving them a film that they could talk about or use as a resource. Beyond that, we wanted to reach people who are not as familiar, people who are caregivers or family members of people with such conditions. 

Our main focus has been the community-building aspect of it rather than festivals. We leveraged our partnerships with organizations in the fibromyalgia space to do screenings and events to talk about the film. Our director spoke on podcasts about chronic illness and fibromyalgia. Everything was built around this community aspect. 

When we were ready to do a wider release of film, we pitched to traditional distributors, but none of them saw the commercial appeal, so we decided to go the self-distribution route. We went down two different avenues. First, we worked with the digital aggregator Film Hub. They licensed the film to the different platforms they service, which includes Amazon and Tubi. Second, we worked with Kinema, a filmmaker-friendly platform which allows the film team or partner organizations to do virtual as well as community screenings. We leveraged both of these types of distribution to get the film out there.

Once the film was available, we did outreach to all our partners. We did press, podcasts and things like that. We tried to schedule screening events around specific moments, for example, in May which is fibromyalgia awareness month. It’s been a gradual process of getting the film out there and bringing in revenue, but we set our expectations from the beginning. We didn’t go into it expecting the moon. 

It was also about pivoting, too. For example, we had been using Instagram a lot, but last fall we realized that it wasn’t translating as much to sales. TikTok and Facebook were driving a lot more traffic to the film—it has something to do with different demographics and which platforms they are drawn towards. TikTok has a massive chronic illness community that’s very active, so we started releasing 30-second clips of the film on TikTok focused around provocative questions or themes, and people started commenting and sharing their stories. 

I know a lot of filmmakers are hesitant to put clips out, but in my experience, it’s not a bad thing to release more clips of your film. You shouldn’t be that precious about it. The clips always have the links to rent the film. Once we realized that the bigger audience was on TikTok and Facebook and were able to pivot our resources from Instagram, the sales increased. But because we’ve been so consistent with building awareness and tracking data, within a few months we’re going to break even on that film.

Distribution Advocates: Who’s doing all of this work? How did you plan for that from the beginning, even during production as you were building an audience?

Pulkit Datta: We’ve had a very small team for the whole film—primarily the director/producer and three other producers. The four of us decided that we would divide up these tasks of who was responsible for what and take ownership of it. Because we knew the rollout would be gradual, we set realistic timelines for ourselves saying one person would handle TikTok and Facebook, one would handle the Kinema platform, etc. Every two weeks we checked in with each other to update the progress we’d made. We were paid during the making of the film, but not for this process. But since we’re all shareholders in the film, once we get past the break-even point we can share in the profits. 

Distribution Advocates: And how has distribution been different for Israelism, the other film you mentioned?

Pulkit Datta: We premiered at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in February 2023 and did a few other festivals afterwards, and even won awards. With that film, we were also very clear about the audience we wanted to reach—primarily the American Jewish community, people in the pro-Palestinian space, and anyone interested in that whole topic.

Compared to Invisible, I knew that this film would get a lot more attention because it’s a much bigger, controversial topic. Obviously, we weren’t anticipating the events of October 7th and onwards, but even before that happened we knew that we wanted to do impact screenings. During the festival rollout, we started planning impact screenings and began partnering with student organizations on different campuses. As with Invisible, we built a brain trust of people both on the Israeli and the Palestinian sides who were guiding us. We had lined up a bunch of campus screenings last fall, but after the events of October 7^th, many were indefinitely postponed. 

At that moment, we paused because we didn’t fully understand what was going on, in Gaza especially, and we wanted to be sensitive to the circumstances. Also, a lot of people on our team were directly affected—they knew people both in Israel and Palestine, so we needed some time. While we were reassessing as a team, people who had watched the film kept coming back to us, asking us to do more screenings because they wanted to share the film with their family and friends as it would help them have much needed conversations. 

Essentially, our audience was telling us they wanted to watch the film now. We couldn’t tell them to wait six months while we figured out the deal and logistics of putting it on a more traditional platform as we had initially considered. We had to respond to the market, so we pivoted to virtual screenings on Kinema because at least we could control that as opposed to the physical screenings that were being postponed. On the Kinema platform, audience members can comment or chat with one another and with the film team. Viewers started inquiring about hosting physical screenings, so then that aspect started coming back quickly. And now the campus screenings are back, too. 

Kinema continues to be a great platform for us because, obviously, we can’t be everywhere physically. Kinema has a VOD rental feature, so we made it available to rent online as well to people around the world. All of this goes against the traditional wisdom of the distribution world that emphasizes saving the online rental window until the very end of a film’s distribution. We’ve learned through this process that those windows don’t really matter if the audience is ready. We’re doing festivals, community impact screenings, virtual screenings and online rentals all at the same time, and getting audiences for each avenue.

Kinema may not be a platform that immediately comes to mind for ordinary viewers, as compared to Netflix or Amazon, but that’s ok. If you Google the film, the Kinema link pops up. It’s also on our website and our social media. And this is where marketing comes in—as long as your film is available somewhere, the distribution challenge is telling your audience where to go to watch it. Filmmakers who say they want their film to be on Netflix because that means people will see it aren’t necessarily being honest with themselves. Netflix has thousands of films and many of them get buried because they don’t promote everything. 

Distribution Advocates: How have you structured your marketing campaign and outreach?

Pulkit Datta: It varies project to project. With Israelism, most of our press has been non-film press. I think we’ve gotten maybe one film review. The rest of the press—and there’s been a lot—is more about the topic and circumstances. It was triggered partially when a couple of big campuses canceled the screening. For example, when Hunter College in New York canceled our screening, The New York Times wrote about it and interviewed our directors. In Canada another screening got canceled and CBC covered it. So a lot of our press has actually been coming out of the moment and what’s happening around the topic, and our marketing is evolving as we go. 

One big part of the Israelism marketing campaign is a short video series that we started on social media called “My Israelism Story” where people from the American Jewish community tell their personal experiences of what it’s like to be American and Jewish. Those stories are being widely shared and, consequently, increasing awareness about the film.

I’ve realized with a lot of different projects that you have to be flexible with your strategies because the world is constantly changing. You have to be thinking of new possibilities of what to do in the moment. It’s good to have a plan, but if that plan is not going as you thought it would, then it’s important to pivot. There are many different ways to get to the success that you have defined for yourself.

Distribution Advocates: How do you plan for resources to have that adaptability?

Pulkit Datta: Every project I’ve produced has had a different setup and structure. Israelism is produced through a nonprofit production company, so a lot of people working on it are being compensated through the nonprofit which can also take in donations. It depends on the project and the team members’ capacities.  Being realistic about how long individuals can remain involved with each project is important.

Distribution Advocates: Social media is a big component for the two projects you discussed. Is that something that your team can handle or do you work with consultants?

Pulkit Datta: Documentaries tend to take longer to make, so over the years we’ve relied on a mix of consultants and people in-house. During more intense periods we might bring on consultants to handle aspects of social media. But if it’s more of a slow burn, like the current stage of Invisible’s distribution, the team does social media. When we first launched Invisible, however, we hired people to help us.

Distribution Advocates: How do you budget for building an audience from the beginning? 

Pulkit Datta: When filmmakers start working on a project, so much of the focus is on shooting it and just getting it finished. I’ve learned to put the same kind of emphasis on what we are going to do with the project from the very beginning. I start budgeting for impact alongside the production budget—whether that means allocating resources for someone to build the audience or do outreach or social media, even part-time, while we’re shooting the film. I also plan to spend time and resources building a coalition of supporters and partner organizations so that they have plenty of time to plan to use their resources to support the project. 

I’m doing this now for a fiction feature I’m producing called Jersey Boy—a coming of age story about a Sikh American boy who experiences a horrible family tragedy in the aftermath of 9/11 which makes him struggle with his identity in America. Even before we shot the film, I had clear conversations with the director about what we wanted to do with this film once it’s done. Now that we’re in the edit stage, I’m already talking to different organizations to build an impact coalition. My goal is to run impact parallel to the film being finished. 

When you start thinking like that, you automatically start budgeting for all those resources. But for a lot of filmmakers, this is still an afterthought. I feel like a lot of problems can be solved if you start thinking about it from the beginning. And, your partners appreciate it when you’ve given them plenty of time to prepare. With Jersey Boy, we’ve already had calls and meetings with organizational partners. Planning ahead is much better than going to them last minute asking if they can do a screening for us in a week.

In short, I believe you have to frame it in your mind from the beginning that what we do with the film is as important as making the film. Both those tracks should run parallel from the beginning. And again, that’s something I learned by doing, through lots of trial and error on lots of different films. It’s not something anyone taught me. It’s definitely not what the mainstream system teaches us. 

Distribution Advocates: Do you find that planning for the impact campaign and partnerships from the beginning is complementary to raising funding?

Pulkit Datta: For some films, yes. I think the impact space is fairly new in the grand scheme of things. People are still trying to figure out what that means exactly and the parameters of it. But depending on a project’s topic or themes, it can help to have an impact plan as you are fundraising because funders do like to see what you’re going to do with the project. However, I’d add that it’s fine if you don’t know exactly what your plan is. It’s not like you have to have the full plan figured out before you even shoot the film—things change all the time—but it’s having some sort of vision for what you can do with it. 

The other thing I really like about the impact space in general is that it encompasses so many different things. It’s not just about community screenings or policy change goals. It also overlaps with the educational and commercial markets. Even having a film on a big distribution platform qualifies as impact if it drives people toward change or something to shift in our society. I think of impact as not just an alternative to commercial distribution, but as part of a bigger picture where everything overlaps. That’s what I meant earlier when mentioning distribution windows, that doing all these things at the same time is not a big deal anymore. You’re not hurting one thing by doing the other.

Distribution Advocates: You’ve produced several shorts and even directed a few. What are your thoughts on shorts distribution?

Pulkit Datta: We all know you don’t go into short filmmaking to make money, as much as I’d love for that to change. The traditional industry mindset is that people see shorts as a calling card for a feature. But I don’t just see them as stepping stones to features. Shorts involve a different form of storytelling and connection to an audience. And, for filmmakers, shorts can be a way of experimenting with how they tell their stories. In terms of distribution, the US doesn’t really have a major shorts distribution market, which is strange to me considering everyone watches short form content on their phones all the time. General consumers and audiences don’t seek out shorts here, but it does happen in other countries. Depending on where you are and what markets you’re trying to get to, the options may vary. 

But ultimately, the thing to keep in mind is to think of who would be interested in the film and how they would watch it. If it’s issues-based, you can partner with organizations to do screenings which might involve a small amount of revenue. A lot of organizations and nonprofits love working with shorts because it’s not a big lift for them to program a whole event around a film that’s 15-20 minutes long.

There are some platforms online that are shorts focused. The main ones people know about are very curated, like Short of the Week, Omeleto, NoBudge, etc. They’re great to try for, but not every project gets selected, so I would suggest seeking out different platforms that are topic- or genre-specific. For example, if your film is sci-fi or horror there are some dedicated platforms out there with loyal audiences who love those genres. I produced a sci-fi short film a few years ago called Doppelbanger that we submitted to Dust. They put it on their platform, and we got way more views there than we did during our entire festival circuit. 

The other thing I recommend is to explore other markets and other countries if there’s something—thematically or cast-wise—that can appeal to audiences in another country. For example, I produced a short film called Coming Out with the Help of a Time Machine, starring Karan Soni, about an Indian American man who decides to come out to his parents. There’s a sci-fi element because he has this watch where if the moment goes wrong, he resets it and starts all over again because he wants his coming out moment to be perfect. The film did really well on the festival circuit—queer festivals, lots of awards, the whole range. Through a producer contact of mine in India, I was put in touch with Jio Cinema, which is a major streaming platform. They licensed the film for South Asia and we were able to reach an audience that we weren’t expecting, all because there was a cultural connection. 

Distribution Advocates: Any parting words? 

Pulkit Datta: Treat every film as its own individual work. Don’t try to emulate another project. There is an audience for every single film. It’s all about how you get to them. I think that’s the key takeaway because the mainstream system tells us constantly that there’s no audience for the kind of content we want to make. I don’t believe in any of that. I actually believe that there is an audience for every film.

As a filmmaker, you have to be very smart and strategic about finding that audience. People want to see stuff that they’re interested in. The evidence of that is there in our online world where people have such varied interests. But it is a lot of work. I’m not denying that part of it. It is work to get it there, but I think once you have the clarity of vision of who the audience is and how to get it to them, you can figure the rest of it out.

Don’t settle for staying in a box. There’s a universe of possibilities outside of it.