NO WAY!

Film festivals are all over the lot. And there are lots of them. Miami, for example, has a bunch, including an Israel Film Festival, (which we promoted); a Brazilian Film Festival, a Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Italian Festival, Women’s Film Festival and The Miami International Film Festival with its encuentros or Latin beat. And the festival beat goes on throughout South Florida, from the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival (which we once promoted at The Cannes Film Festival, launching airplanes pulling banners saying “Visit Florida Riviera at Ft. Lauderdale Int’l Film Fest) to the Delray Beach Film Festival, which we promoted as the “Underdog” Festival next to the Great Dane event, The Palm Beach International Film Festival (PBIFF). We did such a good job promoting the puppy’s inaugural year that PBIFF retained us to do their PR in 2007.

PBIFF is a non-profit organization that has raised over $1 million for Palm Beach County schools since its inception 12 years ago. In 2007, we were given the assignment to:

     · Increase media coverage of the event, April 19-26.
     · Increase attendance at all PBIFF activities throughout Palm Beach County
     · Attract new sponsors and raise funds
     · Chase a competitor, the Delray Beach Film Festival in March, out of the way

On all counts, we were amazingly successful. We increased media coverage and attendance dramatically, attracted numerous sponsors, raised four times our fee in funds for the non profit and we provoked the Delray Festival to move its event to after our client’s event, instead of just before. Let’s begin, however, where all PR campaigns begin—with a strategy. Ours, clear and simple, was to present the 12th Annual Palm Beach International Film Festival as truly international! And therefore different! So we inaugurated a program called “The World Showcase of Films,” which in 2007 featured films from Israel and South Africa.

First, some background. In early 2007, the real estate market in South Florida had hit a stone wall. Gone were the "usual suspects” who normally supported the annual film festival and other community/cultural events in the county. But not this time. The real estate market had collapsed, dried up and come to standstill. To replace the usual sponsors, we had to look elsewhere. And fast! So one of the first things we did was go to the leading financial services companies in Palm Beach County to solicit their financial support. We approached the task of recruiting sponsors almost like casting for a film. At Merrill Lynch offices in Boca Ration, for example, we heard about Brad Goldfarb, a handsome wealth manager who looked just like the actor, Richard Gere, whom we persuaded to sponsor a kickoff party at the chic Amici restaurant in Palm Beach. We also talked Goldfarb into joining the Film Festival’s Board of Directors. Around this same time were South African hit films like Catch A Fire, a poignant reminder of the humiliations wrought by the government-sanctioned policy of racial segregation and discrimination known as a partied.

So we felt South African films could start a hot wave in Palm Beach. We looked immediately to bringing in the Stephen Spielberg of South Africa, the great South African filmmaker Anant Singh. We planned to show his Oscar-nominated films to an audience unaccustomed to such acclaimed South Africa cinema, including the first ever South African feature-length isiZulu film – Yesterday-- nominated for a 2005 Academy Award in the category of best foreign language film produced by Singh. The film, written and directed by Darrell Roodt ("Place Of Weeping", "The Stick", "Sarafina", "Cry, The Beloved Country"), took its story of an HIV-positive mother deserted by her husband to the 2004 Venice and Toronto international film festivals - and more recently to the Pune International Film Festival in India - and triumphed at each venue. "Yesterday" scooped the inaugural Human Rights Film Award at the Venice festival, and the Best Film Award at the Pune festival.

TransMedia would bring a sampling of Singh’s acclaimed films to PBIFF and Singh himself, who would be guest of honor at a series of celebrations that attracted worldwide press and an excited public to meet and greet him. But who would pay for all this? TransMedia solved the problem by contacting prospective sponsors of a “South African Day” and successfully persuaded entrepreneur Carl De Santis, founder of Rexall Sundown, to sponsor the event to the tune of $50,000 on behalf of the 60,000-plus private game reserve he owned in South Africa, Kwandwe, which we featured on the cover of the Film Festival’s Magazine and Program Guide.

TransMedia quickly developed a media campaign to promote Kwandwe’s sponsorship, which included a full day of screenings of Singh’s films, climaxed by a huge party at Mr. De Santis’ restaurant La Cigale in Delray Beach, all complimentary to those who had purchased a ticket to see any South African film. The place was packed. The media ate up the South African finger food. And both Singh and DeSantis were interviewed by countless news organizations. DeSantis was so pleased with the publicity that he donated a rare tanzanite stone from Africa to be auctioned off with proceeds going to DBIFF. It brought in many thousands of dollars for public schools. As if that wasn’t enough, TransMedia produced expressly for PBIFF an independent film of its own film entitled “ROOTS: The Hair Raising Story of a Guy Named Sy,” which it entered into the Festival competition. Although it didn’t win anything, the film narrated by Sy Sperling, former President of the Hair Club For Men (who was “also a client), drew large audiences and was well received by reviewers and public alike as we got Sy to speak at each showing.

Media campaigns always have to take into consideration the character of the place where they’re occurring. Being that Palm Beach County was home to many seniors, TransMedia talked one of long-time clients, Frownies, to become a sponsor and present an award that TransMedia created called “The Frownie” for “Best Close-up” by an actress in an independent film. Frownies Facial Pads help to eliminate what to Palm Beachers are mortal enemies--wrinkles. The winner of the Frownie at the 2007 PBIFF was actress Keri Russell, and TransMedia got stories about Frownies in health and beauty publications and in Oprah Magazine, plus tons of press about PBIFF in film and entertainment media throughout the country, making the PR campaign a smash hit.

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