The Industry Talk: Alternative distribution and exhibition, held on November 17, brought together international film specialists to discuss the urgent need to rethink documentary distribution at a time when traditional models are showing signs of exhaustion and many projects are opting for safer paths. Moderated by Rohan Berry Crickmar, the event featured Can Sungu from Sinema Transtopia, Nada Bakr from the NAAS network, and Abby Sun from Distribution Advocates and IDA, who all agreed on the importance of placing audiences back at the center of decision making. Crickmar encouraged looking beyond the usual production, festival, and television circuits to recover community-based practices capable of rebuilding the connection with viewers through spaces that do not strictly belong to the professional realm.

Within this framework, Sungu shared the experience of Sinema Transtopia, which began as a film club in Berlin’s Wedding district and gradually occupied different venues before returning to a community shaped by multiple waves of migration. Their project is based on broadening the traditional idea of the cinema hall and transforming it into a place of exchange, conversation, and solidarity, distancing itself from neoliberal notions of audience development. To achieve this, they have fostered collaboratively created programs such as Common Visions Berlin, which links screenings with social organizations in the city, and Cinema of Commoning, which connects alternative cinemas across different regions. They have also organized workshops aimed at reflecting on the political nature of film archives, understood as spaces where historically marginalized perspectives continue to reside.

Sun, meanwhile, recalled that Distribution Advocates emerged during the early months of the pandemic, at a moment when many Western circuits had not yet acknowledged the severity of distribution challenges for independent cinema. Over time, the organization created a fund to support films in their marketing efforts for in-person screenings in small theaters and community venues, with the requirement that each grantee produce a publicly available case study. Sun referenced Carlos A. Gutiérrez’s article The Crisis Isn’t Cinema, It’s the Industry to highlight the growing disconnect between filmmakers and audiences, a distance partly generated within the sector itself by prioritizing pathways that overlook local, modest, or specialized spaces in pursuit of international recognition that does not always foster direct community engagement.

Bakr contributed the perspective of NAAS, a network that brings together fourteen screening platforms and cultural projects in seven Arab countries and is defined by its ability to adapt to the needs of each member and their local contexts. The organization works to maintain the presence and visibility of alternative screens in the region and to preserve the circulation of films outside the most dominant commercial and television circuits. The discussion concluded with Crickmar’s experience from the British initiative Cine North, which brings films to communities without nearby cinemas, a model that enables more accessible pricing and creates a sustainable cycle in which lower ticket costs attract new audiences. This approach is beginning to influence film festivals, which, instead of arriving independently, are seeking collaborations with established community spaces and benefiting from the trust these venues have built with their audiences.