Changemaker Series 2025

Three European experts shared their tools, methods and practical insights to rethink the relationship between films and the people who watch them.

Marju Sokman, Tallinn: “How AI is reshaping communication strategies in the film industry”

A strategy consultant working at the intersection of tech and the cultural industries, Marju Sokman opened the series with a clear observation: we are operating in a landscape where “audiences live in personalised bubbles and marketing spaces are saturated”. In this context, AI is not a cosmetic tool but a way of exposing the limits of traditional marketing.

She highlights a major shift: targeting is no longer based on demographics, but on behaviours and “mindsets”, with algorithms taking over from traditional segmentation. The communicator thus becomes an “influencer of algorithms” by providing relevant cultural signals. Marju Sokman also points to the growing weight of influencers, perceived “like friends whose tastes we know”, and to the strategic importance of review and community platforms. AI above all provides a framework: it is the context given to the tools that determines the quality of the results.

She encourages more agile content strategies, in particular the “DJ method”, which starts from one core piece of content and then adapts (or “remixes”) it for several platforms. Finally, she warns about the emergence of artificial content (fake reviews, deepfake videos) that could erode audience trust.

Sanne Juncker Pedersen, Copenhagen: “Institutional strategies for shaping audience research”

As Head of “Audience Development” at the Danish Film Institute (DFI), Sanne Juncker Pedersen offered a powerful institutional counterpoint: what if, in order to develop audiences, the industry itself first had to evolve?

She raises a fundamental question: “One could ask whether it is really the audience that should develop, or whether it is the industry or the market that should do so.” This change of perspective drives the Danish strategy, built on twenty years of systematic listening: mandatory test screenings, a database of more than 1,200 titles, monthly analyses and nationwide surveys that compensate for the lack of transparency from platforms.

With the “Closer to the Audience” programme, the DFI now integrates insights from the earliest stages, not to let audiences decide, but to inspire creative teams, reveal blind spots and challenge established ideas. A major outcome of this approach is that audiences often prove to be more daring than the industry assumes.

This dynamic encourages bolder creative choices and closer collaboration between cinemas, cultural partners and production teams, while the challenges of reaching younger audiences and diverse communities remain central.

Síle Culley, Dublin: “Beyond demographics: Designing audiences that actually exist”

A distribution consultant and specialist in audience design, Síle Culley closed the series by recalling a key principle: in a saturated market, a film cannot exist “for everyone”. Aiming for an audience that is too broad most often means reaching no one.

She highlights two recurring blind spots: the tendency to imagine a fictitious audience built from one’s inner circle rather than from real data, and the distance between creative teams and commercial stakeholders. To address this, she encourages moving beyond demographic categories, which are too general, and adopting a psychographic approach focused on audiences’ motivations, cultural habits, values and lifestyles.

In this perspective, audience design becomes a precision tool. It involves creating meaningful personas and identifying audience groups that will genuinely resonate with the film. This work needs to happen very early in development, so that artistic vision, cultural relevance and distribution strategy can be aligned from the outset.

Finally, Culley reminds us that hope is not a strategy. Considering the full life cycle of a film is essential in order to build a lasting and intentional encounter between a film and its audience.