NP Forum Outreach Clinic

Mon 20 – Tues 21 Sept 14:00-18:00

To put a spotlight on different ways to get your film out there, we have once again invited campaign organiser Ben Kempas to the forum to share his experience.

Ben will host an outreach clinic during Monday & Tuesday’s afternoons where all forum participants are free to pop in for a talk about organising outreach campaigns, building communities and taking control of distribution.

To book a meeting with Ben, please send an email indicating the title of your project and a short logline to forum assistant Will Zawistowski and he will book you a meeting if there are still slots available.

Coming from a background in documentary cinematography and award-winning filmmaking, Ben has spent the last 10 years developing and organising campaigns around films, also recognising how documentaries can influence public opinion and trigger social change.

Clients across Europe and North America hire Ben as strategic consultant or hands-on outreach producer to identify and engage target audiences, create networks and partnerships, organise grassroots events,  produce additional content or virtual screenings, and build action-focused websites.

First as producer of marketing and distribution at the Scottish Documentary Institute (SDI) and since 2014 with his Scottish-based company Film & Campaign Ltd, Ben has worked on high-profile projects including Die Kinder der Utopie (mobilising 20,000 visitors in 170 German cinema screens on a single nationwide day of action), Free Trip to Egypt (developing the #PledgeToListen), I Am Breathing (hosting a global screening day across 50 countries), Future My Love (inventing ‘pay-it-forward’ VOD distribution), Bugs (building BUGSfeed, a story universe about edible insects), and Moving Docs, a pan-European initiative for audience development.

Throughout his work, Ben has been focusing on the best solutions for showing films online, from pushing the limits of VOD self-distribution to enabling remote participation in live events. More recently, triggered by the pandemic and commissioned by the Doc Society, he has been testing different ways of live-producing impact screenings online, with all guests joining remotely, yet preserving the feeling of a live event to the best extent possible.

Ben and his collaborators are currently developing campaigns for two Swiss productions that premiered at IDFA, Who are we? and the 2020 opening film Nothing But The Sun (Apenas el sol).

Ben specialises in adapting NationBuilder campaigning software for outreach work around films like Time Trial, Awake – the Life of Yogananda, Seven Songs for a Long Life, Bikes vs Cars, and for organisations like SDI, Auto Images, Meridian Hill Pictures, Danish Documentary, WG Film, Fathers Network Scotland, or Van Jones’s Magic Labs Media.

Ben is well-known in the documentary industry from his time as volunteer co-host of The D-Word (2001 to 2013), helping to build a worldwide online community of more than 10,000 documentary professionals.

He is a frequent consultant, speaker and tutor at film industry events across Europe.