The Cleveland International Film Festival is kicking off a series of three community listening sessions on Tuesday night.
Festival organizers are holding the first event at ThirdSpace Action Lab. While reservations for the Tuesday event are closed, the Urban Community School hosts a session on Wednesday, followed by the Cleveland Foundation on July 23, both at 5:30 p.m. A fourth session could be scheduled for August. CIFF Executive Director Hermione Malone said they’ve had multiple feedback opportunities before, during and after the festival.
“When I asked about how the festival historically heard from people that we want to attract to come to festival who aren't already there, I was sort of met with a lot of uncertainty about how that could be done,” she said.
Malone has been at the helm for six weeks, spending her first month working alongside Marcie Goodman, who retired as director in June. Now, she’s using some of the expertise from her previous post, at the American Journalism Project, to engage potential future supporters and attendees.
“We’re trying to find out how people learn about cultural events,” she said. “We're trying to understand the genres of film that they are interested in, how they think the offerings should reflect their lived experience, their communities, their backgrounds. What their impressions may have been from past attendance at festivals.”
In 2020, the festival planned to move from its longtime home at Tower City to Playhouse Square. Attendance from 2015-19 topped 100,000 visitors each year. The move to Playhouse Square was ultimately delayed as CIFF went completely virtual in 2020-21 due to the pandemic. Since then, the festival has presented a hybrid format, with online viewing besting in-person attendance. In 2024, 35,997 people visited Playhouse Square for the festival, up 6 percent from 2023.
Malone said the numbers have been “moving upwards in the right direction, slower than I think we would like to see.”
CIFF is also seeking new ways to engage the public.
“Is there programming that we can be doing throughout the year to help keep an audience engaged and excited about the power of film and storytelling?” Malone said.
Malone used to visit the festival at Tower City before she relocated to New Orleans. This year, in anticipation of her new role, she attended her first Playhouse Square film fest. She said she observed good signage and the advantage of having everything under one roof, out of unpredictable spring weather. Anecdotally, she heard comments about parking and also “how challenging it could be to find something to do if you are in a 2-hour window between when one film ends and when another starts.”
All of that will be up for discussion at the public sessions. Registration is required and, if they fill up, Malone encourages people to take their online survey.
“The survey does create an opportunity to say if you'd like somebody at the film festival to call you back,” she said. “So, there also is a way for folks to engage in a dialogue with us.”
