Company: Cinewax

Date: January 2015 - June 2024 (9 years)

Areas of focus:

• Event production & Planning
• Sales & audience acquisition
• Event Marketing
• Sponsorship Management
• Budgeting
• Team management
• Vendors Contract, venue booking, Invoicing

Cinewax is a French non-profit organization dedicated to elevating African and diaspora storytelling through film since 2015. Its activities focus on promoting movies via screenings, festivals, and online streaming.

Challenges: The film industry is not giving opportunities to African cinema to be seen and the audience know very little about African cinema and directors. In 2015, only 1% of the films released in cinema were made or produced in Africa. However, more than 2500 films per year are produced in Africa, and even more including Afro-caribbean countries. This lack of access causes a lot of pain to the Afro-diasporic audience who cannot access films where characters look like them, or stories that they can relate you, and eventually build their identity and share their culture.

Need: Significant marketing and event efforts were required to raise awareness among audiences about these unknown yet essential works.

Solution: I developed innovative and engaging strategies to grow our audience across multiple countries for niche African films. This work involved creating original event concepts such as Clap Africa, outdoor screenings, and African Cinema Days. We also formed partnerships with distributors for film premieres, established cineclubs, and organized unique festivals to attract viewers back to theaters. My role encompassed event production from conception to execution, including managing volunteer teams and nurturing relationships with local partners across various cities.

Outcome: As of today, we have screened 300 movies to 20,000 in-person spectators and 30,000 online viewers. I've grown our social media channels to more than 50K followers in France, with additional spectators in the US, UK, Belgium, Sweden, Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Canada. This growth ensures Cinewax consistently resonates as a strong brand for African cinema and fulfills its promise to bring audiences to these films. Our latest concept, "African Cinema Days" in Paris, is fully booked at each edition, and we're now expanding this concept to other countries.

• Learned to manage multiple events simultaneously on-site and remotely, prioritizing tasks in a fast-paced and stressful environment; worked with international members and partners.
• Produced over 150 events and screenings during nine years of operation
• Generated an estimated total revenue of 300,000€ from ticket sales and event income (including sponsorships and food & beverage sales), with individual project budgets reaching up to 25,000€ per event