And we’re back for the fourth time, feeling luckier than Minogue on a mad one!
As if working with London Short Film Festival 2017 – 2019 wasn’t enough, we were honoured with heading up the communications campaign for this year’s 17th edition.
LSFF, year on year, is one of our very favourite things here at Sundae; we don’t just work on it, we are massive fans of it and we well and truly live it from the very first strategy meeting until the final bit of coverage goes live… funnily enough, we hate this moment as much as we love it because it means it is a full year until we get to do it again.
Widely regarded as the UK’s premier showcase for emerging and established, homegrown and international short form, 2020 saw LSFF take over the capital at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), BFI Southbank, Science Museum and historic independents including the Dalston’s Rio Cinema.
Being LSFF communications stalwarts, we know the dance, we’ve learnt the moves and we know what will work on the d-flo’. However, the everchanging nature of this cutting edge Festival means that the beat is never the same… it keeps us on our tip-toes and this is what we love the most; it’s fresh, innovative and, most certainly, never dull.
We left our first planning meeting for the 2020 instalment all fired up, the creative flame was burning bright as the programming had just gone and done something that we didn’t think was possible; it got even better!
The names on the list blew our mere mortal minds, with folk like Baloji, Stacy Martin, Lydia Ogwang, Peter Strickland, Penelope Spheeris, Figs in Wigs, Tom Rubnitz, Kamal Aljafari, Baby Lame, Drag Syndrome, Jeffrey Hinton with Rainer Kohlberger, Wong Ping and Diana Vidrașcu in the mix we knew we were clicking our heels into yet another LSFF year that was right up our straße.
This line-up deserved huge exposure so we put together a bespoke strategy that was perfect for the content with the aim of maximising visibility and traffic across the board while ticking off some high quality media targets in the process.
National coverage ran in national newspapers The Guardian and i Newspaper, LGBTQ coverage ran in QX Magazine and QWEERIST, culture coverage ran in frieze and Dazed, music coverage ran in DJ Mag and London Jazz News and broadcast interviews ran on BBC Radio London and Worldwide FM…. there are too many others to list but it’s safe to say that the media support for this fantastic festival is growing by the year.
Then came the best bit, we got to go to the Festival! We went along to Opening Night: More Than Just a Pretty Face – Alt Drag Revolution where we saw (and may have had a wee beverage with) the wonderful Sarah, Philip and Jenna from the Festival team. Lovely people that we adore working alongside!
Across the course of the opening weekend we went to New Shorts: A Winter’s Tale of Romantic Shorts which was the simply perfect warmth tonic to a cold January evening and This is a Public Service Announcement: American Nightmare which opened up our eyes and sent us away with a Tupperware full of food for thought. Hometime came far too soon and we wish we could have seen more.
Another year, and another amazing campaign with the LSFF team… we’re off to find a Tardis to see if we can get to 2021 any quicker.
Tom x
