Festival Stra­tegy and Sales - A talk with Martina Droandi

Martina Droandi is a sales agent for documentary films, currently based on a train between Austria and Italy.While obtaining a BA in Anthropology and Music (SOAS, UK) she began turning her interest towards visual anthropology first, and documentary after, still driven by a strong curiosity for people and their worlds. 

She was granted a scholarship for the joint-master DOCNOMADS and got her start in sales and distribution by helping friends with festival submissions, slowly turning it into a career. Eight European countries later, in 2019 she landed in Austria, where she worked at Autlook Filmsales as Sales and Acquisition Manager. Martinaloves consulting filmmakers and producers on strategies, contracts and sales matters of any kind and was recently headhunted over to brand new sales agency Open Kitchen Films. She’s an Alumni of the Atelier Ludwigsburg- Paris (2018) and Locarno Industry Academy (2021). 

Martina will give a presentation on the sales agency’s role in documentary distribution. She will touch on the main European sales agencies in documentaries; their role, how and when to approach them, i.e. at what stage of production. The presentation will also cover festival strategies, sales territories, European TV programming editors, VOD and streaming services.