Brooklyn Film Festival Goes Head to Head with Hollywood in New Campaign

'3,000 Miles from Hollywood', the tagline for the 2015 Brooklyn Film Festival (BFF) campaign is a staunch declaration that Brooklyn and its movie-making style are both physically and philosophically as far away from Hollywood as it gets. 

The TV, print and social media campaign, created by TBWA\Chiat\Day New York, illustrates comical situational comparisons using worn-out Hollywood clichés to prove that Brooklyn is a categorically different place. The campaign encourages people to recognize the difference between making a challenging independent picture and making just another movie. Rather than showcasing the big budget, blockbuster-style films of Hollywood, BFF is a celebration of the creativity, craft and ingenuity of independent films.

Through a series of nine animated videos, three of which will air on local TV ahead of the Festival, the distance between Hollywood and Brooklyn is made clear: In one film, we see the classic love triangle scenario as it’s played out in most Hollywood films, juxtaposed with a dramatic cheating scandal as it would only happen in Brooklyn. In another, a Hollywood cinematographer films comfortably on an expensive camera rig through a crowded movie set, while a Brooklyn cinematographer is seen filming on his smartphone while skateboarding through the neighborhood.  

“Other film festivals ultimately become 'Hollywood',” said Matt Ian, Executive Creative Director at TBWA\Chiat\Day NY. “This campaign highlights the fact that Brooklyn–its culture, its people, its art, its attitude–remains as far away from ‘Hollywood’ as you can get (without hitting ocean, of course).”

Now in its 18th year, BFF continues to support and create a platform for budding talent to showcase their interesting, independent ideas. The 2015 festival takes place May 29-June 7 at various locations in Brooklyn. With Illuminate, this year's theme, the festival privileges storytelling without boundaries and welcomes multi-layered stories: the abstract and the inspirational, the intriguing and the ironic.

“This year’s festival theme takes the BFF machine even farther from Hollywood”, says festival executive director Marco Ursino. He adds, “Illuminate is designed to showcase a new generation of filmmakers and their bright, explosive, uncontainable intelligence. TBWA’s understanding of the festival’s true essence, and their incredibly creative work, are taking BFF to an all new level.”