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Facebook is hoping to reduce barriers for filmmakers from underrepresented communities, launching a new marketing initiative, “Seen,” that aims to bring more attention to films by minority filmmakers. 

Blackhouse Foundation, a group that hopes to bring more diversity to Sundance and other film festivals, has partnered with Facebook’s Creative Shop, a team of strategists within Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram that works with small businesses to make social-media marketing campaigns, for the program. 

"It’s a much more democratized way to market movies," said Brickson Diamond, founding member and chair of the Blackhouse Foundation. The initiative, he says, "gives filmmakers more data that could prove useful in negotiations with potential distributors or sales agents that show the strength of audience demand for a particular film." 

The first film to participate is “A Boy. A Girl. A Dream,” a love story about two people who meet on Election Night, starring Omari Hardwick (“Kick-Ass” and “For Colored Girls”) as a Los Angeles club promoter and Meagan Good (“Think Like a Man” and “Brick”) as a visitor from the Midwest. The film is directed by Qasim Basir, based on a screenplay by Basir and Samantha Tanner. 

The film’s producer, Datari Turner, called the campaign “groundbreaking,” adding that it helps reduce the often-high cost of marketing a film. The week-long campaign for “A Boy. A Girl. A Dream” helped boost the number of followers on its Facebook page from 100 to more than 50,000. The ads reached nearly 17 million people and had nearly 16 million unique video views. Nearly 38,000 people shared the ad for the movie. “Facebook is a part of most people’s everyday lives,” Turner noted. 

Read more at Variety