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Join this lab to meet international practitioners from across the film value chain, share hands-on field experiences, renew perspective and find possible solutions for adapting your activities.

This year, the Lab leaders are:

Maeve Cooke - Director Access CINEMA, Dublin, Ireland;

Ioana Dragomirescu, Coordinator, Cinemas Victoria, Timiș, Studio and Johnny, Timișoara, Romania;

Caro Raedts, Coordinator, Cinema ZED, Leuven, Belgium;

The lab is a great opportunity to share approaches and find practical solutions to some of the big questions facing the film sector. A variety of topics will be discussed, among which:

• Brand Identity: who you are as a cinema—your unique voice, values, and visual identity.
• Define your content: Beyond the screenings, determine your cinema’s special offerings and experiences.
• Promotion & Marketing: Leverage social and digital tools to engage and grow your audience.
• Partnerships & Collaborations: Build strategic alliances to expand your reach and impact.
• Weaving connections, shaping identity—NETWORK with purpose: Cinemas as hubs for citizenship and democracy

Topics will include leveraging AI and data tools to analyze audience preferences and personalize marketing, B2B collaboration, focusing on aligning goals with distributors and exhibitors to expand reach and create shared opportunities. Niche and event programming as well as inclusion and sustainability to reflect cultural diversity and attract socially conscious audiences will also be tackled. Audience engagement will be weighed upon local initiatives with global impact, with highlight on community connections and enhancing your cinema’s uniqueness through events and partnerships.

Themed sessions and practical workshops will give participants the space to share a problem, pitch innovative ideas and/or identify potential innovative programming and communication strategies.

Bring your ideas and issues to the Lab, step back from the day to day and spend time with practitioners from a diverse range of national contexts to reflect on your practice, exchange expertise and find practical solutions.

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IMPORTANT

This lab is open to all European exhibitors, members of Europa Cinemas network or not. The number of participants is limited to 35 people. Applications will be considered in the order they are received. However, priority will be given to exhibitors who never attended a Europa Cinemas Lab before and to exhibitors from Central and Eastern Europe and Balkan countries.

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APPLICATION

Please fill in the online application form.

Please apply before 28th January 2026.

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MOBILE APP 

Our Europa Cinemas App gives you access to the Sofia Lab programme, the participants’ presentation and additional information on each speaker of each session.

You can download the Europa Cinemas App via the following links:

Apple: http://apple.co/3i9rgxZ

Android: https://urls.fr/YcEmTZ

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PRACTICAL INFORMATION

1. TRAVEL: all travel costs to and from Sofia are at your charge. When booking, please try to arrive before 2.30 pm on Wednesday 18th of March and to leave on Sunday 22nd morning. Please do not make any reservation until your participation is officially confirmed by Europa Cinemas.

2. ACCOMMODATION: you need to be there from Wednesday 18th of March and to leave on Sunday 22nd March morning (4 nights). Europa Cinemas will cover the cost of 3 nights (single room incl. breakfast) for one person per exhibition company, the fourth night being at your charge.

For your information, the single room rate will be approximately 85 euros (including breakfast and taxes). We will let you know the name of the hotel and more practical details very soon. Europa Cinemas will handle the hotel reservations and will also cover the cost of some of the meals.

3. ACCREDITATION: the Sofia International Film Festival will provide a festival accreditation (free of charge) which will give you access to all festival screenings.

4. LANGUAGE: the discussions will be held in English over the whole lab.

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For more information on the seminar, do not hesitate to contact:

Fatima DJOUMER, CEO

Tel. +49 30 61 40 22 00, e-mail: fatim@djoumer.de

Bianca POPISTAS, Project Coordinator Finland, Island, Norway, Sweden, Denmark

Tel. +33 1 42 71 12 42, e-mail: bpopistas@europa-cinemas.org

Alexandre TCHERNOOKOV, Central and Eastern Europe Coordinator

Tel. +33 (0)1 42 71 83 62, e-mail: atchernookov@europa-cinemas.org

Marija SERBAN, Research & Statistics Officer, Project Coordinator Ireland

Tel. +33 1 42 71 53 70, e-mail: mserban@europa-cinemas.org