When the global pandemic hit in 2020, the Gothenburg Film Festival was forced to close its theatres for the first time in over 40 years and let the festival go completely digital.

How do you create awareness for yet another digital event when everything else is already digital? Including attracting international attention to the festival and be ranked as one of the top ten in the world?

Instead of seeing the effects of isolation as a problem, the film festival chose to embrace them. When the festival theme “Social distances” was launched in the autumn of 2020, The Isolated Cinema was also launched. An isolated cinema at the far end of the sea in one of Sweden’s most barren, windswept and exposed places – Pater Noster. The film festival then challenged the world to apply for the only festival pass available. And the world accepted the challenge. By storm.

Through inventive and non-traditional outdoor media, we were able to create ways for festival goers to engage with the campaign on every imaginable platform.

The hero location for the campaign is an isolated lighthouse called Pater Noster on the edge of an island archipelago, which is one of the most barren and windswept locations in the North Sea outside Sweden.

Out of more than 12,000 applicants from over 65 countries, the chosen one was Lisa, a film enthusiast from Skövde who has worked hard as an emergency nurse on the front line in the fight against Covid-19 during the past year.

Anyone could follow Lisa’s experiences on the island through a video diary published daily from her arrival 30 January until Lisa’s return on 6 February.