Beyond going viral... Filmmaking and impact

Impact filmmaking is not about counting views. It is about what a story sets in motion. Localised work can be measured because change is visible. Systemic work rarely comes with neat feedback loops. Cultural impact travels through how people think, speak and organise differently long after the film is watched. Metrics can offer partial insight but they will never capture everything.

This is an opinion piece from a filmmaker trying to find a way forward in a shifting landscape. New tools reshape editing, new platforms reshape audiences, new expectations reshape the purpose of film itself. Before calling myself an impact filmmaker, I need to better understand what ‘impact’ really means. This is not a critique of film as entertainment or art. Those forms have their own value and integrity. What follows describes a different space - filmmaking that connects people to the systems they live within and asks how stories can support real world change.

Recently, while pitching, a commissioner told me they could put my story in front of millions of eyes on Channel 4. It was offered as leverage: give us the idea, we will handle production, you hold the boom pole. But that raises two simple questions. Who do those millions belong to? And are they the audience this story really needs?

A large number means reach, but not necessarily relevance. Scale can matter. There are moments when broad exposure shifts culture. But only when the story, audience and purpose are aligned. Without that alignment, reach becomes just a sexy number rather than moving the dial.

A new era of engagement

Impact is not a fixed unit. It is a relationship between people, story and place, one that grows quietly and sometimes unpredictably. That does not mean it is unstrategic. Impact filmmaking should proceed through considered design, selecting the right audience, choosing form and format with care, and community engagement.

Several in the sector are already trying to formalise this space. ImpactWild builds structured strategies around community engagement and long term outcomes, while platforms like Ecohustler, WaterBear and Ecoflix experiment with distribution models that treat engagement as part of the impact pathway rather than an afterthought.

It helps to acknowledge that impact often fails or misfires. Stories can be misunderstood. Audiences may feel exposed or misrepresented. Communities may resent external framing. Recognising these risks, rather than ignoring them, strengthens the ethics of what we build.

A filmmaker friend once said something that stayed with me: “How many times has a book or film deeply affected you? And how many times did you write to the creator to say so?” For most of us, the answer is never. The impact still happened. It simply left no measurable trace. That gap between effect and evidence is an uncomfortable truth that much of the impact world avoids.

Why film? Why now? 

Film links evidence with emotion. It brings complex systems within reach. But before a single shot is captured, key questions matter. Why film? Why now? Who is this for? What form will hold the message? A short film may hit emotionally but risk oversimplification. A long piece may capture complexity but lose urgency. That tension cannot be resolved by format alone. It must be resolved with intention and humility.

Impact filmmaking is not public relations. It is not marketing. It is not propaganda or shallow awareness raising. If it slips into any of these, it trades purpose for visibility. True impact filmmaking seeks honest encounter, not loud broadcast.

Then there is authorship. Whose story is this? Who decides what to film? Co creation and ongoing consent matter, but they have limits. In some contexts full co ownership may not be possible or even safe for contributors. Impact filmmaking must treat these ethical tensions as part of its core design: who holds access? Who shapes the frame? Who speaks? Who listens? Power does not disappear by seeking consent, it must be consciously acknowledged and handled.

The Butterfly effect

Sectors such as development and environment often rely on measurable change: lives improved, trees planted, policy adjusted. Numbers matter because accountability matters. But numbers miss what often goes unseen: who is heard, who remains invisible, how meaning moves through communities, and how conversations shift.

There is also a danger in assuming that all impact is positive. Stories can mislead, flatten complexity, provoke backlash or reinforce harmful narratives. A serious account of impact must acknowledge this as part of the terrain.

Evidence shows that documentaries influence thinking more reliably than they influence behaviour. A Europe wide survey found that 97% of respondents said a documentary had affected them in some way, 70% said it improved their understanding of an issue, 60% said it changed how they think, but only 25% said it encouraged them to take action such as joining a campaign, and only 19% reported changing behaviour or lifestyle. This validates the value of emotional and intellectual impact, while tempering the expectation of sweeping behavioural change. The gap between what films can realistically deliver and what we hope they might deliver should guide strategy, not idealism.

Impact filmmaking is often mistaken for advocacy, a direct push for action. Sometimes that is necessary. Other times the strongest impact comes from documenting what unfolds even when it breaks our original plan. Honesty often builds trust that advocacy alone cannot. These modes are not opposites. They can complement each other when chosen consciously.

ELMINA

Elmina began as a film about plastic and artisanal fishermen and women's livelihoods. I spent days walking markets and lagoons before filming a frame. Imported plastic choking waterways. Fish populations shrinking. Supply chains intersecting daily lives. A trader describing how fish vanish and income collapses. A man playing Dame (draughts) beside piles of mangled waste drifting through his community and toward the sea.

Later I learned that Clean Ocean Ghana had been screening Elmina in classrooms, public markets, and fishing villages. A fisherman connected plastic to his livelihood for the first time. A young girl started making eco bricks. The film did not create these actions. It created space where truth met conversation. It could just as easily have been ignored or misunderstood. The possibility of misfire is always present.

MACHI

Machi was filmed with the Tharu people in western Nepal. The community decided what should be filmed. The poem that carries the film was written and spoken by Sangita Guruwa. In her voice you hear rivers changing, electrofishing rising, biodiversity thinning. You also hear hope.

This year Machi won Best Focus on Biodiversity at the World Food Forum Youth Film Festival in Rome, alongside 365 submissions from more than 60 countries. The real impact is in the ripples. When a poem opens a technical discussion. When a short film creates space for policy reflection. When a viewer feels something and asks why. Viewers recognised their own ecology more clearly because it was narrated from within the community.

Participation became the impact. A co-created reflection of ecology and culture.

LOCH, STOCK & SALMON

Loch Stock and Salmon, filmed on the west coast of Scotland, exposed the ecological costs of industrial salmon farming: antibiotics in lochs, farmed fish escaping into wild populations, divers witnessing dead seafloors. The film joined a wider campaign with Ecohustler which challenged the branding of farmed salmon as wild and sustainable. The campaign gathered more than one hundred thousand signatures, delivered a petition with a salmon dance and spread a spoof advert that reached more than a million engaged views. People wrote to say they had stopped eating salmon. Impact here was achieved through applying pressure with a mix of storytelling, journalism and activism.

Plant the seed.

Impact filmmaking should begin with care, accountability and strategic design. Treat it as a practice, not a genre. It should ask: who holds risk, who holds benefit, who shapes the narrative. What is the purpose: awareness, empathy, conversation, policy influence, behaviour, structural change, or some combination. How will follow up and care continue after filming and release?

It should accept that outcomes are often modest. Not every film starts a campaign or changes policy. Many simply shift a conversation, plant a seed of thought or create a moment of recognition. Yet that modesty is not weakness. It is realism. The small ripples matter. Language changes. Attention shifts and culture evolves. Over time films form part of a wider ecosystem of meaning. The filmmaker is not important. They are one node among many shaping conversation and possibility.

In a world obsessed with deliverables and key performance indicators, impact filmmaking argues for longevity over virality. Some viral moments matter but many vanish quickly. The works that endure are those that create room to feel, to question and to recognise ourselves differently.

Impact does not come from releasing a film into the world and hoping it finds its way. Dissemination needs strategy and imagination. It is not about flooding every channel with the same message. It is about placing the work where it can meet the most relevant and diverse audiences: classrooms where first political instincts form, policy labs where regulations take shape, local government offices where decisions about land and water are made. This list of arenas is endless but not traditionally thought of as a place to screen a film. These are the venues where stories do their real work. The right eyeballs, not all eyeballs.

When dissemination is intentional, a film can travel further and more meaningfully than any scatter gun release ever could. A school screening can shift how a community understands its river. A ten minute clip in a policy workshop can unsettle assumptions behind a regulation. A discussion in a council chamber can nudge a decision about fisheries, waste or land use. These outcomes are modest, but they accumulate. They form part of a wider ecosystem of meaning.

Impact cannot be measured in full, but it can be traced. It begins when someone feels compelled to do something. When they question a label in a supermarket. When they talk to a neighbour. When they write to a councillor or join a local meeting. When they share a film with someone who might need it. When they think differently about the place they live or the food they buy. These small acts are where impact starts. Quiet, cumulative and real.

And sometimes, when a story reaches the people who truly need it, those quiet ripples gather into something larger. You cannot chase it, but it can still happen.