Shame and Money, directed by Visar Morina and co-written by Doruntina Basha, had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival 2026, where it won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic.
The festival run continued in Munich, Karlovy Vary, Sarajevo and Hong Kong. The film is being released in cinemas in Kosovo, Albania, North Macedonia, Germany and Austria.
Koperativa developed the digital communication for the cinema release: strategy, channel set-up, content production, and the campaign that runs from the release announcement through the premieres and the screening period.
When the work began, the film had won awards, received international reviews, an established cast and a festival record. It did not have communication channels of its own. There was no wider audience gathered around the film and no digital platform to communicate from.
The film's public presence had to be built before a release campaign could use it. It also defined the sequence. The film had to be introduced before an audience could be invited to the cinema, and the communication had to change in character as the release date approached.
Our digital strategy was structured in four phases, each with its own objective and content plan.
Continuous content runs between the phases so that the channels remain active between events, which is where most film campaigns lose the audience they have built.
The Shame and Money social channels (Facebook and Instagram) were created from zero. The first content set established what an audience needs before it decides on a film: the poster, the premise, the director, the cast, the Sundance award, the international reviews, and material from the production.
The objective of this phase was recognition and awareness. Before the campaign asked anyone to buy a ticket, the audience had to know what kind of film this is, who made it, and how it had been received.
The editorial line is descriptive. The content presents the film, the people who made it and the reception it has had, and leaves interpretation to the audience.
For a festival film with strong critical support this is a deliberate decision. An international award and published reviews carry more weight with an audience than promotional claims, so the communication puts them in front and does not compete with them.
A second content stream was built around the cast: Astrit Kabashi, Flonja Kodheli, Kumrije Hoxha, Fiona Gllavica and Alban Ukaj. Our production team has produced interview reels with each of the main cast, portraying the characters and the work of bringing those characters to an audience.
Each interview was produced as a complete piece and as source material for shorter formats: thematic edits, single-question cuts and social-first versions.
The channels were treated as the primary platform of the campaign rather than as support for other media. Cinema advertising in the region reaches a limited audience, and a festival film competes for attention with international titles carrying far larger media budgets. Social media was where the film could build an audience of its own, at its own pace, and hold it until the release.
Three decisions shaped how the channels were run.
Owned channels first. Every piece of content was published on the film's own channels before it circulated anywhere else, so that attention generated by the festival run, the reviews and the premieres accumulated in one place the campaign controlled.
Collaborative posts rather than reposts. Key content was published as collaborative posts on Instagram, jointly with the cast, the Kosovo Cinematography Centre, the producers and the film's institutional and festival partners. A collaborative post appears on both accounts and in the feeds of both follower bases, and all engagement accumulates on a single post rather than being divided between an original and a series of reposts.
This also matched how the film is credited in public. The people and institutions behind Shame and Money are named on the posts they are part of, which is accurate and gives each of them a reason to distribute the content to their own audience.
Content produced for the platform. Video, photography and design were produced for social formats rather than adapted from festival press material, which is the most common reason film content underperforms on these channels.
See below some of the most important KPIs reflecting the film’s organic reach on social media:
The release phase moves the communication from the film to the information an audience acts on: city, cinema, date and screening times, market by market across Kosovo, Albania, North Macedonia, Germany and Austria.
The content in this phase carries both. Each announcement gives the practical detail and keeps the film present, so that scheduling information does not replace the reason to go.
To learn more about the film and release dates for the mentioned countries, visit the film’s social media channels on Facebook and Instagram
