Each year hundreds of films are released, but relatively few receive awards. Arguably the most impressive award a film can garner is an Academy Award, also known as an Oscar. Bergenfield’s Adam Segal recently brought an Oscar he helped a film win at the 2024 Academy Awards over to The Jewish Link offices. Doing this finally set to rest rumors that have persisted for years as to who “the guy in the kippah is” when he is sighted at various national and international award shows.

Segal, who founded the full-service public relations agency The 2050 Group – Publicity in 2006, works in a niche industry within film marketing and promotion, specializing in awards campaigns. Over the years, his agency has represented 40 Oscar nominated films and helped six films win Oscars. His firm often represents documentaries and short films about important issues. “This year we had the great fortune of working on the film that this Oscar belongs to — the team of ‘The Last Repair Shop,’” said Segal. The documentary short is approximately 40- minutes long and is available for viewing on YouTube (tinyurl.com/68xbw2cf). It was produced by Breakwater Studios and is distributed by Searchlight Pictures, Los Angeles Times, and is available on Disney+ and Hulu.

The film is a documentary about the Los Angeles Unified School District’s musical instrument repair shop — one of the last remaining such repair shops of its type — and Segal noted that the film highlights the importance of music education in schools, particularly public schools where students often don’t get the opportunities that kids in private schools have.

“It’s one of those types of things where winning an Oscar is a great accomplishment and it’s a lot of fun to be a part of the team shaping the messaging and the marketing and communicating with Academy voters. But then there’s ‘the real prize,’ which is bringing attention to the amazing people and that program,” Segal said.

Segal explained that his agency’s awards campaign work is distinct from traditional film marketing, which is focused on bringing the public into the theater or to stream a film. “Around this kind of subset of film marketing is a fairly mystifying entertainment industry comprised of film guilds and unions.”

Segal noted that the guilds were set up about 100 years ago in the 1920s and 1930s to bring attention to the film industry as well as to the crafts, the craftspeople, the actors, the directors and the producers involved with films, and to generate excitement around their best films and the issues they raise. “Our awards marketing often focused on the directors guild, the writers guild, the producers guild, etc. Our job is essentially to help shape a marketing message around each of our clients’ films and to introduce them to the industry and to try to get them to see the film. If they respond well to a film, hopefully they will vote for it,” Segal said.

After living in Washington, D.C., teaching communications at the university level and working on a presidential campaign, a congressional campaign, and on Capitol Hill, Segal certainly sees political messaging as having a strong parallel in his work. “Instead of the stump speech for a politician, for us it’s showing the film at a film festival, or having a filmmaker talk about the film, or having special awards screenings in New York and Los Angeles. Film critics and awards prognosticators will size up the potential for a film and they may write about it, host a podcast or post on Instagram or tweet about it to help us get it in front of Academy voters.

“Marketing and awards prognosticating helps the industry whittle down the year’s films to those that are most essential for awards voters to see. Each year there are hundreds of films that are released and an Academy member only has a limited amount of time to see each of the best films.”

Segal said his team plays that role in bringing attention to films and trying to get voters to watch them, and then it’s up to the 10,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He added that the Emmys, which are given by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, have approximately 20,000 members.

While the theatrical box office is a billion dollar industry, and most of the marketing is built around that (and is an annual focus of his agency’s work), he enjoys the smaller niche his company works in during awards season, and particularly enjoys the opportunity to choose his own projects and who to work with. Because of past wins, he said The 2050 Group – Publicity is approached with many of the best films every year in select categories. “We’re very fortunate. This year we had six Oscar-nominated films and we’ve had 40 Oscar-nominated films, and over 100 Emmy nominees as a company over the last 18 years.”

Another thing that Segal gets to do is to choose projects on occasion that have Jewish content. “We get to work on films that focus on Jewish issues in the U.S., films produced in Israel and about Israel. We have the opportunity to work on important films about the Holocaust. There’s a lot of different types of storytelling that comes from Jewish filmmakers, and also non-Jewish filmmakers who choose to make films about Jewish topics. That’s another very rewarding part of what we do,” he said.

Elizabeth Kratz is associate publisher/editor of The Jewish Link.