PBS Film Club was created from the core PBS value: leaving viewers smarter and more empathetic in our world through films.
In a media landscape increasingly shaped by anti-intellectualism, we saw an opportunity to reposition PBS documentaries as culturally and socially relevant, and deeply engaging for a new generation of documentary film lovers. Drawing from our extensive library of documentaries, we produced 2-3 minute social-first conversations that would resonate with digitally native audiences and leave them feeling just a little bit smarter with every episode.
PBS Film Club is the first originally produced and hosted video series created entirely by the PBS social team — built from the ground up with zero budget. Just their iPhones, mics and editing software. The goal was to develop a repeatable, scalable format that could:
Drive discovery of PBS documentaries and Passport offerings
Connect films to timely cultural conversations
Deepen audience trust and brand affinity
Cultivate a loyal community around thoughtful dialogue
Rather than traditional promotion, we reimagined traditional program marketing blending nostalgic PBS vibes with hosted cultural commentary. The result: a conversational, personality-driven series that feels like a late-night chat with your smartest friend — but grounded in rigorous storytelling.
PBS Film Club wasn’t just designed to promote films. It was designed to build a movement around curiosity.
PBS Film Club began as a social vertical video experiment. Created, written, produced, filmed and edited by Lucky Nguyen and Marissa Pina, the series was created to show PBS leadership a new format for marketing PBS programming. We first created proof-of-concept episodes to demonstrate how changing the way we talk about our offerings could change the audience we brought to them.
Working remotely & bi-coastally required ingenuity. Some episodes were fully scripted, filmed, and edited independently by one host. Others required remote recording platforms to create a seamless, two-host conversational dynamic. We embraced constraints by designing different formats that were flexible, repeatable, and personality-driven while collecting results to iterate each episode.
The show blends nostalgic PBS aesthetics with contemporary video podcast energy — think film criticism meets cultural commentary. Each short, vertical episode connects a PBS documentary to a timely social issue: women’s rights, data privacy, Latino history, social media influence, scientific curiosity, or even internet cat culture. Rather than summarizing films, we expand them — positioning PBS stories within the broader zeitgeist.
One of our most powerful proof points came during the January 2025 TikTok shutdown. A traditional promotional post for “TikTok, Boom.” reached 118K people and generated 1.5K engagements. The PBS Film Club episode promoting the same film reached 960K people, generated 148K engagements, achieved a 15.4% engagement rate, and increased shares from 23 to 14,674. By anchoring the film in a timely, emotionally resonant conversation, we delivered 8x the reach and 96x the engagement.
Our objective was to build a repeatable, culturally relevant series that could drive discovery and deepen engagement with PBS documentaries. The results exceeded expectations.
In its first season alone, PBS Film Club generated:
Over 2 million impressions
Over 2 million video views
A 13.1% engagement rate — significantly above industry benchmarks
To date, the series has grown to 3.2M impressions, 2.7M views, and a 10.2% average engagement rate across Instagram and TikTok — clear evidence of sustained audience appetite for PBS-driven cultural discussion.
Beyond metrics, the qualitative impact has been equally powerful:
Audiences consistently request longer episodes and podcast formats
Producers and filmmakers now pitch themselves or their films to appear on the show
Internal stakeholders recognize Film Club as a more effective promotional vehicle than traditional campaigns
Most significantly, PBS Film Club has been invited to expand into a long-form concept for the upcoming PBS Docs YouTube channel, transforming a zero-budget social experiment into a scalable, platform-defining series.
PBS Film Club proves that smart, mission-driven storytelling can thrive in digital spaces — and that when audiences are invited into meaningful conversation, they don’t just watch. They engage.