Laemmle's 'Inside the Arthouse' Turns to AI to Find Indie Film Fans

Laemmle Theatres president Greg Laemmle and filmmaker-actor Raphael Sbarge have partnered their video podcast "Inside the Arthouse" with Chronicle, an AI-driven data company, in a bid to reach independent film audiences more effectively. IndieWire revealed the collaboration, which has already produced what the pair describe as an engagement uptick that happened "literally almost overnight."

"Inside the Arthouse" is a film interview show that hosts conversations with the filmmakers behind the smaller movies playing in Laemmle's own theaters and others like it around the country. Over two years, the podcast has grown to half a million subscribers on YouTube and over 5 million views. But Laemmle and Sbarge face the same problem as the art houses they serve: how to cut through the noise of everything else on YouTube and reach people who genuinely care about independent film — and, crucially, the older audiences who once relied on press coverage.

"The studios with their broader films can go back to their playbook, but indies can't, and we need to find some ways to inform the audience about what films are available and worth seeing," Laemmle told IndieWire. "Some things have stepped up into that void, but they're not necessarily for what was considered that traditional art house audience. That older audience that really relied on press coverage is not going on Letterboxd. Not yet. We want to try and understand, how can we reach that audience and get them excited to come back and see movies?"

The stakes are real. These are movies, Laemmle and Sbarge argue, that people need to be made aware of through wide-ranging means, and they are not the types of films that will generally end up on a streamer down the line.

Chronicle, founded by tech executive Aaron Sisto and former Fox and Bento Box executive Scott Greenberg, uses AI models to simulate audiences, analyze viewer behavior and interests, push content more effectively on social media, and tailor the resulting data so Laemmle and Sbarge can make decisions about how best to market and grow their podcast. The company was built on the premise that it doesn't matter how great a product is — a YouTube podcast or a tentpole blockbuster — if the audience never sees it. Its founders have watched Hollywood throw tens of millions of dollars at a movie's P&A budget only to watch it flop while some viewers still didn't know it existed.

The process works in stages. Chronicle first runs a general model of similar content to "Inside the Arthouse" on YouTube to identify demographic trends and consumption preferences. It then builds a specific AI model trained on the show itself to simulate audiences and understand who is watching and why. Then, rather than "buying a bunch of ads and just shotgunning it," as Greenberg explained, they micro-target clips of the show to specific users and feed recommendation engines on social media.

Laemmle and Sbarge have worked with Chronicle for two months. Rather than looking at raw views, they now analyze who spends the most time watching and where that audience comes from — leaning on Chronicle to reach those viewers more efficiently than their own ads or merchandise sales ever could.

"What has happened with Chronicle is that they have been able to, with whatever their technology is, they have been able to find the audience and then take it directly to them," Sbarge said. "That's why our watch hours are up. That's why our watch time per episode is up. That's why all the metrics of engagement have gone up, and because in this case we're not selling T-shirts or books. What we're actually trying to do is actually promote these extraordinary artists' work. There's a mission behind this."

The findings have upended assumptions. Chronicle identified a general audience of more than 111 million people who enjoy independent film that the show has not fully tapped. The audience for "Inside the Arthouse" shows a remarkably even split among age groups — not the predominantly older crowd some might expect. It leans slightly more toward women than men, sits mainly in North America with key pockets in Europe, and includes an unexpected alignment between Japanese anime followers and the show's deep-dive filmmaking craft discussions.

"There's a conventional wisdom of, if you don't have a certain amount of ad dollars, you can't buy awareness. Well, we think we can help solve that," Greenberg said. "We can reduce the barrier to entry to awareness. If you know what your audience is, you're not spraying and praying; you're more of a sniper getting in front of them. So give me my 1,000 true fans versus 100,000 meh fans. That's where you can make virality less lightning in a bottle versus inevitability."

The data is now shaping practical decisions: how long episodes should run, which guests to book, and how to tap niche audiences for anime or documentaries. It is even informing how Laemmle thinks about potential live events in his venues for the podcast, which sponsors to pursue, and how the show might one day be syndicated to cable or a specific streamer.

Laemmle is also seeing post-COVID enthusiasm return to art houses, with younger audiences embracing repertory screenings, event cinema, and newer art house voices. But he wants the audiences he grew up with back in his theaters too.

"I want to get that audience back. We're fighting. We're perhaps fighting a different battle, or we're fighting a battle on two fronts," Laemmle said. "We're certainly appreciating that the younger audience is there and programming for them, but we want all quadrants back, and we need all quadrants back to some extent. I don't want to see a certain type of film disappear or become less relevant on North American screens."