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Film & Television vocabulary · Distribution, Festivals and Awards

Four-walling

Meaning in film & television, with examples

nounAdvanced term

In film & television, four-walling means: An arrangement in which a filmmaker or distributor rents a cinema and takes responsibility for selling tickets.

In Turkish: salon kiralayarak gösterim

How it is used

Used in independent distribution; the organizer takes on the risk of selling enough tickets.

Example sentences

  1. Four-walling allowed the director to arrange a local screening without a distributor.

    The filmmaker directly arranges access to the venue.

  2. The team lost money on four-walling because ticket sales did not cover the rent.

    Venue costs remain even when audience demand is weak.

Common collocations

  • four-walling arrangement
  • four-walling costs
  • distributorA company that buys the rights to show a film in a country or region and handles its release, marketing and delivery to cinemas or platforms.
  • releaseTo make a film or series available to the public in cinemas, on TV or on streaming platforms. As a noun, a release is a film being shown or the act of showing it.

More terms: Distribution, Festivals and Awards

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