Courtney Ott will lead Cinetic Marketing.
Her promotion comes after news broke that longtime head Ryan Werner is leaving the company to take over as president of global cinema at Neon.
Ott joined the agency in 2016, most recently serving as senior vice president. She has overseen national PR and awards campaigns, including marketing and press strategy and outreach, as well as international festival support, client relations and overall staff management. The long-time senior staff of Cinetic Marketing — which includes Vanessa Agovida, Brian Brooks Julie Chappell, Diana Drumm, Layla Hancock-Piper, Charlie Olsky, Lauren Schwartz, Emilie Spiegel and Alexa Tombs — will remain in place.
“I have felt like the luckiest person in the world getting to create Cinetic Marketing with an incredible team of film lovers,” said Werner. “We have been together for the vast majority of my time here. We created this to support filmmakers and in the process have been surrounded by some of the most creative and brilliant people on both sides of the camera. It’s bittersweet to leave the team and the work we did behind, but they will be in the extremely capable hands of my long-term collaborator and friend Courtney Ott. There’s nothing she can’t do and I am excited to see what comes next.”
“Ryan has been an incredible leader, collaborator, and friend over the years, and I am so proud of the work we have done together. I have no doubt that we will continue to find ways to collaborate in the future,” said Ott. “I am honored to be continuing to work alongside an incredible team at Cinetic Marketing, and to keep building on what Ryan started many years ago. The passion and inspiration for supporting filmmakers will continue to be our priority.”
Cinetic Marketing has run campaigns for a wide array of studios and streamers, including A24, Amazon Studios, Apple TV +, Focus Features, Greenwich Entertainment, HBO Documentary Films, Hulu, Mubi, Neon, Netflix, Searchlight Pictures as well as international companies such as Charades, Film Constellation, the Match Factory and Playtime.
Cinetic has also represented an extensive range of films from around the world, including seven Palme d’Or winners from Cannes, 19 Grand Jury Prize winners from Sundance, four Golden Lion winners from Venice and seven Golden Bear winners from Berlin. On the Oscar front, it worked on campaigns for “The Brutalist,” “Parasite,” “Conclave,” “Marriage Story,” “Moonlight,” “Anora” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”
Prior to Cinetic, Ott was the director of PR and marketing at the Film Society of Lincoln Center for six years, overseeing all publicity and promotional efforts for its yearlong programs and film festivals – which included the New York Film Festival. Before that, Ott served as vice president of publicity at IFC Entertainment and was the director of publicity and marketing at Wellspring.
