I’m Brittany Tran. I run Reel Citrus Media, a North America release partner for international and diaspora films.
People like to say diaspora films are “too niche” for theatrical. Or that audiences won’t show up unless there’s a massive marketing spend behind them.
That didn’t match what we saw on the ground.
Here’s what actually happened.
The Audience Was Already There
The biggest myth we ran into was that Vietnamese audiences in North America needed to be “found.”
They didn’t.
They already:
Followed Vietnamese-language media
Tracked directors and actors by name
Shared trailers in family group chats
Knew exactly which theaters they were willing to drive to
Our job wasn’t to invent demand or convince people to care. It was to recognize that the audience was already there and activate that demand with clarity, respect, and the right invitation.
Before We Begin
In April 2025, I launched Citrus and in the next six months, we released three Top Vietnamese films into North American theaters. Across opening weekends, each title moved tens of thousands of tickets, with combined attendance landing in the 30,000–50,000+ range per release window, driven primarily by diaspora audiences.
Let’s begin.
What Actually Moved Tickets
1. Director-forward storytelling beat everything else
In diaspora communities, directors are part of a shared cultural ownership. People recognize their names, follow their work over time, and see their success as tied to the community itself.
We leaned into that relationship, treating filmmakers as representatives of a shared storytelling lineage the community already cared about and wanted to support.
Instead of leading with trailers alone, we extended our outreach directly to the directors and asked them to speak to the audience, through short greeting videos and personal messages. Before doing so, we reminded viewers who these directors were: their previous films, their background, and the body of work that made them worth listening to in the first place.
Context matters.
