Building a Website Worthy of 50 Years: The CIFF Project

The Cleveland International Film Festival has spent five decades bringing world-class cinema to Cleveland, earning its place as one of the longest-established and largest Academy^®-qualifying film festivals in the United States.

When they came to us to rebuild their website, we knew the stakes were high. And we knew that "good enough" wasn't going to cut it.

We're proud to announce that Phase 2 of the new CIFF website is now live, and with it, the full festival experience: the CIFF50 schedule of accepted films, ticketing, memberships, and everything fans need to plan their best festival yet.

CIFF's previous website was built on a headless Content Management System (CMS) architecture. The platform they used, Sanity, essentially made for a system where the content and the website were managed separately, requiring developers to stitch everything together behind the scenes. On paper, headless CMS solutions can be powerful, but in practice, the setup created serious problems for the CIFF team.

The site pulled data from multiple disconnected sources, making it brittle and difficult to maintain. It required a constellation of tools to keep running, each adding to the cost and complexity. Most critically, it had a tendency to crash during peak ticket sales. And that’s exactly the worst possible moment for a festival that draws over 30,000 attendees each year. Headless CMS systems require technical expertise to manage, but CIFF had no one on staff who could confidently take the reins.

The result: a team spending too much time fighting their own website instead of focusing on what they do best—celebrating world-class cinema.

The CIFF team was struggling to keep the website afloat during peak hours, and they reached out to BetterWeb for help. Our answer? A system that centers on simplicity, reliability, and putting control back in CIFF's hands.

The new site is built on WordPress, a platform that's powerful, widely understood, and genuinely manageable by non-technical staff. But the real innovation is what's happening behind the scenes: a three-way data sync connecting WordPress, Airtable (CIFF's internal tracking tool), and Eventive (the platform they use for memberships, passes, and ticket sales).

Here's what that means in practice: CIFF's team can manage all of their festival data—films, schedules, ticketing, passes—in one place, and it automatically flows to wherever it needs to go. No manual updates across multiple platforms. No data getting out of sync. No late-night scrambles before opening weekend.

It's the kind of infrastructure that works quietly, reliably, and in the background, so the people at CIFF can focus on putting on an incredible festival.

Beyond the technical architecture, we wanted the site to feel like CIFF. The festival is known for its stunning imagery, its deep connection to Cleveland, and its commitment to powerful storytelling. Our design aimed to reflect all of that.

The new site gives the brand’s visual identity room to breathe, leading with the photography and film art that makes CIFF's world so compelling. Whether a first-time visitor is discovering what the festival is all about or a longtime member is browsing the CIFF50 schedule, the experience feels worthy of the occasion.

With Phase 2 now launched, the full festival side of the site is open. You can browse this year's accepted films, explore the complete CIFF50 schedule, and grab your tickets or passes for Cleveland's landmark 50th anniversary festival.

We're incredibly proud of this project and grateful to the CIFF team for trusting us with such a meaningful milestone. Here's to 50 more years of great cinema in Cleveland.

Interested in a website that works as hard as your team does? Get in touch with BetterWeb.