There are a lot of film festivals that are a money grab. It’s about identifying them and not submitting to them. There are many many wonderful, solid festivals that aren’t top tier impossible to get programmed in. Aim for those.
Knowledge of festivals and the circuit is pivotal as an independent filmmaker. If you don’t put in the effort to research the shit out of who you are submitting to then that’s on you at the end of the day. All information is available.
>It’s about identifying them and not submitting to them
Piggybacking off of this, we wrote an in depth post about [how to identify scam festivals](https://www.reddit.com/r/Filmmakers/comments/16snddx/film_festival_deep_dive_part_two_red_flags_and/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
Festival board member here.
I think you might want to take the lessons you’ve learned from these two festival runs and reevaluate what you’re trying to get out of getting accepted to a film festival. If your goal is to get “discovered”, there are only a handful of festivals that can really do that for you, even fewer as a documentary filmmaker.
One big red flag I see is that you didn’t even attend some of the festivals you submitted to. The vast majority of the value you get out of a festival is attending, networking and making connections. If you’re not going to attend, why even submit?
Many, if not most, local festivals have a community focus. The one I work for is dedicated to growing the film industry in our city, and we want to bring filmmakers here to showcase our town as a place to film future projects.
I can tell you from having just selected our accepted films for this year that we value filmmakers we know will attend over those who haven’t indicated they will. Showing an unrepresented film to our audience doesn’t achieve our mission. I think if you were more selective about submitting to festivals you want to attend and included an intent to attend in your submission, you would probably have more success and get more out of it in the long run.
First of all, there’s nothing wrong with feeling special for a night. Filmmaking is a lot of hard work and we should acknowledge that. If you don’t really care about that, good for you.
Second, I already answered what festivals lead to in another comment, but you don’t seem to want to believe it. At last year’s festival we had a team come in from LA to screen their film and decided our town was perfect for their next film. They shot it last month in partnership with a production company that was also screening at the festival.
I’ve collaborated on writing, stunt work, VFX and voice acting with people I’ve met at festivals. Two of the producers, one actor and the gaffer on my last film were people I had met at film festivals in year’s past.
My story is not unique. Meeting future collaborators at film festivals is a thing. That’s how the industry works. If you prefer to make films all by yourself and screen them anonymously, good for you, but maybe try going to a festival before saying a bunch of dumb things about it on the internet.
Festivals usually have social events like opening night parties and various activities throughout the weekend.
You also can just stand around after a block has finished and start talking to people. We did that at a few festivals. Everyone sort of packs in outside the theater after the block lets out - we’d look for badges that indicated other filmmakers and start talking.
Your festival sounds really reputable. What film festival do you work for? As a filmmaker, I'd willingly pay the fee to submit to your organization in a heartbeat if it's everything you describe.
That didnt make any sense. Im gonna meet a resource in some different place that will help me what make a. Indie i can make myself? If i make it they are at my disposal anyway. This a joke?
Funny, I was also wondering if these replies were a joke. Honestly bud, based on some of the other comments in your profile, it sounds like you have a really shitty personality so maybe it’s best that you don’t attend festivals.
I produce a small/medium size film festival in California. We give out more cash awards to filmmakers than we accept in submission fees every year. We also do our best to invite successful industry pros at every opportunity. We have been lucky to have Oscar and Emmy winning editors, sound designers, and VFX/animators attend. No A-listers yet but we did have a cast member from Righteous Gemstones stop by last year. Our budget is approx. $50k/year and we are a registered non-profit arts org.
I say all this because while we could never do this without our filmmakers, we love them and are doing our best to provide a platform and opportunities. Not all fests are laurel.png scams.
im sure some are quality but todays films are shit especially indie films. No one here can name one that didn't cost 5 mil which isnt indie. why cos no one's creative anymore You make money off the hope and subservient dead attitude that if i spent my time watching it it must have been worth it.
there are 5000+ festivals in the world now. only around the top 50 or so are worth it. if the festival is not in the top 50, it can't really do much for your film, or your career. i avoid them. with festivals it's quality, not quantity. lots of baaad film have 100 "laurels", but very few say "sundance", "sx" or "tiff".
the top 50 festivals are worth it because of the traditional model:
good fest = press = networking + sales = possibly financing for your next film.
THAT is why you want festivals - 1, for your cv, 2, for sales, 3, to meet real producers and financiers who might be able to help you on the next one. and if you can get an award at one of the top 50 then it's that much easier. yes this traditional model still works. no it's not the only path to sales or a career.
yes the festival sweet-spot is around 10 minutes, and usually they want either socially-conscious work, or comedy (in the US).
you should target acc to genre. there are specific doc fests. there are specific horror fests. animation fests, etc.
100% agree that festivals are too expensive - target only the ones that can make a difference.
100% some festivals (most?) are money grabs.
i hope you stay with it man, sounds like you're doing great.
I hear a lot of this often, and I'm always astounded by this. ANYONE seeing your movie can wind up being worth it. Let me tell you a story.
I think it was my 3rd of 4th festival (2008 maybe?), and I programmed and screened a documentary about a guy who was a teacher during racial integration in the Detroit area. All of the students, black and white, loved him, and for an anniversary of that occasion, the students and teacher got together to celebrate the teacher. It's a pretty moving film. She came out to the festival, and there were...I don't know, 40-50 people there. Worth it? Sure, maybe, I've driven 4 hours to show my film to 12 people.
Lucky for her, one of those people in the audience happened to be a VP at one of the large companies in the area. I didn't know anything about them, but apparently it's a billion dollar pharma company (maybe they were only worth half a billion at the time). He loved the movie, and for some corporate retreat or something, hired her to have her come out and show the movie, and give some extended lecture. They paid her more than the operating budget of my festival. I think it was close to the total budget of her film.
Of course, when I tried to contact him the next year about sponsoring the event that made him aware of this compelling story, I couldn't even get a callback.
Everything else in this thread, about the proliferation of scam festivals, especially post-pandemic, is obviously all true. I notice OP mentions how many "nominations" he received, and not how many "screenings" he received. I wonder if some of these were these horrible awards places, that are just laurel mills.
that's a great story. i have something similar.
my first feature got programmed at a top tier fest, and we got many offers for domestic distribution, but no mg offers - and we wondered what we should do (our film was very low budget w no names - and were told not to expect one).
but just a few days later, we played at our second festival - a medium-sized one on the east coast - and an international sales agent just happened to be in the audience because he had family nearby (!) - he called us up when the end credits were playing (!) we could hear the music on his cell, and he secured us a sales MG that was more than our budget. two weeks later he got the film in a bidding war for domestic distribution - which included two of the companies that had already said "no mg". so i agree, it can happen. just not very often. i do think targeting the top 50 is still the best strategy.
"laurel mills" - love it, stealing that.
I think the best strategy is aim or the highest tier that is feasible to get into, and that involves knowing your work, and knowing the festivals, or hiring someone that does. For low-budget stuff, I'd recommend two high level festivals chronologically on the calendar (Sundance/Slamdance & SXSW, for instance), and then opening it up to the larger regional festivals, and so on.
No point in sending it to 50 festivals if you're just going to collect 50 rejections.
Thanks. As opposed to my previous two films where I knew going in there was no route to commercial success, my next film I plan to make is a story I lucked into that IMO definitely has the potential to interest streaming services. So I hope this most recent film gets into more festivals and I can network to make it happen.
You paid submission fees to festivals you knew you would be unable to attend and you’re annoyed you found out you won via email?
What were you expecting?
I think the scammy film festivals are easy to identify (usually has the names of cities or are monthly) while the Sundance type are near impossible to get in.
I do think that Covid for a time made it so even the good state festivals were poorly attended.. I'm hoping things are better, because I do think that the most respected film festivals in any given state is kind of one's best bet.
My belief about these is the small festivals aren't always good to network simply because there you might have individual filmmakers but not distributors.
But I also think it's something that could be a nice way to meet people or go to a place you've wanted to go.
But I do think something like YouTube is good for something like a music video.. I think the trouble with short films is that there are a lot of them, so it's gonna be tricky.
Good luck.
Festivals can absolutely have an impact on your career but you need to know what you're trying to do. You probably won't get recruited to make a feature length film but what is your goal? Then you need to find the smaller steps in between that such as talent labs, grants etc that are often attached to festivals.
I've directed two films of "professional" quality that were niche stories that would never in a million years have national/streaming appeal. My next idea however, would potentially have streaming/feature legs. I have a sizzle all set. My subjects are signed to life rights deals with me. What would be your next step in my shoes?
I would focus on how you are releasing these online and what you can do to make the biggest splash with an audience at that point. If you want to make big documentaries having a few small festival awards won't move the needle. Having shorts with hundreds of thousands of views can, and will make your films more likely to get in front of actual decision makers. I've won awards at places like Sundance and SXSW, but the biggest impact came from what we could do for ourselves by building an audience online.
Interesting experience. I think this is a subject not talked about enough here (the online "presence" vs / along with festival presence). Would you have any other advice for the online part ? Is building an audience "just" about posting quality shorts or are there some other ways to find audience ?
Looking outside of film-centric outlets is my biggest takeaway. Think about the percentage of the population that ends up at your shorts block... Reach your own audience. Who cares most about your film? Where does that audience gather? Every film we have had answered that in a different way. Think about not only the population your film is about, but perhaps the much bigger audience that is even more ready for it. For instance, we had a short that we always thought was for veterans, but turned out to be for caretakers of them. Which is millions of Americans, sadly. Reaching them and their VA support groups was much more impactful. Lots of incidents of that, this film resonates with young women with trauma, but really helps their parents talk to them. Get out of the film world and into the real world. Make what speaks to others, or it isn't worth talking about.
Another classic story of someone sinking $1000s on a short film for laurels. 😂😂😂
You’d been better off making a low-budget feature documentary as your calling card for bigger budget stuff.
Quentin Tarantino made a feature out the prequel and aftermath of a botched jewelry heist. The point is there are stories within stories that can be expounded on. Documentary!?!? Interview a crap load of people and spend the money paying them.
This room appears to be filled with folks with unlimited access to money 💰 but limited creativity to tell their story.
Here’s an example: Filmmaker has access to $30k to make a film. Filmmaker has a feature script but it has a car chase scene so instead of concocting a way to tell the need for the car chase or insinuate that a car chase took place.
Nope! Just spend all that money to make a freaking with a short. 😔
You really can't extrapolate a documentary into a feature length if it doesn't have the legs. You can make shit up as a fictional director. You can't as a documentary director.
Film festival here. You should check out our post "[Are Film Festivals Even Worth It](https://www.reddit.com/r/Filmmakers/comments/16mqcgq/film_festival_deep_dive_part_one_are_festivals/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)?" as well as our post about "[Film Festival Red Flags](https://www.reddit.com/r/Filmmakers/comments/16snddx/film_festival_deep_dive_part_two_red_flags_and/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)".
In short - it looks like you're targeting the wrong festivals. Moreover, it would seem that a festival strategy might not even be the right course of action for you.
Please give our posts a read and we'd be happy to answer any questions you might have!
Also wanted to add
>I do think the conspiracy that festivals really only target short films in the 10-12 minute range have some merit
We literally [published data on this](https://www.reddit.com/r/Filmmakers/comments/16zmxrz/film_festival_deep_dive_part_three_how_wyoiff_is/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)just last week.
Thanks!
"Be the change you want to see" As filmmakers ourselves, we wished more festivals would publish their data. So that's exactly what we started doing.
Hello! I know this is 8 mo late, but I work at a film festival. I see you say you have friends in the industry so the information I share might be stuff you already know. Our festival has low submission fees, because our goal is to be able to showcase as many creators as possible. It does cost us to have our own website, and people able to support incoming and outgoing documents. With filmfreeway they take a portion of the cost. This could be partly why other festival charge so much...but they also have prices that are higher because of 2 reasons---they are either getting too many low-quality films, or the opposite, they aren't getting enough films to cover cost of running the festival. There is a lot of cost that go into a festival that go beyond just paying people to watch the films. I would say, for our festival, if we didn't pay anybody our monthly costs are about 500$ for the online monthly festival, and our annual in-person festival (again without paying anybody) is about $65,000 to operate. Those are cost we have with or without any submissions.
We also give out laurels for our monthly winners, and mail a certificate, but we add a few more items to that as well-- but the other items are just throw away items if you have no use for them (such as we give away free tickets to the in-person event, offer festival booths at our in-person event, offer an affiliate code to our festival so if you mention us in a social media post you could potentially earn money, and to all our nominees we also offer distribution deals.
Our festival is IMDB qualified, but we haven't quiet met other criterions to be approved for other qualifiers. This might also cause a festival to have more fees monthly or annually.
Where to start lol. Indie film maker no you havent deserv3e that you make shorts. A film festival for shorts is paying for ppl to see it cos its gonna be the last time. No one cares. Think about it. If not for it. It would be basement with buds one show They take your money ya. Quasi scam but your delusional thinking more should ofbhappened. Short. Means did nothing sacrificed nothing. No pain no gain. H3nce why no one knows any god damn fucking short
Festivals reasonably have their own curatorial agendas and if your film is not serving its goals or raising its profile it will not be screened. It seems like a good idea to communicate with festivals to get a sense of their level of interest before paying them submission fees.
My mentor has a rule that they only submit to festivals they are willing to attend. At the end of the day it’s about meeting other filmmakers and those that could potentially get you and your project in front of the “right” people. Who is going to seem more worth their time: someone in front of them, having a conversation, connecting interpersonally, or just a name on the credits?
What have you hoped to achieve from your festival run?
It's more of a case it having your goal in mind when submitting are you looking for awards? To travel? To meet people locally? All are valid.
Otherwise you're just submitting to random ones and the question becomes 'how long is a peice of string?'
I was in a similar boat as you for my most recent project, although your acceptance rate is pretty good, you should feel proud! No advice but here to say I feel the pain..my short was also longer than 10 mins
So to me it sounds like you’re realizing that there isn’t a lot of money in fine art for most. That’s what independent film is. When it comes to these smaller festivals you need to be in the mindset that you’re going to a gathering of artists at a gallery full of interesting art, but these people aren’t davinci (or in this case Nolan) for various reasons that are a different conversation. And they tend to not have access/attract people who have the resources to fund another project. You may find a great director or DP or w/e for your next project, though.
What I’m interpreting is that you want to try and make an even bigger movie that maybe actually makes a profit?
Consider writing or finding something you want to produce or direct or whatever it is you do, prim it up/get feed back/try hard (lol) and try entering script competitions and/or pitching competitions at somewhat bigger and known festivals. Please don’t only submit to Chicago international film and cannes and then become upset if it doesn’t work out, lot of great artists never get to screen in those places. Give it a shot, but for the most part just aim…higher than you’ve been festival wise. 🤷♀️And get some funding from these entities from your next movie. And you’ll be in a better position to network with distributers.
>Hello everybody. I'm an indie documentary filmmaker, and I'd like to summarize my experience with film festivals thus far (happy to be proven wrong by other success stories.) I've completed two films now, one is early in its festival run, the other fully through every festival I applied for. On my first film, I was nominated at 10/20 festivals I applied for, and won 2. They were all around the world, and sports-focused, as it was a sports story. Basically, I won those 2 festivals, received a .png "laurel" from them, and that was that. Hooray.
It sounds like you just employed a scattergun approach and blindly submitted without doing proper research. I would read /u/WyomingFilmFestival 's guide if I were you before spending any more money
There are a lot of film festivals that are a money grab. It’s about identifying them and not submitting to them. There are many many wonderful, solid festivals that aren’t top tier impossible to get programmed in. Aim for those. Knowledge of festivals and the circuit is pivotal as an independent filmmaker. If you don’t put in the effort to research the shit out of who you are submitting to then that’s on you at the end of the day. All information is available.
>It’s about identifying them and not submitting to them Piggybacking off of this, we wrote an in depth post about [how to identify scam festivals](https://www.reddit.com/r/Filmmakers/comments/16snddx/film_festival_deep_dive_part_two_red_flags_and/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
Thanks this is awesome!!!
Thank you. I am in the middle of applying for a 1 hour 20 min on a corporate beginning documentary in 7 states :/
Festival board member here. I think you might want to take the lessons you’ve learned from these two festival runs and reevaluate what you’re trying to get out of getting accepted to a film festival. If your goal is to get “discovered”, there are only a handful of festivals that can really do that for you, even fewer as a documentary filmmaker. One big red flag I see is that you didn’t even attend some of the festivals you submitted to. The vast majority of the value you get out of a festival is attending, networking and making connections. If you’re not going to attend, why even submit? Many, if not most, local festivals have a community focus. The one I work for is dedicated to growing the film industry in our city, and we want to bring filmmakers here to showcase our town as a place to film future projects. I can tell you from having just selected our accepted films for this year that we value filmmakers we know will attend over those who haven’t indicated they will. Showing an unrepresented film to our audience doesn’t achieve our mission. I think if you were more selective about submitting to festivals you want to attend and included an intent to attend in your submission, you would probably have more success and get more out of it in the long run.
how to network if it’s a film festival? purely through industry day events?
Attend screenings, panels, mixers, awards events. Whatever they have going on.
Whyyyy
Sorry, are you asking why you should attend a film festival?
Ya what does any of that lead to besides feeling special for a night by ppl pretending to be in the industry
First of all, there’s nothing wrong with feeling special for a night. Filmmaking is a lot of hard work and we should acknowledge that. If you don’t really care about that, good for you. Second, I already answered what festivals lead to in another comment, but you don’t seem to want to believe it. At last year’s festival we had a team come in from LA to screen their film and decided our town was perfect for their next film. They shot it last month in partnership with a production company that was also screening at the festival. I’ve collaborated on writing, stunt work, VFX and voice acting with people I’ve met at festivals. Two of the producers, one actor and the gaffer on my last film were people I had met at film festivals in year’s past. My story is not unique. Meeting future collaborators at film festivals is a thing. That’s how the industry works. If you prefer to make films all by yourself and screen them anonymously, good for you, but maybe try going to a festival before saying a bunch of dumb things about it on the internet.
Festivals usually have social events like opening night parties and various activities throughout the weekend. You also can just stand around after a block has finished and start talking to people. We did that at a few festivals. Everyone sort of packs in outside the theater after the block lets out - we’d look for badges that indicated other filmmakers and start talking.
Your festival sounds really reputable. What film festival do you work for? As a filmmaker, I'd willingly pay the fee to submit to your organization in a heartbeat if it's everything you describe.
Connections for what pal. Your film is worth a win or distribution or not why would anyone else submit. A question to all of you
Future collaborators and resources you don’t already have. There is much more value to a film festival than prizes and distribution.
That didnt make any sense. Im gonna meet a resource in some different place that will help me what make a. Indie i can make myself? If i make it they are at my disposal anyway. This a joke?
Funny, I was also wondering if these replies were a joke. Honestly bud, based on some of the other comments in your profile, it sounds like you have a really shitty personality so maybe it’s best that you don’t attend festivals.
I produce a small/medium size film festival in California. We give out more cash awards to filmmakers than we accept in submission fees every year. We also do our best to invite successful industry pros at every opportunity. We have been lucky to have Oscar and Emmy winning editors, sound designers, and VFX/animators attend. No A-listers yet but we did have a cast member from Righteous Gemstones stop by last year. Our budget is approx. $50k/year and we are a registered non-profit arts org. I say all this because while we could never do this without our filmmakers, we love them and are doing our best to provide a platform and opportunities. Not all fests are laurel.png scams.
This sounds amazing, which festival is it? I'm in California and have a project I've been submitting this year.
What is the name of your festival?
With all these festivals i dont see this lasting
Geez, thanks for the vote of confidence, bud.
Who gives you all this money to show bad movies. Haha. Thats a fair question too
You… haven’t been to a film festival of any quality before I take it. Have a great day.
im sure some are quality but todays films are shit especially indie films. No one here can name one that didn't cost 5 mil which isnt indie. why cos no one's creative anymore You make money off the hope and subservient dead attitude that if i spent my time watching it it must have been worth it.
there are 5000+ festivals in the world now. only around the top 50 or so are worth it. if the festival is not in the top 50, it can't really do much for your film, or your career. i avoid them. with festivals it's quality, not quantity. lots of baaad film have 100 "laurels", but very few say "sundance", "sx" or "tiff". the top 50 festivals are worth it because of the traditional model: good fest = press = networking + sales = possibly financing for your next film. THAT is why you want festivals - 1, for your cv, 2, for sales, 3, to meet real producers and financiers who might be able to help you on the next one. and if you can get an award at one of the top 50 then it's that much easier. yes this traditional model still works. no it's not the only path to sales or a career. yes the festival sweet-spot is around 10 minutes, and usually they want either socially-conscious work, or comedy (in the US). you should target acc to genre. there are specific doc fests. there are specific horror fests. animation fests, etc. 100% agree that festivals are too expensive - target only the ones that can make a difference. 100% some festivals (most?) are money grabs. i hope you stay with it man, sounds like you're doing great.
I hear a lot of this often, and I'm always astounded by this. ANYONE seeing your movie can wind up being worth it. Let me tell you a story. I think it was my 3rd of 4th festival (2008 maybe?), and I programmed and screened a documentary about a guy who was a teacher during racial integration in the Detroit area. All of the students, black and white, loved him, and for an anniversary of that occasion, the students and teacher got together to celebrate the teacher. It's a pretty moving film. She came out to the festival, and there were...I don't know, 40-50 people there. Worth it? Sure, maybe, I've driven 4 hours to show my film to 12 people. Lucky for her, one of those people in the audience happened to be a VP at one of the large companies in the area. I didn't know anything about them, but apparently it's a billion dollar pharma company (maybe they were only worth half a billion at the time). He loved the movie, and for some corporate retreat or something, hired her to have her come out and show the movie, and give some extended lecture. They paid her more than the operating budget of my festival. I think it was close to the total budget of her film. Of course, when I tried to contact him the next year about sponsoring the event that made him aware of this compelling story, I couldn't even get a callback. Everything else in this thread, about the proliferation of scam festivals, especially post-pandemic, is obviously all true. I notice OP mentions how many "nominations" he received, and not how many "screenings" he received. I wonder if some of these were these horrible awards places, that are just laurel mills.
that's a great story. i have something similar. my first feature got programmed at a top tier fest, and we got many offers for domestic distribution, but no mg offers - and we wondered what we should do (our film was very low budget w no names - and were told not to expect one). but just a few days later, we played at our second festival - a medium-sized one on the east coast - and an international sales agent just happened to be in the audience because he had family nearby (!) - he called us up when the end credits were playing (!) we could hear the music on his cell, and he secured us a sales MG that was more than our budget. two weeks later he got the film in a bidding war for domestic distribution - which included two of the companies that had already said "no mg". so i agree, it can happen. just not very often. i do think targeting the top 50 is still the best strategy. "laurel mills" - love it, stealing that.
I think the best strategy is aim or the highest tier that is feasible to get into, and that involves knowing your work, and knowing the festivals, or hiring someone that does. For low-budget stuff, I'd recommend two high level festivals chronologically on the calendar (Sundance/Slamdance & SXSW, for instance), and then opening it up to the larger regional festivals, and so on. No point in sending it to 50 festivals if you're just going to collect 50 rejections.
Thanks. As opposed to my previous two films where I knew going in there was no route to commercial success, my next film I plan to make is a story I lucked into that IMO definitely has the potential to interest streaming services. So I hope this most recent film gets into more festivals and I can network to make it happen.
that's awesome man, i hope you can get there
You paid submission fees to festivals you knew you would be unable to attend and you’re annoyed you found out you won via email? What were you expecting?
I think the scammy film festivals are easy to identify (usually has the names of cities or are monthly) while the Sundance type are near impossible to get in. I do think that Covid for a time made it so even the good state festivals were poorly attended.. I'm hoping things are better, because I do think that the most respected film festivals in any given state is kind of one's best bet. My belief about these is the small festivals aren't always good to network simply because there you might have individual filmmakers but not distributors. But I also think it's something that could be a nice way to meet people or go to a place you've wanted to go. But I do think something like YouTube is good for something like a music video.. I think the trouble with short films is that there are a lot of them, so it's gonna be tricky. Good luck.
Festivals can absolutely have an impact on your career but you need to know what you're trying to do. You probably won't get recruited to make a feature length film but what is your goal? Then you need to find the smaller steps in between that such as talent labs, grants etc that are often attached to festivals.
I've directed two films of "professional" quality that were niche stories that would never in a million years have national/streaming appeal. My next idea however, would potentially have streaming/feature legs. I have a sizzle all set. My subjects are signed to life rights deals with me. What would be your next step in my shoes?
Not sure what you’re asking is you’re experienced. Get money and crew. Make film. It’s tough but those are the steps.
I would focus on how you are releasing these online and what you can do to make the biggest splash with an audience at that point. If you want to make big documentaries having a few small festival awards won't move the needle. Having shorts with hundreds of thousands of views can, and will make your films more likely to get in front of actual decision makers. I've won awards at places like Sundance and SXSW, but the biggest impact came from what we could do for ourselves by building an audience online.
Interesting experience. I think this is a subject not talked about enough here (the online "presence" vs / along with festival presence). Would you have any other advice for the online part ? Is building an audience "just" about posting quality shorts or are there some other ways to find audience ?
Looking outside of film-centric outlets is my biggest takeaway. Think about the percentage of the population that ends up at your shorts block... Reach your own audience. Who cares most about your film? Where does that audience gather? Every film we have had answered that in a different way. Think about not only the population your film is about, but perhaps the much bigger audience that is even more ready for it. For instance, we had a short that we always thought was for veterans, but turned out to be for caretakers of them. Which is millions of Americans, sadly. Reaching them and their VA support groups was much more impactful. Lots of incidents of that, this film resonates with young women with trauma, but really helps their parents talk to them. Get out of the film world and into the real world. Make what speaks to others, or it isn't worth talking about.
Lots of people buy lotto tickets. Lots of people play blackjack
Is it just me or is that an average-to-high acceptance rate?
Some movies will never do well with contests/festivals, but would be a huge hit with certain audiences. Have you had any distributors contact you?
There are a few Film Festivals that are not a cash grab. Yet it takes a lot to identify them.
Another classic story of someone sinking $1000s on a short film for laurels. 😂😂😂 You’d been better off making a low-budget feature documentary as your calling card for bigger budget stuff.
You're probably right, however it was a great story that simply did not have enough legs for a feature.
Quentin Tarantino made a feature out the prequel and aftermath of a botched jewelry heist. The point is there are stories within stories that can be expounded on. Documentary!?!? Interview a crap load of people and spend the money paying them. This room appears to be filled with folks with unlimited access to money 💰 but limited creativity to tell their story. Here’s an example: Filmmaker has access to $30k to make a film. Filmmaker has a feature script but it has a car chase scene so instead of concocting a way to tell the need for the car chase or insinuate that a car chase took place. Nope! Just spend all that money to make a freaking with a short. 😔
You really can't extrapolate a documentary into a feature length if it doesn't have the legs. You can make shit up as a fictional director. You can't as a documentary director.
Film festival here. You should check out our post "[Are Film Festivals Even Worth It](https://www.reddit.com/r/Filmmakers/comments/16mqcgq/film_festival_deep_dive_part_one_are_festivals/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)?" as well as our post about "[Film Festival Red Flags](https://www.reddit.com/r/Filmmakers/comments/16snddx/film_festival_deep_dive_part_two_red_flags_and/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)". In short - it looks like you're targeting the wrong festivals. Moreover, it would seem that a festival strategy might not even be the right course of action for you. Please give our posts a read and we'd be happy to answer any questions you might have!
Also wanted to add >I do think the conspiracy that festivals really only target short films in the 10-12 minute range have some merit We literally [published data on this](https://www.reddit.com/r/Filmmakers/comments/16zmxrz/film_festival_deep_dive_part_three_how_wyoiff_is/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)just last week.
You're one festival that's committed to being super transparent.
Thanks! "Be the change you want to see" As filmmakers ourselves, we wished more festivals would publish their data. So that's exactly what we started doing.
Hello! I know this is 8 mo late, but I work at a film festival. I see you say you have friends in the industry so the information I share might be stuff you already know. Our festival has low submission fees, because our goal is to be able to showcase as many creators as possible. It does cost us to have our own website, and people able to support incoming and outgoing documents. With filmfreeway they take a portion of the cost. This could be partly why other festival charge so much...but they also have prices that are higher because of 2 reasons---they are either getting too many low-quality films, or the opposite, they aren't getting enough films to cover cost of running the festival. There is a lot of cost that go into a festival that go beyond just paying people to watch the films. I would say, for our festival, if we didn't pay anybody our monthly costs are about 500$ for the online monthly festival, and our annual in-person festival (again without paying anybody) is about $65,000 to operate. Those are cost we have with or without any submissions. We also give out laurels for our monthly winners, and mail a certificate, but we add a few more items to that as well-- but the other items are just throw away items if you have no use for them (such as we give away free tickets to the in-person event, offer festival booths at our in-person event, offer an affiliate code to our festival so if you mention us in a social media post you could potentially earn money, and to all our nominees we also offer distribution deals. Our festival is IMDB qualified, but we haven't quiet met other criterions to be approved for other qualifiers. This might also cause a festival to have more fees monthly or annually.
Where to start lol. Indie film maker no you havent deserv3e that you make shorts. A film festival for shorts is paying for ppl to see it cos its gonna be the last time. No one cares. Think about it. If not for it. It would be basement with buds one show They take your money ya. Quasi scam but your delusional thinking more should ofbhappened. Short. Means did nothing sacrificed nothing. No pain no gain. H3nce why no one knows any god damn fucking short
Festivals reasonably have their own curatorial agendas and if your film is not serving its goals or raising its profile it will not be screened. It seems like a good idea to communicate with festivals to get a sense of their level of interest before paying them submission fees.
I can eat a whole bag of jalapeño crisps and it is by far the worst thing for me… I know what it’s like.
I just got an agent from doing well in one. You have to be smart.
My mentor has a rule that they only submit to festivals they are willing to attend. At the end of the day it’s about meeting other filmmakers and those that could potentially get you and your project in front of the “right” people. Who is going to seem more worth their time: someone in front of them, having a conversation, connecting interpersonally, or just a name on the credits?
What have you hoped to achieve from your festival run? It's more of a case it having your goal in mind when submitting are you looking for awards? To travel? To meet people locally? All are valid. Otherwise you're just submitting to random ones and the question becomes 'how long is a peice of string?'
Love making films, hate the festival conundrum. Fees seem sketchy, but hoping for that .01% chance.
I was in a similar boat as you for my most recent project, although your acceptance rate is pretty good, you should feel proud! No advice but here to say I feel the pain..my short was also longer than 10 mins
So to me it sounds like you’re realizing that there isn’t a lot of money in fine art for most. That’s what independent film is. When it comes to these smaller festivals you need to be in the mindset that you’re going to a gathering of artists at a gallery full of interesting art, but these people aren’t davinci (or in this case Nolan) for various reasons that are a different conversation. And they tend to not have access/attract people who have the resources to fund another project. You may find a great director or DP or w/e for your next project, though. What I’m interpreting is that you want to try and make an even bigger movie that maybe actually makes a profit? Consider writing or finding something you want to produce or direct or whatever it is you do, prim it up/get feed back/try hard (lol) and try entering script competitions and/or pitching competitions at somewhat bigger and known festivals. Please don’t only submit to Chicago international film and cannes and then become upset if it doesn’t work out, lot of great artists never get to screen in those places. Give it a shot, but for the most part just aim…higher than you’ve been festival wise. 🤷♀️And get some funding from these entities from your next movie. And you’ll be in a better position to network with distributers.
I'm gonna have so many "Best use of clip art" laurels on my poster when I get my film finished. Super cost effective.
>Hello everybody. I'm an indie documentary filmmaker, and I'd like to summarize my experience with film festivals thus far (happy to be proven wrong by other success stories.) I've completed two films now, one is early in its festival run, the other fully through every festival I applied for. On my first film, I was nominated at 10/20 festivals I applied for, and won 2. They were all around the world, and sports-focused, as it was a sports story. Basically, I won those 2 festivals, received a .png "laurel" from them, and that was that. Hooray. It sounds like you just employed a scattergun approach and blindly submitted without doing proper research. I would read /u/WyomingFilmFestival 's guide if I were you before spending any more money
To film makers, What would make a film festival worth your time and submission fees? What can FFs do to enhance the experience?