film festivals vs the distributor

M

Marcel

My film, ' I Love That Effing Zippy,' has been sent to a couple of film festivals as a rough cut. They are the Sundance and Manitoba Aboriginal film festival.

What I need to know, is it better to find a distributor or just enter film festivals and hope you'll get lucky with a presentation of your film?

I believe I should be able to find a distributor, this would probably save me a lot of time and money as I try and get my film out there. I do have a distributor for some of my short films, but a feature film is a different game altogether, and I am not sure whether my small distributor can do this. I know a couple of other distributors, here in Canada, that might be interested if I send them my material. Any thoughts on this from experienced people.

www.wordsallowmotion.com

marcel
 
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Just hoping to get lucky and be "discovered" is not very reassuring.

I would try both approaching distributors, showing at film festivals or selling straight on to dvd via the web. The more exposure the better!

Eddie Rex.
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Lets say that I get a distributor, and then my film/video happens to get chosen by a film festival. By chance there are interested parties wanting my film/video. Would they then have to go through by distributor?

marcel
 
What do you mean by “Is it better find a distributor.”?

I want to say, “Of course it’s better to find a distributor.” because I assume we all would like to see our movies distributed. I don’t think it’s a matter of one or the other - usually a movie maker shows the movie at festivals in order to show a distributor the movie has the potential to draw a paying audience.
Marcel said:
Lets say that I get a distributor, and then my film/video happens to get chosen by a film festival. By chance there are interested parties wanting my film/video. Would they then have to go through by distributor?
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This is also a little confusing. Who are the “interested parties” who might want your movie?
 
The interested parties would be people who run independent film channels and such, including mainstream television and/or theater mediums.

I'm just glad I am getting to a final product. Editing sure can take some time, and then there's burning to DVD.

marcel
 
Marcel said:
The interested parties would be people who run independent film channels and such, including mainstream television and/or theater mediums. l
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If you are going to sell to the theaters, TV and cable then you are the distributor. So you won't need one. But that is exactly what a distributor does - they sell your movie to all those interested parties.

So to answer your question; what you want is a distributor. If you can attract one without any festival showings then you can skip the festivals.
 
From Experience...

From experience I would say festivals are great for getting publicity (but beware you can get bad as well as good) but for ANY FILM to be successful you MUST get a sales agent or a distributor who will do WORLDWIDE.

Why? Well simple... are you a lawyer? Can you write contracts? Can you afford to chase debts, do multiple screeners? Get Beta masters done? Do you know the buyers in Asia or Germany? T

A sales agent does all of this and more. Okay you will loose 25% but they will have contacts, names and people to sell the film too that you will never have.

To go to Mipcom, AFM and Cannes, costs a fortune. To set up a stall at these to market the film will cots you $10k +, to get posters, artwork and everything else you will need will cost more.

Best advice… go to Cannes (the market NOT the festival). Take 100 copies of your film, hand them out to sales agents selling relevant films, go home and wait. These decisions are rarely made at Cannes, but normally after when they get back home.

Don’t try companies like Lions Gate or Pathe unless you feel your film can really compete next to what they are already selling.

Just avoid MalPro pictures (Andrea Nina-Davis) … a total rip off merchant.
 
I'll have to do that, and hopefully find a distributor.

Had to make some late changes to film/video. Hopefully this is the last stage of it.

I had around 28 DVD's burned, but then there was a change in one my music artists, so I had to find a couple others and do some more editing.

Now I'm having problems burning to DVD again, but I should be able to figure it out.

thanks for the responses.

marcel
 
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