approach to film festivals

sonnyboo · Dec 15, 2009

What is your approach to film festivals, for features and shorts?

I'm interested in everyone's take on the current, 2009, feelings on what film festivals you enter, how much you pay on average, how many film festivals you enter, and do you enter any of the top 10 fests (Sundance, SXSW, Toronto, Berline, Cannes, etc.) and do you think this helps your films/career?

Brooksy · Dec 15, 2009

I have only entered one so far. I paid $20 and I feel I have a pretty good shot at being shown.

That being said I am to understand that getting in is more often then not a political battle. And I am to understand that somethings that will help get a film in are things like, volunteering for the fest, promoting it in your own way, and being nice to the coordinators. I haven't done any of this and I can't prove it helps but that is what I have heard.

I just shot another short film that I have very high hopes for. We'll see how it cuts together and takes form in the end, but if it does well enough I guess I might try for a couple bigger festivals. What caliber of movies usually end up getting in the top 10? Does anyone have any pointers for getting in any of those festivals?

J. Hayward · Dec 15, 2009

It’s a tough call. I have heard you’ll have a tougher time submitting a feature cold, but not so much for shorts. A Sundance programmer once said of the eighty or so shorts they program, maybe half are good, and then the rest are just filling the left over open slots. That’s out of the five thousand or so they get a year – maybe forty are actually good.

As for features…

A friend of mine spent an entire year submitting this feature doc to film festivals and getting rejected. Then Fantastic Fest let them in, they got some great reviews, and they were off. They spent the next year getting into one after another until they not only stopped paying any fees, but stopped submitting all together. They are now approached and paid to show their movie in a festival. But, they’ll be the first one’s to tell you to never submit your feature cold. Get to know somebody.

I have other friends who spent two or three years submitting their features cold and maybe saw it play in one tiny unheard-of festival.

It’s a toss up and when you think about how many programmers need to agree your movie is above and beyond all the other thousands of films they’ve watched in the past two months, it’s actually pretty amazing anyone gets in at all.

That said, forget festivals. Just focus on making your movie the best it can be. Figure out what you personally think are impossible standards to measure yourself against and aim higher. If that means putting your movie next to the past ten Oscar winners, then that’s what you need to do. There’s a reason Sundance can only find forty decent short films out of five thousand; people don’t hold their work to any standards higher than their friend’s and family’s chuckles. Then they complain the only reason they didn’t get into the bigger fests is because they didn’t know the right people or whatever.

2001 Productions · Dec 15, 2009

J. Hayward,

That was a really good answer.

BostonFilmmaker · Jan 7, 2010

J. Hayward said:
That said, forget festivals. Just focus on making your movie the best it can be.

Excellent advice. Trying to put together a film you think will do well at film festivals isn't worth your time. There's no way to predict who will be screening the films and what they'll be looking for. I actually worked on a short film that was rejected by the Vancouver Asian Film Festival one year and then accepted by them the following year and awarded 3rd place.

Bottom line: come up with a vision for your film, and then make it the right way. Give yourself ample pre-production time; get the right crew and the right cast; work and re-work your budget and your schedule and your shot lists. Make your film the best it can possibly be, and then worry about festivals later.

sonnyboo · Jan 7, 2010

I am hoping to hear some other people's "festival strategy". There is a method where filmmakers do the film festival circuit for 6 months to a year before attempting distribution, in the hopes that the various film festival screenings draw enough attention to make the distribution deal more lucrative.

I'm about to do this with a short, not vying for distribution, but with the intent of turning this into a feature. I've been a filmmaker for 10 years and I've been to over 100 festivals, but never one of the big ones. Only once in 2001 did I submit a movie to Sundance and I've never submitted to the larger festivals again until now. As much as I like my movies, I never thought they would do well at the big film festivals. Now I have a piece that I think would, so I'm investing money and a lot of time in submissions. The average cost of a film festival entry fee is $50 now. That's damn pricey.

BostonFilmmaker · Jan 7, 2010

sonnyboo said:
The average cost of a film festival entry fee is $50 now. That's damn pricey.

Tell me about it...

You may already know this, having been to so many festivals, but I think it's worth mentioning that you should almost always submit to a festival as early as possible. I've talked to a lot of festival directors, and they all have said the same thing: they fill up most of their spots on the early side, and the likelihood of being accepted (and sometimes even considered) drops like a rock the further you get toward the cut-off date.

Brooksy · Jan 7, 2010

BostonFilmmaker I did not realize that. That is some good knowledge you just laid out there. Thanks for that.

sonnyboo-Why is it that you didn't think any of your pieces would do well at the bigger festivals? Are production values really high there? Even for short films? Just curious and trying to dig deeper down because I want to submit to some bigger festivals, but I also want to know what to be prepared for.

Thanks for the good information.

sonnyboo · Jan 7, 2010

Brooksy said:
sonnyboo-Why is it that you didn't think any of your pieces would do well at the bigger festivals? Are production values really high there? Even for short films?

Yes. Even 10 years ago, the shorts that get selected have high production values, shallow depth of field, and great acting at the bigger festivals.

Movies "with potential" don't get accepted nearly as much as Sundance, SXSW, Cannes, Toronto, Berlin, Tribeca, or the other top ten festivals.

To me, it would have been a waste of money to submit. My earlier work, even work I did earlier in 2009 did not have the "look" of a movie that would have been accepted and played at the big fests. It's taken me 10 years to get to a place where I thought I might have a real shot at getting accepted.

Now that I have something special, I want to take a real shot at it. In less than a month, I've made over 40 submissions to various film festivals around the world, including 2 of the top 10 (those went out first).

I always try to submit early to save money, but he's 100% right, it does increase your odds of getting in too.

BelangerRRRRRRR · Jan 7, 2010

J. Hayward said:
It’s a tough call. I have heard you’ll have a tougher time submitting a feature cold, but not so much for shorts. A Sundance programmer once said of the eighty or so shorts they program, maybe half are good, and then the rest are just filling the left over open slots. That’s out of the five thousand or so they get a year – maybe forty are actually good.

As for features…

A friend of mine spent an entire year submitting this feature doc to film festivals and getting rejected. Then Fantastic Fest let them in, they got some great reviews, and they were off. They spent the next year getting into one after another until they not only stopped paying any fees, but stopped submitting all together. They are now approached and paid to show their movie in a festival. But, they’ll be the first one’s to tell you to never submit your feature cold. Get to know somebody.

I have other friends who spent two or three years submitting their features cold and maybe saw it play in one tiny unheard-of festival.

It’s a toss up and when you think about how many programmers need to agree your movie is above and beyond all the other thousands of films they’ve watched in the past two months, it’s actually pretty amazing anyone gets in at all.

That said, forget festivals. Just focus on making your movie the best it can be. Figure out what you personally think are impossible standards to measure yourself against and aim higher. If that means putting your movie next to the past ten Oscar winners, then that’s what you need to do. There’s a reason Sundance can only find forty decent short films out of five thousand; people don’t hold their work to any standards higher than their friend’s and family’s chuckles. Then they complain the only reason they didn’t get into the bigger fests is because they didn’t know the right people or whatever.

Best post so far.