Finished Brengenging Sala, an Indonesian Doc, trying to navigate festival submissions

[doop]

Hello Indie Talk. I'm in the final stages of post for my new feature length documentary. It's experimental in nature, and long, around 2.5 hours. It's great. It's not for everybody, but for some people it will really be something to see. Starting at the end of the month through November there are tons of film festival deadlines, I'm trying to figure out which ones to submit to.

this is the trailer: https://vimeo.com/74635041
this is the movie website: http://www.brengengingsala.com

here is a short description (longer one on the site):

"Brêngênging Sala is a story of life. It captures the essence of a particular place out of time. It’s a time capsule for a culture. It attempts to translate into pictures and sound something that escapes translation by words. It’s that thing on the tip of your tongue, that place you can never reach in your dream no matter how hard you try, It’s the collective energy of a civilization. It’s six traditional markets and a thousand people going about their everyday lives."

What do you think? I've had some people tell me that it's good enough and different enough to submit to the big fests, but as a cold submission, it is fairly long and I know festivals prefer shorter films.

 

[ChimpPhobiaFilms]

Faster trailer. Watch some documentary trailers. You'll notice that they get interesting quick, and get their audience curious throughout. A trailer is not a chance to be creative, a trailer is a chance to advertise your film. Add a voiceover, quick editing, anything. Make it lively. Also, I'd cut it down to a minute or a minute and thirty seconds. That's a much better and more watchable length.

I'm not saying that I find it boring. I really like the trailer, but I think it's important to play devil's advocate, and look at how others are going to respond to the trailer and the film.

Best of luck! I'd like to see it at some point. It looks interesting.

 

[Alcove Audio]

I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in the U.S. feature length projects, both narrative and documentary, should be under 90 minutes. It's largely a scheduling thing, as they can fit two features into one evening at the venue.

 

[doop]

Thanks for the responses.

Chimp: we tried to make the trailer similar in pace and style to what the movie actually is. I had cut a different trailer that was a little faster editing, with some different music, but it just didn't feel honest. this movie is fairly experimental, so we thought that deceiving people might be wrong. Actually I agree with you, and would like something a little more jazzed up to get butts in the seats so to say. I like this trailer and people willing to make that leap, they will already be interested, but for those on the fence it could be tricky.

Alcove - yes, shorter is better. unfortunately, this one sure as hell won't be around 90 minutes. I could, if I had to, trim 20 minutes out. But not an entire hour. I know this is a tough sell for festivals.

 

[Sweetie]

I hope you're wanting feedback. If not, please ignore. From your trailer, I don't get what your documentary is about. That is unless of course it's just a collection of motion pictures of people in Java with no story attached?

If there is a story line for the audience to follow or people to get attached to?

It's really hard to tell if it's good enough for festivals without seeing it. From what I see of the trailer, probably not, though it may just simply be an issue with the choice of how the trailer was done.

I wish you luck and hope you prove me wrong.

 

[IndiePaul]

Alcove - yes, shorter is better. unfortunately, this one sure as hell won't be around 90 minutes. I could, if I had to, trim 20 minutes out. But not an entire hour. I know this is a tough sell for festivals.

OP, 2.5 hours is far too long. 2 hours is too long.

Why can't you cut it down? The big festivals will not be keen to accept a 2.5 hour film from an unknown director: it will be an incredibly hard sell at the big festivals. You really should consider cutting it down if you're serious about the festival circuit and selling this.

I know that's not what you want to do, but surely you want your movie to be seen by as many people as possible and to have a chance at the top tier festivals?

Most films are around 90 minutes for a reason. It's what an audience wants and it fits schedules well.

 

[doop]

Sweetie: I would be a horrible person to put a video here and not expect criticism. thank you. actually, you were right in your 4th sentence. There is no "story". The concept is more of an experimental ethnography. we took all this great footage and wanted people to experience what it is like there in those places. So there is no story so to say. but actually the film is edited in about 5 segments that have their own vibe and flow. The idea to to be as unmanipulative as possible (whilst being completely manipulative as it's films nature), trying to show some truth to people. We believe that some films that could be grouped with this one are overtly manipulative or even some kind of propaganda for a directors ulterior motive. This film avoids that, but still shows some interesting things in a really interesting way.

I think for us, the trailer was harder to make than the movie, thanks for checking it out.

Paul: It could be cut down a bit, but too much and it would be a disservice to the subject matter and the people. The potential uncomfortableness of the length is actually something we planned from the beginning as a way to immerse people. Java is epic, the people of Java are epic in many ways, and their culture needs an epic treatment. experiences there are long, and take too much time, including most performances, speeches, and bus trips, so this movie takes too much time (in our eyes) but actually, it's just enough time to convey the accurate message.