November 19, 2025 • 35 mins
In this episode, host Jeff Everett breaks down the complex world of film festivals and what indie filmmakers need to know before submitting their work. He explores why filmmakers chase festival runs, the value of audience feedback, and the unique experience of screening your film in front of strangers rather than friends and family. Jeff also highlights the real purpose of festivals as a celebration of indie filmmaking—contrastingthem with film markets, which focus strictly on business and distribution. He explains why many myths around “being discovered” at festivals are largely unrealistic, especially for micro-budget films, and why the biggest festivals prioritize star-driven projects.
The episode dives into the challenges of submissions, premiere requirements, theoverwhelming number of festivals on platforms like FilmFreeway, and the rise of questionable online-only events. Jeff offers practical advice on budgeting, choosing festivals wisely, and navigating unrealistic premiere rules that often force filmmakers into tough decisions.
The episode dives into the challenges of submissions, premiere requirements, theoverwhelming number of festivals on platforms like FilmFreeway, and the rise of questionable online-only events. Jeff offers practical advice on budgeting, choosing festivals wisely, and navigating unrealistic premiere rules that often force filmmakers into tough decisions.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You've just finished making your epic indie feature film, and
now you want to get it out to the world. Often,
you're going to start with film festivals. You're going to
submit the film to many festivals. Hopefully you're going to
get accepted, and hopefully you're going to have fun screening
it in front of a lot of people. But navigating
the festival world is an art unto itself, and today
(00:20):
we're going to discuss it. If you want to be
a successful indie filmmaker, you need to know a lot
about not just the production of movies, but the business.
We are going to tell you the truth and reality
of what really happens in the indie film business. Hi, everybody,
(00:43):
welcome back to Indie Filmmaking Truth and Reality. I'm your host,
Jeff Deverett, and today we are going to take a
deep dive into film festivals. All filmmakers love the idea
of submitting to film festivals. You know, you've made your
epic feature film. Now you want the world to see it.
So basically going to potentially start with submissions to festivals
(01:04):
and then hopefully after that you release it and distribute
the movie. Now you don't have to do a festival
release or festival run. All right, A lot of filmmakers say,
oh no, no, I need to put my film into a
festival or in order to get notoriety, in order to
get buzz going, in order to get you know, some feedback,
that type of thing, which is all true, but it's
(01:24):
not necessary, Like there's no rule book that you have
to submit to festivals. Sometimes a filmmaker might say, hey,
I don't really want to waste a lot of time
in the festival circuit. I'm just going to go straight
to distribution. I'm going to give my film to a
distributor and let them release it and try to start
generating you know, revenue and awareness through that as opposed
(01:45):
to going to festivals. So why would somebody want to
do a festival run. There's a few reasons, and in
no particular order. Number one, as an indie filmmaker, it
might be the only having your film shown in festivals
be the only time you actually see your film run
on a big screen, like a theatrical release of your movie,
(02:06):
or a theatrical screening of your movie. I mean sometimes
you know, as a filmmaker, you'll rent a theater for
a cast and crew and good friends screening, you know,
just as a party. But if you can't afford that,
or you haven't done that, maybe the only time you're
going to see your film exhibited on a big screen
would be at a festival. So that would be one
reason to do it. Albeit I wouldn't say a great reason,
(02:29):
but it's a reason. But closely related to that is
what I like about festivals is you're screening your movie,
usually for the first time, in front of an audience,
a third party audience that you don't know. Remember this
is a festival audience, right as opposed to a friendly
family and friend or crafts and crew screening where people
are gonna be friendly to you. So when you're screening
(02:52):
to a third party, armslength audience that you don't know,
it's interesting to see how they react to the movie
and to get their feed all right, So you're going
to get feedback in two ways. One is, and I
highly recommend you do this, that when your movie screens
at a festival, you should sit in the audience with
the audience, like, sit amongst them. Don't let them know
(03:13):
that you're the director, producer, whoever you are. Just sit
amongst them and watch them react to the to the movie.
That will be honest feedback. So often it's a good
way to get feedback about your movie. You see, when
people laugh, when they cry, when they cheer, when they boo,
when they hiss, when they don't pay attention, it's very
honest feedback because they don't know that they're sitting, you know,
(03:36):
with you the director of the movie. I'm just saying
you're the director and you're watching them honestly react to
your movie. And sometimes it's the first time you're going
to get that feedback because remember, when you're making the movie, well,
you haven't made the movie yet, so when it's finished,
unless you can put it onto in front of people
who you don't know. Sometimes you know, a friendly audience
(03:56):
is going to tell you what you want to hear,
as opposed to a real audience that will react the
way they truly feel. And then after the screening you'll
likely do a Q and A question and answer period
with them where you get other feedback. Now, sometimes the
Q and A can be a little tainted because depends
on the questions that get asked to you or the
way you answer or the information that you want to give.
(04:18):
So you know, depending on the dynamic of who's in
the audience. Sometimes it can be a really good Q
and A. Sometimes it could be sort of a very
low level kind of waste your time Q and A
in terms of getting feedback. But the reason a festival
is good is because as a filmmaker, you do get
feedback on your film. You get it, you know, through
(04:38):
primarily watching the film with the audience, and then the
Q and A. Number three would be the festival. I
call it the celebration of movie making. That's what festivals are.
Festivals are designed to celebrate, and I'm going to say
more so indie films than big budget Hollywood stuff. Now
(04:58):
the bigger festival you know, the sun Dances, the can
the Torontos, those festivals have emerged to become sort of
showcases for big Hollywood films. They didn't start out that way,
like Sundance. When Robert Redford started that festival, it was
truly an independent festival. But then for whatever reason, it
(05:19):
grew and grew and grew, and then it became sort
of one of the launch pads of some of the
bigger films. And now the bigger film festivals like the
ones I just mentioned they're dominated by big Hollywood films,
with especially star driven films, and it makes sense why
they would be because those people, those studios that are
making those films have big name actors and they can
(05:39):
afford to bring those actors to the festivals, which attract
a lot of big audiences. So the festivals like having
those movies because they like having those big name actors
there because that draws big crowds to the festival and
makes this festival very successful. But it's taken away the
whole component, which, in my estimation, the core component of
(06:00):
a festival is the celebration of indie filmmaking. Now with
the big Hollywood stuff, what it's become is the publicity
of a big Hollywood film, right because a lot of
press converge on the bigger festivals and the poparazzi to
take the pictures and do all that kind of stuff.
So those festivals have become very good launch pads for
(06:20):
bigger films. But the sort of the medium sized, smaller
festivals where indie filmmakers can still get in and their
films can still get acceptant. Albeit you can still get
into Sundays, it's just extremely rare that you would it's
like winning a lottery. But you know, once in a while,
somebody wins a lottery, right. The other festivals are meant
to be a celebration of filmmaking. It's meant to be
(06:41):
filmmakers get together, showcase their films to audiences that actually
appreciate good filmmaking, good art, and they celebrate together. And
there's lots of interaction. Like I just said, there's you know, screenings,
Q and A's after the screenings. There's lots of interaction
with filmmakers and patrons or other filmmakers in the bar,
in the restaurants, and the whole environment is let's talk
(07:04):
about the craft of filmmaking. Now. Once in a while,
distributors come the smaller festivals and medium sized festivals, they
don't come too often. So a lot of filmmakers say
to me, oh, the main reason that I go to
festival is that I'll get discovered by a distributor. So
let's just hold off on that for a second. Let
me just finish what I call the celebration of films.
(07:25):
So it's a party. You've put your heart and soul
into making a movie, and you just want to for
a week or a month or a year whatever, You're
going to do your festival run just to enjoy it,
just to celebrate your movie, just to talk to people
who actually appreciate what it takes to make a movie
and talk to you about the craft of filmmaking and
(07:47):
the art of it. I mean, that's where you're going
to get that kind of feedback. In contrast, you go
to a market, like you go to the American Film
Market or the Marche do Can which is right beside
the Can Film Festival, one of these other markets, I'm
not going to talk to you about the art of filmmaking.
They're not going to talk about plots and characters and
storylines and techniques that you use to film. That's festivals,
(08:10):
that's where you talk about that. In a market, you're
just going to talk about distribution. You're going to talk
about how the film's going to get released, how much
money it's going to generate, what the marketing campaign is
going to be. You're going to talk all the business stuff.
So it's not gonna be as much fun. It's not
a celebration. A market is the business of film, whereas
a festival is the art and celebration of film. That's
(08:30):
why films. That's why mar festivals are fun for filmmakers. Now,
as I said before, if a lot of filmmakers say, well,
I want to go to these festivals because this is
where the distributors go, and I'll get discovered. And we've
all heard the story where somebody screen they got discovered
and you know, and Netflix bought the movie for ten
million dollars. Once in a while you hear a story
like that. But I'm going to tell you, I'm going
(08:52):
to debunk this this podcast called Truth and Reality. I'm
going to tell you the truth and reality all right,
that rarely, if ever, actually happens. Maybe it happened once
or twice in the last decade, maybe, all right, for
the most part, these films. First of all, the distributors
generally only go to the bigger festivals a right. They
go to the big Hollywood celebrated movie festivals because that's
(09:16):
where they want to see the big films. All right. Now,
in addition to the big Hollywood films, you're gonna get
sort of secondary level films. You're not getting, you know,
micro budget films. You're not getting two hundred thousand, three hundred,
even seven hundred thousand dollars films. Sometimes you are you're
getting five million dollar films. So these are still what
I would call bigger budget films in the indie film world.
(09:37):
So they're going to can They're going to Berlin, Sundance,
these festivals, Toronto, and chances are most indie films aren't
getting into those festivals. So distributors are going there and
they're seeing sort of i'm gonna say a minus films,
and they'll pick them up. They'll definitely pick them up,
and some will get theatrical releases, some will be celebrated.
But I'm going to tell you that for the most part,
(09:58):
a lot of the films that they're going to see
they already know about. The festival is just putting them
in there so that the festival can kind of celebrate
the festival. These films are already pre spoken for. For
the most part, a lot of distributors already know. Because
if you get to a festival and the first time
you're seeing a film is at that screening and you're
sitting with twenty other distributors, it's kind of too late.
(10:22):
I know, I was a distributor. I sat in many
of those screenings. It's kind of too late. You do
not want to get into a bidding war with twenty
other distributors right after that screening. Chances are you've already
explored the film, and the reason you're going to go
watch it in the festival is you're going to see
what the audience, how their reaction is. You want to
see what they're going to do on the film that
you're hopefully already in negotiations on when you're a distributor.
(10:45):
Now the smaller festivals, chances are distributors are not going
to these festivals. Why because they don't believe the films
are worth seeing and acquiring. So I can't say it
happens all the time. Once in a while a distributor
will go to a smaller festival, but usually they don't go.
And again, I know I was in distribution for the
(11:07):
longest time. I know what festivals I went to. I
know which ones I didn't go to as a distributor,
as an acquisitions person, right as a filmmaker, I know
when I put my films into festivals where there were
distributors where there weren't. So for the most part, this
legendary myth about going to a festival and finding a
distributor is likely not going to happen. You want to
(11:28):
find a distributor and agent, you probably have to go
to a market, a film market, which can be super intimidating,
a lot more expensive. All right, Now, every once in
a while, at a festival, though, and here's the fourth
reason why festivals are good, is because they have seminars,
and they have learning, they have educational panels. A lot
of you know, the attendees, the patrons of the festival
(11:49):
go to those because they're curious to see what goes on.
And often the filmmakers talk those at those panels. But
as a filmmaker, there might be a panel on distribution
or on financing or stuff that you want a marketing.
So if and when there's panels like that at a
film festival, it's actually worthwhile to go because now they're inviting, say,
(12:10):
certain distributors to talk and do a panel at the festival,
and that's an opportunity to not only hear how it works,
but to maybe afterwards meet with one of those people
who is there, because now you see who they are,
so there may be at the bar later you can
approach them. Clearly, they're going to be receptive because they
came to the festival. So that's an opportunity for learning
(12:32):
and networking, and that is that's a real situation. But
not all festivals have those panels. Sometimes they publish what
they're going to do before they do it, or sometimes
it's a surprise, but that's also an opportunity, and that's
where you might get lucky and you might find a distributor.
But I'm also going to tell you, and you know
we've there's an episode just on how to find a distributor,
(12:55):
don't make that the exclusive way to find your distributor.
I mean, there might be five or six distributors, so
there's not going to be fifty of them. Not that
you have to talk to fifty, all right, So if
you find what you're looking for at the festival, the
chemistry's right with that distributor, you know, she says the
right things to you or he tells you what you
want to hear, and you like the chemistry, then that's fine.
(13:17):
Then you can get into the negotiation of the deal.
But if you don't like what you see, doesn't mean
there's not a lot of other distributors out there, so
you can still go shopping for them, and we'll talk
about how to get distributors in a different episode. So
festivals are great for those reasons, all right, A celebration
of film, perhaps finding a distributor, and an educational seminar,
seeing how the films get screened with audiences, a Q
(13:39):
and a chatting with other filmmakers, just celebrating your film.
Now here's the challenge with the whole festival thing. This
is where I frankly think it's sort of a bit
of a scam, the whole festival thing. It's it probably
didn't start off this way, but it's grown into this.
When you go to try to navigate the whole festival
submission world, it's very complex, confusing and a little bit aggravating.
(14:06):
And i'll tell you why. Now. Most of the festivals
use a clearing house cycle clearing platform called film Freeway.
Film Freeway, I gotta say I use it all the time.
It is a very well organized, professional, well run app
that allows you to submit to festivals. It is super
(14:26):
super well done. So kudos to you film Freeway people.
You made a great platform and made it so much
easier for filmmakers to submit to festivals. You go on too,
Film Freeway. For the most part. I mean not every
festival is accessible through film Freeway. There are some people
who just say no, you got to come directly to
our festival. But for the most part, most of the
festivals are accessible through this one platform called film Freeway.
(14:49):
All right, you could get a free account. There's paid
levels if you want, say more, you know, discounts or
marketing or whatever. They have Film Freeways, very well organized.
Go on to it. Check it out, all right. Now
you say, okay, now I'm on film Freeware. I got
an account, I set my film up. I want to
submit to festivals. You go on and you type in
festivals up. Pops, I don't know twelve thirteen, fourteen thousand festivals.
(15:12):
You can't possibly submit to all of them. So now
you've got to start to filter. So they have great
filtration tools down the left side. So number one would
be all right, are you submitting, say a feature or
a short? All right, So let's say it's a feature.
So right to say that eliminates I don't know, three
thousand festivals right there, because those were only for shorts.
Now you say it's a documentary or narrative. So you
(15:36):
say it's a narrative, So that's going to eliminate all
the festivals that are just for documentaries. Now you say
the genre, maybe it's a drama, family drama. So let's
say let's say it's a faith based family drama, and
you type that in right of way, you're going to
be down to, say, two thousand festivals from fourteen thousand festivals,
(15:58):
maybe less, maybe a thousand. So as you filter down
and you put in your criteria, then it filters them
and makes it more focused on what you should submit
to sooner or later. After you've done a lot of filtration,
then you can filter by price, how much the price
point is, how old the festival, like, how many years
the festival has been running. Location, obviously, do you want
(16:19):
it in the United States, you want it elsewhere around
the world. So there's lots of things you can filter down.
So you put in all your criteria and you get
it down to let's say, I don't know, I'm just
going to pick a number four hundred festivals that would
fit all your criteria. So now you've got to figure out, Okay,
these four hundred they all fit my criteria, which ones
(16:41):
am I going to submit to? Cause again, I doubt
you're going to submit to four hundred festivals. And the
average cost, by the way, depending on when you submit.
So if you submit, there's always sort of an early submission.
There's about five or six submission time frames. There would
be like the regular submission. Then there's an early submission,
which is a little cheaper the regular submission, and then
(17:02):
late submission, which costs you a little bit more. So
on average, I'm going to say, each festival is sort
of different, but on average, let's say a festival costs
I don't know, sixty dollars to submit to regular deadline,
forty dollars early, and eighty dollars late on average. All right,
the bigger festivals are a lot more money, the smaller
ones are a little cheaper. But let's say on average
(17:22):
that's it. So let's say it's sixty dollars on average
to submit. That's your submission fee, which is easy to
do on film Freeway. Put your credit card in, they
do all the they do everything for it. It's fantastic,
all right, But you're not gonna submit to four hundred
festivals at sixty dollars. That's twenty four thousand dollars. I
think if I did the math correct, and maybe you are.
But the other thing is, here's the reason why the
(17:45):
whole festival thing is crazy. When you go on and
you start. Now you've gotten the criteria down to those
four hundred. Now you start. What you're gonna do next
is probably you're gonna go on and you're gonna look
at the actual festivals. So each of the festivals has
a link to their website, or there's a listing in
film Freeway, sort of a description right there in the
(18:05):
app that you can go onto, and if you want
more details, it'll take you to the website. It'll tell
you exactly you know, all the details you know of
everything that goes on there, and comments and feedback from
other filmmakers, that kind of stuff. So now you're going
to have to choose. Let's say you say, okay, I
have a budget to go to twenty five submit to
twenty five festivals. So you've got to look at those
(18:26):
festivals and decide which of the twenty five of those
four hundred is best for you. So maybe you're going
to put in more criteria to get it down even lower.
Then you've got to choose certain criteria that is important.
To you like one of the criteria that I have
chosen when I'm submitting to festivals. And by the way,
I do not submit all my films to festivals. There's
(18:47):
just certain films, mostly the more dramatic ones. That's where
I like to kind of have some feedback from the audiences.
My criteria after I've whittled it down to you know
that four hundred is basically, if I get get accepted
to the festival that I submit to, will I actually
want to go to that festival. That's one of the
criterias that I use personally, and that has something to
(19:09):
do with how far it's going to be to travel.
Remember there's a cost to going to each of the festivals. Also,
by the way, if you get accepted, you don't have
to go. I mean you can just your film could
get accepted, it get screen at the festival. Not every
filmmaker can afford to go attend every festival. It's too
expensive and too time consuming, all right, so you don't
have to go, but you know, you generally want to
(19:31):
go for the reasons I said earlier. You want to
celebrate your film with other filmmakers, You want feedback, so
you you really kind of want to go to the
festivals that you get submitted to or that you get
accepted to. So one of my criteria is, if I
do get accepted at this festival, will I want to go?
Is it a city that I want to go or town, whatever,
it is a location that I want to go to
at that time of year. So I'll give you an example. Okay,
(19:54):
there's certain places that maybe get harsher winters and the
festivals during winter, and maybe I don't want to go
there during winter, even though I'm from Canada and I'm
used to winter. But sometimes maybe I don't want to
do a winter trip. Maybe I don't want to do
a hot summer trip. Maybe there's a certain location that
I haven't been to before, a certain city, and hence,
(20:14):
if I get selected to that festival, I would like
to go there, you know, not only to attend the festival,
but to check out the city. So I know that
sounds crazy because it's got nothing to do with filmmaking,
but it has a lot to do with the cost
of attending and experience because remember the screening the festivals
not full time. You know, you can do it full time,
but chances are you going to spend some time in
(20:35):
the city or do something else. All right, So one
of my criteria is where do I want to go?
That's important and how much is it going to cost
to get there? Is a direct flight? Am I going
across the country? Is it local? Can I drive? Those
are criteria because once you start doing the math on
adding up how many festivals you're going to attend and
(20:56):
how much it cost to attend you're going to see,
it could get very very expensive. Let's say a flight
is I don't know, five hundred dollars a domestic flight,
and you're going to spend three nights at the festival
at two hundred and fifty dollars a night or three
hundred whatever it is, So that's nine hundred and fourteen
hundred food, other stuff. You're two thousand dollars into the
(21:17):
festival in terms of travel, plus registration and all this
kind of stuff. If you're lucky. Now you do that
three or four times, and that's a pretty big chunk
of change if you're an indie filmmaker, So you got
to kind of be picky and choosey and decide which
festivals you want to attend. If you get selected and
how much it's going to cost. You got to do
a budget. Everything I've talked about so far is the
(21:38):
easy part. The trickiest part is this. And here's where
when I said it's a bit of a scam, here's
what I meant. All Right, there's a lot of festivals
that have criteria as to what the status of your
film is in terms of premierring. If you're going to
say a major festival like sun Dance or can or Toronto,
(22:00):
and the only way you can get accepted is if
you if your film is a world premiere, meaning it's
the first time that your film has screened publicly to
an audience. Now you can still do a cast and crew,
you know, screening a private one, but it's the first
time that your film has a screen publicly in front
of an audience, So can't have obviously been released yet,
(22:21):
and it has to have never played in front of
an audience worldwide in order to qualify for a festival
at that level. Also, it has to have been made
within a certain timeframe, so like within a year of
that festival, So you can't make the film two years
ago and then apply. It's got to be a very
recent film that is brand new and is the first
(22:43):
time it's screening. That's the top end stuff. Once you
start getting into, say, you know, the next tier, it
might be say a country premiere, like it's the first
time it's screen in the United States, anywhere in the
United States. The next tier might be a state. It's
the first time it's screen in California. The next tier
might be a city. It's the first time it's screen
in Los Angeles, all right, the next time next thing
(23:05):
might be a county. I don't know. You keep going
down and down and down, but let's just look at
those criteria to start with. All right. So here's the dilemma.
Every filmmaker when they make their movie, they dream of
being in Sundance. Any independent If you're an independent filmmaker,
trust me, when you make a movie, you have this idea.
I want to be in the Sundance Film Festival. Nice festival.
(23:26):
If you've been to Park City, wonderful place to go,
fun festival. Everything about it is great, all right, other
than it's the winter. But I don't even mind that
Sundance is in January. The festival, all right, and you
have to apply, you know, usually eight months six to
eight months before, and you're not going to get your
acceptance until two or three months before. Right. So now
(23:46):
you apply to Sundance, say six months before, and you're
waiting in June, right, and you're waiting, waiting, waiting until
say October, and I don't know exactly the dates, all right,
to see if you're accepted or not. Now you've applied to, say,
other festivals, like let's say you want to go to
the Denver Film Festival or something like that. You've applied
(24:06):
to twenty other festivals. Now you get accepted and you
applied all at the same time, all right, You put
all these applications in these submissions, and you get accepted
into a festival in Denver. Denver, nice place, nice city,
good audience, you know, nice place to visit, right middle
of the country, easy to get to. Except for one problem.
(24:28):
The Denver Festival is going to take place in say November,
and they're going to accept you in August, and you
have to accept their acceptance. So they say we've selected you.
Do you accept but you haven't. Remember, you have not
heard back from Sundance because you have to accept, say
in September, and you're not going to hear from Sundance
(24:50):
until October. The minute you accept that invitation at Denver,
you have basically precluded yourself from going to Sundance in January,
and you haven't even heard back from Sundance yet because
Sundance is not going to let you know until October.
But if you don't confirm with Denver in September, then
(25:10):
you're going to forego being in their festival because they
want to know that you're coming to their festival and
they can rely on your film being there. So you
have to make a decision. You have to decide, am
I going to keep the Sundance application open and live
and hopefully active by not accepting any other invitation because
I need to be a world premiere at Sundance, all right,
(25:33):
So I can't accept anything until after I hear back
from Sundance. Otherwise I preclude myself from going into Sundance.
If that's the way you want to do it, Like,
if you want to wait to hear from Sundance before
you accept any other submission, I strongly suggest you don't
bother submitting to anything that you're going to get accepted
to before you hear from Sundance because basically it's a
(25:55):
waste of your money because you're not going to accept
their acceptance. You're not going to confirm, which is really
a shame. And it's a super big struggle for a
lot of indie filmmakers because because often they get accepted
to these other festivals and they don't get accepted to Sundance,
and they've waited and waited and waited, and it's not
(26:16):
easy to get into Sundance. Okay, it's like one out
of I don't know what's it's like fifteen thousand submissions
last year, some crazy number, so the statistics are super low.
But it's a dream and the only way you can
realize that dream is to not preclude yourself because if
you do get accepted, it would be a shame if
you got accepted and you told them, oh, I've already
screened somewhere else. So you hold off. You hold off,
(26:37):
and you wait, and in some ways it's delusional, but
it's hope, and a lot of dreams are delusional. But
all these other festivals that you forewent the opportunity to go,
come and go and they bypass you. Now all of
a sudden, you've waited, you know, six months to a
year to get into a festival Sundance that you don't
get into and storry Sundance. I'm just using you as
(26:58):
an example. You're a great festival and I'm not picking
on sun Dance. Okay, it's a wonderful place to be
if you get accepted, just chances are you're not going to.
So you wait and wait and wait on this hope,
in this dream, and you basically, for I don't know,
eight ten twelve months, preclude every other festival because you
don't want to forego your opportunity to be in sun Dance.
(27:19):
What a shame like? I mean that to me is
why it's a bit of a scam, because to people
really care if you're a world premiere honestly, like your
low budget indie film. I get it, if you're a
big budget Hollywood film and you want to make a
big splash, But honestly, does it really matter? Does anybody
really care? This is why it really bothers me how
these festival submissions work, because as these festival operators actually
(27:43):
ever made a film, do they know what it's like
to have that feeling of being like having to not
be able to be accepted or screen in any other
festival waiting on the false hope that they're going to
be accepted to yours. It's just not fair, it's not right.
It doesn't make sense because nobody cares, you know. And
so you screen in Denver and you know, a couple
(28:04):
hundred people, maybe five hundred people see the film, whoop
do you do? They had a good time, they talk
about it. It's not gonna taint the screening at Sundance. Now,
the Sundance programmers who are listening to that saying yes
it will, Yes, it will, I say no, it won't,
And you're just basically you are playing with the minds
of filmmakers and it's really just it's so aggravating and
(28:29):
upsetting for those filmmakers who are listening, who have been
through this process and know what I'm talking about. Like,
there's so many other festivals that will accept your film,
smaller festivals albeit than Sundance, that are willing to accept
your film and celebrate your film. You might be the
premiere screening at a smaller festival when you're going to
be like the Tuesday morning at eight o'clock screening at
Sundance if you're lucky, when it's snowing, all right, So
(28:53):
having to wait and forego all these other opportunities in
the hopes that you're going to get into this bigger
festival is I call it a scam. It's a shame,
it's it's a farce. It doesn't make sense. It's not
good for filmmaking, it's not good for audiences, it's not
good for the industry, and there's no reason for it.
But it's the way it is, and you've got to
(29:14):
navigate it. You got to juggle it if that's how
you want to manage the festivals, because otherwise, you know,
if you did get accepted, you've precluded yourself. So I
frankly get super aggravated by that whole process. And then
there's all the timing as to when each thing is
going to happen. So you know, I'm just talking about
one festival Sundance. I mean, you add the layers, you
(29:37):
add in the layers of it's got to be, you know,
a country premiere, it's got to be a state premiere.
You do that, I mean literally, you need a very
sophisticated spreadsheet to plan and map out all of the
submissions so that if this were to happen, if this,
if this, and then the truth is all you're doing
really is submitting, so you have no idea who's going
(29:58):
to actually accept you. Right, so you can to throw
it out to basically throw spaghetti against the wall and
see what sticks. But when it sticks, you got to decide,
oh do I want it to stick? No, you got
to take it down because you want another piece to
stick better. So it's super complicated and super aggravating when
it comes to navigating that kind of thing. The other
thing about the festivals that is a little bit of
(30:19):
a scam is that there are a lot of what
I'm going to call illegitimate festivals. All right, This primarily
started as a result of COVID. When COVID hit, the
pandemic hit, festivals couldn't screen live obviously, right, Nobody could
go to movie theaters and sit together. So everybody went online.
And the minute they went online, it changed the whole
nature of a festival because the festivals meant to be
(30:41):
people gathering together. But you know, those couple of years
were tough years for everybody, so everything was online. Right now,
a lot of the festivals obviously have come back live,
which is great, but a lot of them have still
stayed online. Not only of a lot stayed online. Why
because it's cheaper for them. They don't have to rent
movie theaters or have any logistics or anything like that.
(31:02):
And they still charge the same submission fees, and you know,
and they still charge for screening patrons and stuff. It's
a different experience. But there's been hundreds and hundreds, perhaps thousands.
Film Freeway could statistically tell me of new festivals that
have come online recently that are all virtual. None of
them are physical. So they are all these brand new
(31:24):
festivals and contests and all this kind of stuff that
don't have any physical screenings. They're all virtual online and
they charge submission fees and they have what I'm gonna say,
bogus awards and all this kind of stuff, and they're
not real. I mean, I'm not sure they even have
any audience. I think that all they do is there's
(31:45):
the business model is just charging submission fees. So if
you could get you know, I don't know, two thousand
submissions at sixty dollars each, you make not a bad
living for running your festival twice a year online. And
it's just I just don't know if those are legitimate
(32:05):
and real. I think that a lot of filmmakers are
taken by them because a filmmaker has so much hope
to get, you know, into a festival, that they start
submitting to all these other ones. And I say, yeah,
but is it real, Like, what's the point of this one.
You're not gonna even sit with an audience, You're not
gonna get any reaction. There's no interaction. Yeah, they say
(32:27):
online there's some interaction, you know, And I'm I'm not
saying that can't happen. There can be you know, zoom
meeting rooms and chat rooms and stuff like that. So,
you know, I believe in technology, it is working, but
it's just not the same thing. So you got to
be very careful to figure out as a filmmaker where
you want to spend your money, where you want to
spend your time and energy, because it can get expensive.
(32:47):
Trust me, it starts to add up after a while.
Also gets a little demoralizing. When you get rejected from
these festivals. You're thinking, what the heck? You know, this
is a small festival. How come they didn't accept my film? Yeah,
you know, it's because they can't accept it all. So
the festival thing can be very rewarding and fun if
and when you get into the right festivals. And I'm
(33:08):
going to a festival this weekend. I one of my
films got accepted, and I'm going to I not a
huge festival guy anymore. I used to go a lot more,
but I'm looking forward to it. I think it's going
to be a good experience. I'm gonna put on my
filmmaker hat, hobnob with all the other filmmakers, hobnob with
the audience, going to wear my real filmmaker's hat as
(33:29):
opposed to my distributor's hat, because I know what I'm
going for. I'm going to have a good time, a
good social time, and celebrate the movie that I made,
all right. I'm not going for business. If some business happens, great,
and don't expect it to, all right. So film festivals
can be fun that way, and I'm going to have
a good time this weekend. But generally speaking, you got
to make sure that you can navigate this process properly
(33:52):
to know how to submit, to know how to filter,
to know how to choose, to know how to do
it in order. There are people actually who are consultants
who can help you with this. They're generally most of
them are are former festival programmers or people who don't
really understand how festivals work, and they can also put
in a good word with other festival programmers to maybe
(34:14):
get you higher in the pile. The last thing I'm
going to say about festivals, which is the other sort
of negative thing, is do they actually even watch your
movie when you submit it? I mean, seriously, they're getting
five ten thousand submissions. Do you know many people it
takes to watch, you know, ten thousand feature films? You
need an army of people. Do they even watch it?
(34:36):
And what's the criteria that they accept or some you know,
or reject on how do they compare them? So I'm
pretty darn convinced that most films don't even get watched.
Maybe maybe the first five minutes, maybe another two or
three minutes during the movie, make sure it's in focus,
that the story's still maybe a little bit, unless you're
the premiere film or the you know, one of the
(34:58):
big event films that and maybe your film's gonna get watched.
But for the most part, I don't know. I just
very skeptical on whether or not they actually watch the films.
Enough said, that's the festival thing. At some point, you're
an any filmmaker, you should definitely go through the process
and try it and hopefully enjoy it, but just know
the downsides and the backside of what really goes on
(35:19):
in festivals. As always, if you have questions or comments,
please hit the link on the podcast and send me
something and I'm always happy to hear from you. Good luck,
You've just finished making your epic indie feature film, and
now you want to get it out to the world. Often,
you're going to start with film festivals. You're going to
submit the film to many festivals. Hopefully you're going to
get accepted, and hopefully you're going to have fun screening
it in front of a lot of people. But navigating
the festival world is an art unto itself, and today
(00:20):
we're going to discuss it. If you want to be
a successful indie filmmaker, you need to know a lot
about not just the production of movies, but the business.
We are going to tell you the truth and reality
of what really happens in the indie film business. Hi, everybody,
(00:43):
welcome back to Indie Filmmaking Truth and Reality. I'm your host,
Jeff Deverett, and today we are going to take a
deep dive into film festivals. All filmmakers love the idea
of submitting to film festivals. You know, you've made your
epic feature film. Now you want the world to see it.
So basically going to potentially start with submissions to festivals
(01:04):
and then hopefully after that you release it and distribute
the movie. Now you don't have to do a festival
release or festival run. All right, A lot of filmmakers say,
oh no, no, I need to put my film into a
festival or in order to get notoriety, in order to
get buzz going, in order to get you know, some feedback,
that type of thing, which is all true, but it's
(01:24):
not necessary, Like there's no rule book that you have
to submit to festivals. Sometimes a filmmaker might say, hey,
I don't really want to waste a lot of time
in the festival circuit. I'm just going to go straight
to distribution. I'm going to give my film to a
distributor and let them release it and try to start
generating you know, revenue and awareness through that as opposed
(01:45):
to going to festivals. So why would somebody want to
do a festival run. There's a few reasons, and in
no particular order. Number one, as an indie filmmaker, it
might be the only having your film shown in festivals
be the only time you actually see your film run
on a big screen, like a theatrical release of your movie,
(02:06):
or a theatrical screening of your movie. I mean sometimes
you know, as a filmmaker, you'll rent a theater for
a cast and crew and good friends screening, you know,
just as a party. But if you can't afford that,
or you haven't done that, maybe the only time you're
going to see your film exhibited on a big screen
would be at a festival. So that would be one
reason to do it. Albeit I wouldn't say a great reason,
(02:29):
but it's a reason. But closely related to that is
what I like about festivals is you're screening your movie,
usually for the first time, in front of an audience,
a third party audience that you don't know. Remember this
is a festival audience, right as opposed to a friendly
family and friend or crafts and crew screening where people
are gonna be friendly to you. So when you're screening
(02:52):
to a third party, armslength audience that you don't know,
it's interesting to see how they react to the movie
and to get their feed all right, So you're going
to get feedback in two ways. One is, and I
highly recommend you do this, that when your movie screens
at a festival, you should sit in the audience with
the audience, like, sit amongst them. Don't let them know
(03:13):
that you're the director, producer, whoever you are. Just sit
amongst them and watch them react to the to the movie.
That will be honest feedback. So often it's a good
way to get feedback about your movie. You see, when
people laugh, when they cry, when they cheer, when they boo,
when they hiss, when they don't pay attention, it's very
honest feedback because they don't know that they're sitting, you know,
(03:36):
with you the director of the movie. I'm just saying
you're the director and you're watching them honestly react to
your movie. And sometimes it's the first time you're going
to get that feedback because remember, when you're making the movie, well,
you haven't made the movie yet, so when it's finished,
unless you can put it onto in front of people
who you don't know. Sometimes you know, a friendly audience
(03:56):
is going to tell you what you want to hear,
as opposed to a real audience that will react the
way they truly feel. And then after the screening you'll
likely do a Q and A question and answer period
with them where you get other feedback. Now, sometimes the
Q and A can be a little tainted because depends
on the questions that get asked to you or the
way you answer or the information that you want to give.
(04:18):
So you know, depending on the dynamic of who's in
the audience. Sometimes it can be a really good Q
and A. Sometimes it could be sort of a very
low level kind of waste your time Q and A
in terms of getting feedback. But the reason a festival
is good is because as a filmmaker, you do get
feedback on your film. You get it, you know, through
(04:38):
primarily watching the film with the audience, and then the
Q and A. Number three would be the festival. I
call it the celebration of movie making. That's what festivals are.
Festivals are designed to celebrate, and I'm going to say
more so indie films than big budget Hollywood stuff. Now
(04:58):
the bigger festival you know, the sun Dances, the can
the Torontos, those festivals have emerged to become sort of
showcases for big Hollywood films. They didn't start out that way,
like Sundance. When Robert Redford started that festival, it was
truly an independent festival. But then for whatever reason, it
(05:19):
grew and grew and grew, and then it became sort
of one of the launch pads of some of the
bigger films. And now the bigger film festivals like the
ones I just mentioned they're dominated by big Hollywood films,
with especially star driven films, and it makes sense why
they would be because those people, those studios that are
making those films have big name actors and they can
(05:39):
afford to bring those actors to the festivals, which attract
a lot of big audiences. So the festivals like having
those movies because they like having those big name actors
there because that draws big crowds to the festival and
makes this festival very successful. But it's taken away the
whole component, which, in my estimation, the core component of
(06:00):
a festival is the celebration of indie filmmaking. Now with
the big Hollywood stuff, what it's become is the publicity
of a big Hollywood film, right because a lot of
press converge on the bigger festivals and the poparazzi to
take the pictures and do all that kind of stuff.
So those festivals have become very good launch pads for
(06:20):
bigger films. But the sort of the medium sized, smaller
festivals where indie filmmakers can still get in and their
films can still get acceptant. Albeit you can still get
into Sundays, it's just extremely rare that you would it's
like winning a lottery. But you know, once in a while,
somebody wins a lottery, right. The other festivals are meant
to be a celebration of filmmaking. It's meant to be
(06:41):
filmmakers get together, showcase their films to audiences that actually
appreciate good filmmaking, good art, and they celebrate together. And
there's lots of interaction. Like I just said, there's you know, screenings,
Q and A's after the screenings. There's lots of interaction
with filmmakers and patrons or other filmmakers in the bar,
in the restaurants, and the whole environment is let's talk
(07:04):
about the craft of filmmaking. Now. Once in a while,
distributors come the smaller festivals and medium sized festivals, they
don't come too often. So a lot of filmmakers say
to me, oh, the main reason that I go to
festival is that I'll get discovered by a distributor. So
let's just hold off on that for a second. Let
me just finish what I call the celebration of films.
(07:25):
So it's a party. You've put your heart and soul
into making a movie, and you just want to for
a week or a month or a year whatever, You're
going to do your festival run just to enjoy it,
just to celebrate your movie, just to talk to people
who actually appreciate what it takes to make a movie
and talk to you about the craft of filmmaking and
(07:47):
the art of it. I mean, that's where you're going
to get that kind of feedback. In contrast, you go
to a market, like you go to the American Film
Market or the Marche do Can which is right beside
the Can Film Festival, one of these other markets, I'm
not going to talk to you about the art of filmmaking.
They're not going to talk about plots and characters and
storylines and techniques that you use to film. That's festivals,
(08:10):
that's where you talk about that. In a market, you're
just going to talk about distribution. You're going to talk
about how the film's going to get released, how much
money it's going to generate, what the marketing campaign is
going to be. You're going to talk all the business stuff.
So it's not gonna be as much fun. It's not
a celebration. A market is the business of film, whereas
a festival is the art and celebration of film. That's
(08:30):
why films. That's why mar festivals are fun for filmmakers. Now,
as I said before, if a lot of filmmakers say, well,
I want to go to these festivals because this is
where the distributors go, and I'll get discovered. And we've
all heard the story where somebody screen they got discovered
and you know, and Netflix bought the movie for ten
million dollars. Once in a while you hear a story
like that. But I'm going to tell you, I'm going
(08:52):
to debunk this this podcast called Truth and Reality. I'm
going to tell you the truth and reality all right,
that rarely, if ever, actually happens. Maybe it happened once
or twice in the last decade, maybe, all right, for
the most part, these films. First of all, the distributors
generally only go to the bigger festivals a right. They
go to the big Hollywood celebrated movie festivals because that's
(09:16):
where they want to see the big films. All right. Now,
in addition to the big Hollywood films, you're gonna get
sort of secondary level films. You're not getting, you know,
micro budget films. You're not getting two hundred thousand, three hundred,
even seven hundred thousand dollars films. Sometimes you are you're
getting five million dollar films. So these are still what
I would call bigger budget films in the indie film world.
(09:37):
So they're going to can They're going to Berlin, Sundance,
these festivals, Toronto, and chances are most indie films aren't
getting into those festivals. So distributors are going there and
they're seeing sort of i'm gonna say a minus films,
and they'll pick them up. They'll definitely pick them up,
and some will get theatrical releases, some will be celebrated.
But I'm going to tell you that for the most part,
(09:58):
a lot of the films that they're going to see
they already know about. The festival is just putting them
in there so that the festival can kind of celebrate
the festival. These films are already pre spoken for. For
the most part, a lot of distributors already know. Because
if you get to a festival and the first time
you're seeing a film is at that screening and you're
sitting with twenty other distributors, it's kind of too late.
(10:22):
I know, I was a distributor. I sat in many
of those screenings. It's kind of too late. You do
not want to get into a bidding war with twenty
other distributors right after that screening. Chances are you've already
explored the film, and the reason you're going to go
watch it in the festival is you're going to see
what the audience, how their reaction is. You want to
see what they're going to do on the film that
you're hopefully already in negotiations on when you're a distributor.
(10:45):
Now the smaller festivals, chances are distributors are not going
to these festivals. Why because they don't believe the films
are worth seeing and acquiring. So I can't say it
happens all the time. Once in a while a distributor
will go to a smaller festival, but usually they don't go.
And again, I know I was in distribution for the
(11:07):
longest time. I know what festivals I went to. I
know which ones I didn't go to as a distributor,
as an acquisitions person, right as a filmmaker, I know
when I put my films into festivals where there were
distributors where there weren't. So for the most part, this
legendary myth about going to a festival and finding a
distributor is likely not going to happen. You want to
(11:28):
find a distributor and agent, you probably have to go
to a market, a film market, which can be super intimidating,
a lot more expensive. All right, Now, every once in
a while, at a festival, though, and here's the fourth
reason why festivals are good, is because they have seminars,
and they have learning, they have educational panels. A lot
of you know, the attendees, the patrons of the festival
(11:49):
go to those because they're curious to see what goes on.
And often the filmmakers talk those at those panels. But
as a filmmaker, there might be a panel on distribution
or on financing or stuff that you want a marketing.
So if and when there's panels like that at a
film festival, it's actually worthwhile to go because now they're inviting, say,
(12:10):
certain distributors to talk and do a panel at the festival,
and that's an opportunity to not only hear how it works,
but to maybe afterwards meet with one of those people
who is there, because now you see who they are,
so there may be at the bar later you can
approach them. Clearly, they're going to be receptive because they
came to the festival. So that's an opportunity for learning
(12:32):
and networking, and that is that's a real situation. But
not all festivals have those panels. Sometimes they publish what
they're going to do before they do it, or sometimes
it's a surprise, but that's also an opportunity, and that's
where you might get lucky and you might find a distributor.
But I'm also going to tell you, and you know
we've there's an episode just on how to find a distributor,
(12:55):
don't make that the exclusive way to find your distributor.
I mean, there might be five or six distributors, so
there's not going to be fifty of them. Not that
you have to talk to fifty, all right, So if
you find what you're looking for at the festival, the
chemistry's right with that distributor, you know, she says the
right things to you or he tells you what you
want to hear, and you like the chemistry, then that's fine.
(13:17):
Then you can get into the negotiation of the deal.
But if you don't like what you see, doesn't mean
there's not a lot of other distributors out there, so
you can still go shopping for them, and we'll talk
about how to get distributors in a different episode. So
festivals are great for those reasons, all right, A celebration
of film, perhaps finding a distributor, and an educational seminar,
seeing how the films get screened with audiences, a Q
(13:39):
and a chatting with other filmmakers, just celebrating your film.
Now here's the challenge with the whole festival thing. This
is where I frankly think it's sort of a bit
of a scam, the whole festival thing. It's it probably
didn't start off this way, but it's grown into this.
When you go to try to navigate the whole festival
submission world, it's very complex, confusing and a little bit aggravating.
(14:06):
And i'll tell you why. Now. Most of the festivals
use a clearing house cycle clearing platform called film Freeway.
Film Freeway, I gotta say I use it all the time.
It is a very well organized, professional, well run app
that allows you to submit to festivals. It is super
(14:26):
super well done. So kudos to you film Freeway people.
You made a great platform and made it so much
easier for filmmakers to submit to festivals. You go on too,
Film Freeway. For the most part. I mean not every
festival is accessible through film Freeway. There are some people
who just say no, you got to come directly to
our festival. But for the most part, most of the
festivals are accessible through this one platform called film Freeway.
(14:49):
All right, you could get a free account. There's paid
levels if you want, say more, you know, discounts or
marketing or whatever. They have Film Freeways, very well organized.
Go on to it. Check it out, all right. Now
you say, okay, now I'm on film Freeware. I got
an account, I set my film up. I want to
submit to festivals. You go on and you type in
festivals up. Pops, I don't know twelve thirteen, fourteen thousand festivals.
(15:12):
You can't possibly submit to all of them. So now
you've got to start to filter. So they have great
filtration tools down the left side. So number one would
be all right, are you submitting, say a feature or
a short? All right, So let's say it's a feature.
So right to say that eliminates I don't know, three
thousand festivals right there, because those were only for shorts.
Now you say it's a documentary or narrative. So you
(15:36):
say it's a narrative, So that's going to eliminate all
the festivals that are just for documentaries. Now you say
the genre, maybe it's a drama, family drama. So let's
say let's say it's a faith based family drama, and
you type that in right of way, you're going to
be down to, say, two thousand festivals from fourteen thousand festivals,
(15:58):
maybe less, maybe a thousand. So as you filter down
and you put in your criteria, then it filters them
and makes it more focused on what you should submit
to sooner or later. After you've done a lot of filtration,
then you can filter by price, how much the price
point is, how old the festival, like, how many years
the festival has been running. Location, obviously, do you want
(16:19):
it in the United States, you want it elsewhere around
the world. So there's lots of things you can filter down.
So you put in all your criteria and you get
it down to let's say, I don't know, I'm just
going to pick a number four hundred festivals that would
fit all your criteria. So now you've got to figure out, Okay,
these four hundred they all fit my criteria, which ones
(16:41):
am I going to submit to? Cause again, I doubt
you're going to submit to four hundred festivals. And the
average cost, by the way, depending on when you submit.
So if you submit, there's always sort of an early submission.
There's about five or six submission time frames. There would
be like the regular submission. Then there's an early submission,
which is a little cheaper the regular submission, and then
(17:02):
late submission, which costs you a little bit more. So
on average, I'm going to say, each festival is sort
of different, but on average, let's say a festival costs
I don't know, sixty dollars to submit to regular deadline,
forty dollars early, and eighty dollars late on average. All right,
the bigger festivals are a lot more money, the smaller
ones are a little cheaper. But let's say on average
(17:22):
that's it. So let's say it's sixty dollars on average
to submit. That's your submission fee, which is easy to
do on film Freeway. Put your credit card in, they
do all the they do everything for it. It's fantastic,
all right, But you're not gonna submit to four hundred
festivals at sixty dollars. That's twenty four thousand dollars. I
think if I did the math correct, and maybe you are.
But the other thing is, here's the reason why the
(17:45):
whole festival thing is crazy. When you go on and
you start. Now you've gotten the criteria down to those
four hundred. Now you start. What you're gonna do next
is probably you're gonna go on and you're gonna look
at the actual festivals. So each of the festivals has
a link to their website, or there's a listing in
film Freeway, sort of a description right there in the
(18:05):
app that you can go onto, and if you want
more details, it'll take you to the website. It'll tell
you exactly you know, all the details you know of
everything that goes on there, and comments and feedback from
other filmmakers, that kind of stuff. So now you're going
to have to choose. Let's say you say, okay, I
have a budget to go to twenty five submit to
twenty five festivals. So you've got to look at those
(18:26):
festivals and decide which of the twenty five of those
four hundred is best for you. So maybe you're going
to put in more criteria to get it down even lower.
Then you've got to choose certain criteria that is important.
To you like one of the criteria that I have
chosen when I'm submitting to festivals. And by the way,
I do not submit all my films to festivals. There's
(18:47):
just certain films, mostly the more dramatic ones. That's where
I like to kind of have some feedback from the audiences.
My criteria after I've whittled it down to you know
that four hundred is basically, if I get get accepted
to the festival that I submit to, will I actually
want to go to that festival. That's one of the
criterias that I use personally, and that has something to
(19:09):
do with how far it's going to be to travel.
Remember there's a cost to going to each of the festivals. Also,
by the way, if you get accepted, you don't have
to go. I mean you can just your film could
get accepted, it get screen at the festival. Not every
filmmaker can afford to go attend every festival. It's too
expensive and too time consuming, all right, so you don't
have to go, but you know, you generally want to
(19:31):
go for the reasons I said earlier. You want to
celebrate your film with other filmmakers, You want feedback, so
you you really kind of want to go to the
festivals that you get submitted to or that you get
accepted to. So one of my criteria is, if I
do get accepted at this festival, will I want to go?
Is it a city that I want to go or town, whatever,
it is a location that I want to go to
at that time of year. So I'll give you an example. Okay,
(19:54):
there's certain places that maybe get harsher winters and the
festivals during winter, and maybe I don't want to go
there during winter, even though I'm from Canada and I'm
used to winter. But sometimes maybe I don't want to
do a winter trip. Maybe I don't want to do
a hot summer trip. Maybe there's a certain location that
I haven't been to before, a certain city, and hence,
(20:14):
if I get selected to that festival, I would like
to go there, you know, not only to attend the festival,
but to check out the city. So I know that
sounds crazy because it's got nothing to do with filmmaking,
but it has a lot to do with the cost
of attending and experience because remember the screening the festivals
not full time. You know, you can do it full time,
but chances are you going to spend some time in
(20:35):
the city or do something else. All right, So one
of my criteria is where do I want to go?
That's important and how much is it going to cost
to get there? Is a direct flight? Am I going
across the country? Is it local? Can I drive? Those
are criteria because once you start doing the math on
adding up how many festivals you're going to attend and
(20:56):
how much it cost to attend you're going to see,
it could get very very expensive. Let's say a flight
is I don't know, five hundred dollars a domestic flight,
and you're going to spend three nights at the festival
at two hundred and fifty dollars a night or three
hundred whatever it is, So that's nine hundred and fourteen
hundred food, other stuff. You're two thousand dollars into the
(21:17):
festival in terms of travel, plus registration and all this
kind of stuff. If you're lucky. Now you do that
three or four times, and that's a pretty big chunk
of change if you're an indie filmmaker, So you got
to kind of be picky and choosey and decide which
festivals you want to attend. If you get selected and
how much it's going to cost. You got to do
a budget. Everything I've talked about so far is the
(21:38):
easy part. The trickiest part is this. And here's where
when I said it's a bit of a scam, here's
what I meant. All Right, there's a lot of festivals
that have criteria as to what the status of your
film is in terms of premierring. If you're going to
say a major festival like sun Dance or can or Toronto,
(22:00):
and the only way you can get accepted is if
you if your film is a world premiere, meaning it's
the first time that your film has screened publicly to
an audience. Now you can still do a cast and crew,
you know, screening a private one, but it's the first
time that your film has a screen publicly in front
of an audience, So can't have obviously been released yet,
(22:21):
and it has to have never played in front of
an audience worldwide in order to qualify for a festival
at that level. Also, it has to have been made
within a certain timeframe, so like within a year of
that festival, So you can't make the film two years
ago and then apply. It's got to be a very
recent film that is brand new and is the first
(22:43):
time it's screening. That's the top end stuff. Once you
start getting into, say, you know, the next tier, it
might be say a country premiere, like it's the first
time it's screen in the United States, anywhere in the
United States. The next tier might be a state. It's
the first time it's screen in California. The next tier
might be a city. It's the first time it's screen
in Los Angeles, all right, the next time next thing
(23:05):
might be a county. I don't know. You keep going
down and down and down, but let's just look at
those criteria to start with. All right. So here's the dilemma.
Every filmmaker when they make their movie, they dream of
being in Sundance. Any independent If you're an independent filmmaker,
trust me, when you make a movie, you have this idea.
I want to be in the Sundance Film Festival. Nice festival.
(23:26):
If you've been to Park City, wonderful place to go,
fun festival. Everything about it is great, all right, other
than it's the winter. But I don't even mind that
Sundance is in January. The festival, all right, and you
have to apply, you know, usually eight months six to
eight months before, and you're not going to get your
acceptance until two or three months before. Right. So now
(23:46):
you apply to Sundance, say six months before, and you're
waiting in June, right, and you're waiting, waiting, waiting until
say October, and I don't know exactly the dates, all right,
to see if you're accepted or not. Now you've applied to, say,
other festivals, like let's say you want to go to
the Denver Film Festival or something like that. You've applied
(24:06):
to twenty other festivals. Now you get accepted and you
applied all at the same time, all right, You put
all these applications in these submissions, and you get accepted
into a festival in Denver. Denver, nice place, nice city,
good audience, you know, nice place to visit, right middle
of the country, easy to get to. Except for one problem.
(24:28):
The Denver Festival is going to take place in say November,
and they're going to accept you in August, and you
have to accept their acceptance. So they say we've selected you.
Do you accept but you haven't. Remember, you have not
heard back from Sundance because you have to accept, say
in September, and you're not going to hear from Sundance
(24:50):
until October. The minute you accept that invitation at Denver,
you have basically precluded yourself from going to Sundance in January,
and you haven't even heard back from Sundance yet because
Sundance is not going to let you know until October.
But if you don't confirm with Denver in September, then
(25:10):
you're going to forego being in their festival because they
want to know that you're coming to their festival and
they can rely on your film being there. So you
have to make a decision. You have to decide, am
I going to keep the Sundance application open and live
and hopefully active by not accepting any other invitation because
I need to be a world premiere at Sundance, all right,
(25:33):
So I can't accept anything until after I hear back
from Sundance. Otherwise I preclude myself from going into Sundance.
If that's the way you want to do it, Like,
if you want to wait to hear from Sundance before
you accept any other submission, I strongly suggest you don't
bother submitting to anything that you're going to get accepted
to before you hear from Sundance because basically it's a
(25:55):
waste of your money because you're not going to accept
their acceptance. You're not going to confirm, which is really
a shame. And it's a super big struggle for a
lot of indie filmmakers because because often they get accepted
to these other festivals and they don't get accepted to Sundance,
and they've waited and waited and waited, and it's not
(26:16):
easy to get into Sundance. Okay, it's like one out
of I don't know what's it's like fifteen thousand submissions
last year, some crazy number, so the statistics are super low.
But it's a dream and the only way you can
realize that dream is to not preclude yourself because if
you do get accepted, it would be a shame if
you got accepted and you told them, oh, I've already
screened somewhere else. So you hold off. You hold off,
(26:37):
and you wait, and in some ways it's delusional, but
it's hope, and a lot of dreams are delusional. But
all these other festivals that you forewent the opportunity to go,
come and go and they bypass you. Now all of
a sudden, you've waited, you know, six months to a
year to get into a festival Sundance that you don't
get into and storry Sundance. I'm just using you as
(26:58):
an example. You're a great festival and I'm not picking
on sun Dance. Okay, it's a wonderful place to be
if you get accepted, just chances are you're not going to.
So you wait and wait and wait on this hope,
in this dream, and you basically, for I don't know,
eight ten twelve months, preclude every other festival because you
don't want to forego your opportunity to be in sun Dance.
(27:19):
What a shame like? I mean that to me is
why it's a bit of a scam, because to people
really care if you're a world premiere honestly, like your
low budget indie film. I get it, if you're a
big budget Hollywood film and you want to make a
big splash, But honestly, does it really matter? Does anybody
really care? This is why it really bothers me how
these festival submissions work, because as these festival operators actually
(27:43):
ever made a film, do they know what it's like
to have that feeling of being like having to not
be able to be accepted or screen in any other
festival waiting on the false hope that they're going to
be accepted to yours. It's just not fair, it's not right.
It doesn't make sense because nobody cares, you know. And
so you screen in Denver and you know, a couple
(28:04):
hundred people, maybe five hundred people see the film, whoop
do you do? They had a good time, they talk
about it. It's not gonna taint the screening at Sundance. Now,
the Sundance programmers who are listening to that saying yes
it will, Yes, it will, I say no, it won't,
And you're just basically you are playing with the minds
of filmmakers and it's really just it's so aggravating and
(28:29):
upsetting for those filmmakers who are listening, who have been
through this process and know what I'm talking about. Like,
there's so many other festivals that will accept your film,
smaller festivals albeit than Sundance, that are willing to accept
your film and celebrate your film. You might be the
premiere screening at a smaller festival when you're going to
be like the Tuesday morning at eight o'clock screening at
Sundance if you're lucky, when it's snowing, all right, So
(28:53):
having to wait and forego all these other opportunities in
the hopes that you're going to get into this bigger
festival is I call it a scam. It's a shame,
it's it's a farce. It doesn't make sense. It's not
good for filmmaking, it's not good for audiences, it's not
good for the industry, and there's no reason for it.
But it's the way it is, and you've got to
(29:14):
navigate it. You got to juggle it if that's how
you want to manage the festivals, because otherwise, you know,
if you did get accepted, you've precluded yourself. So I
frankly get super aggravated by that whole process. And then
there's all the timing as to when each thing is
going to happen. So you know, I'm just talking about
one festival Sundance. I mean, you add the layers, you
(29:37):
add in the layers of it's got to be, you know,
a country premiere, it's got to be a state premiere.
You do that, I mean literally, you need a very
sophisticated spreadsheet to plan and map out all of the
submissions so that if this were to happen, if this,
if this, and then the truth is all you're doing
really is submitting, so you have no idea who's going
(29:58):
to actually accept you. Right, so you can to throw
it out to basically throw spaghetti against the wall and
see what sticks. But when it sticks, you got to decide,
oh do I want it to stick? No, you got
to take it down because you want another piece to
stick better. So it's super complicated and super aggravating when
it comes to navigating that kind of thing. The other
thing about the festivals that is a little bit of
(30:19):
a scam is that there are a lot of what
I'm going to call illegitimate festivals. All right, This primarily
started as a result of COVID. When COVID hit, the
pandemic hit, festivals couldn't screen live obviously, right, Nobody could
go to movie theaters and sit together. So everybody went online.
And the minute they went online, it changed the whole
nature of a festival because the festivals meant to be
(30:41):
people gathering together. But you know, those couple of years
were tough years for everybody, so everything was online. Right now,
a lot of the festivals obviously have come back live,
which is great, but a lot of them have still
stayed online. Not only of a lot stayed online. Why
because it's cheaper for them. They don't have to rent
movie theaters or have any logistics or anything like that.
(31:02):
And they still charge the same submission fees, and you know,
and they still charge for screening patrons and stuff. It's
a different experience. But there's been hundreds and hundreds, perhaps thousands.
Film Freeway could statistically tell me of new festivals that
have come online recently that are all virtual. None of
them are physical. So they are all these brand new
(31:24):
festivals and contests and all this kind of stuff that
don't have any physical screenings. They're all virtual online and
they charge submission fees and they have what I'm gonna say,
bogus awards and all this kind of stuff, and they're
not real. I mean, I'm not sure they even have
any audience. I think that all they do is there's
(31:45):
the business model is just charging submission fees. So if
you could get you know, I don't know, two thousand
submissions at sixty dollars each, you make not a bad
living for running your festival twice a year online. And
it's just I just don't know if those are legitimate
(32:05):
and real. I think that a lot of filmmakers are
taken by them because a filmmaker has so much hope
to get, you know, into a festival, that they start
submitting to all these other ones. And I say, yeah,
but is it real, Like, what's the point of this one.
You're not gonna even sit with an audience, You're not
gonna get any reaction. There's no interaction. Yeah, they say
(32:27):
online there's some interaction, you know, And I'm I'm not
saying that can't happen. There can be you know, zoom
meeting rooms and chat rooms and stuff like that. So,
you know, I believe in technology, it is working, but
it's just not the same thing. So you got to
be very careful to figure out as a filmmaker where
you want to spend your money, where you want to
spend your time and energy, because it can get expensive.
(32:47):
Trust me, it starts to add up after a while.
Also gets a little demoralizing. When you get rejected from
these festivals. You're thinking, what the heck? You know, this
is a small festival. How come they didn't accept my film? Yeah,
you know, it's because they can't accept it all. So
the festival thing can be very rewarding and fun if
and when you get into the right festivals. And I'm
(33:08):
going to a festival this weekend. I one of my
films got accepted, and I'm going to I not a
huge festival guy anymore. I used to go a lot more,
but I'm looking forward to it. I think it's going
to be a good experience. I'm gonna put on my
filmmaker hat, hobnob with all the other filmmakers, hobnob with
the audience, going to wear my real filmmaker's hat as
(33:29):
opposed to my distributor's hat, because I know what I'm
going for. I'm going to have a good time, a
good social time, and celebrate the movie that I made,
all right. I'm not going for business. If some business happens, great,
and don't expect it to, all right. So film festivals
can be fun that way, and I'm going to have
a good time this weekend. But generally speaking, you got
to make sure that you can navigate this process properly
(33:52):
to know how to submit, to know how to filter,
to know how to choose, to know how to do
it in order. There are people actually who are consultants
who can help you with this. They're generally most of
them are are former festival programmers or people who don't
really understand how festivals work, and they can also put
in a good word with other festival programmers to maybe
(34:14):
get you higher in the pile. The last thing I'm
going to say about festivals, which is the other sort
of negative thing, is do they actually even watch your
movie when you submit it? I mean, seriously, they're getting
five ten thousand submissions. Do you know many people it
takes to watch, you know, ten thousand feature films? You
need an army of people. Do they even watch it?
(34:36):
And what's the criteria that they accept or some you know,
or reject on how do they compare them? So I'm
pretty darn convinced that most films don't even get watched.
Maybe maybe the first five minutes, maybe another two or
three minutes during the movie, make sure it's in focus,
that the story's still maybe a little bit, unless you're
the premiere film or the you know, one of the
(34:58):
big event films that and maybe your film's gonna get watched.
But for the most part, I don't know. I just
very skeptical on whether or not they actually watch the films.
Enough said, that's the festival thing. At some point, you're
an any filmmaker, you should definitely go through the process
and try it and hopefully enjoy it, but just know
the downsides and the backside of what really goes on
(35:19):
in festivals. As always, if you have questions or comments,
please hit the link on the podcast and send me
something and I'm always happy to hear from you. Good luck,
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