September 3, 2025 • 37 mins
In this episode, we dive into the truth behind the film festival circuit and what indie filmmakers really need to know before submitting their work. From the celebration of cinema to the harsh realities of distribution, we explore how festivals actually function, which ones matter most, and why expectations need to be managed.Listeners will learn:
- Why film festivals are more about celebration and networking than distribution deals.
- The difference between A-level festivals (like Sundance, Cannes, TIFF) and smaller regional events.
- How platforms like FilmFreeway make submissions easier—but also overwhelming with thousands of options.
- The importance of budgeting for submissions and travel, and why choosing festivals based on location and experience might matter as much as prestige.
- The reality of acceptance rates, subjectivity, and premier rules that can affect strategy.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Indie filmmakers get really excited about putting their films into
film festivals. Some of the festivals are fantastic and some
of them aren't. Today, we're going to look at the
inside workings of film festivals. If you want to be
a successful indie filmmaker, you need to know a lot
(00:20):
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. All right,
so you've made an indie feature film and it's pretty good.
You made a good film. Congratulations, Now what do you
do with it? So a lot of filmmakers, so I say,
(00:43):
you should really start thinking about distribution. Now, obviously I
say you should start thinking about distribution before you make
your film. But you know, a lot of filmmakers don't
listen to me, and they go and make the film.
Then they start thinking about distribution. But generally, sort of
the first step that they think about in distribution, I
don't even think they call it distribution. They think I
need to submit my film to film festivals, like I
(01:05):
need to go through what we call the festival circuit.
And I say, okay, no problem. So let's just talk
about what that's all about for those of you who
haven't experienced sort of the film festival circuit. And obviously
I'm going to talk from my perspective as they do always,
you know, on all the topics. What is a film festival.
Here's what I think a film festival is. A film
(01:26):
festival is basically the celebration of filmmaking. That's what it is.
The celebration, all right. It is really not the business
of film sales. It's the celebration of making movies. That's
what film festivals were designed for. The design for filmmakers
to basically showcase their work of art to the general
(01:49):
public or to other filmmakers in the industry and celebrate
what they created, their work of art. That was the
concept behind film festivals when they first started, and it
still is to this day. Right now, some of the
bigger festivals have moved into the whole business side of
the business. But for the most part, it could be
the only time your film actually gets screened in a
(02:10):
movie theater on a big screen, a big environment, and
maybe the only time your film will ever be in
that environment in front of an audience. So as a filmmaker.
You get to go. Hopefully the festival is live, like
some festivals are online. We'll talk about that after, but
the festival that a live festival. You get to go,
there's an actual screening or two people come, they buy tickets,
(02:32):
they sit there, their real audience, and then afterwards, generally
there's a Q and A with the director or some
of the actors or the producer whatever, and you get
to People get to ask you questions about how do
you make the film, what was your motivation, you know,
just the stuff that people are curious about. And during
the film you get to see the reaction, you get
to ask them questions what you think, and it's a
(02:52):
nice interaction of filmmakers conversing and interacting with hopefully real audience.
Sometimes it's the only time you actually get to do
that as a filmmaker, because then when your film goes
into distribution and maybe goes onto streaming platforms or something
like that, you get absolutely no feedback. So that's why
I call it the celebration. In addition, you can hopefully
(03:14):
get accolades. The simplest accolade is after the film plays,
people clap we liked your film. Hopefully or they clap
out of you know, courtesy, maybe you win an award,
maybe your film, you know, gets celebrated with higher with
rewards and stuff like that. So it's really fun. Filmfests
was are really fun for filmmakers because of the interactivity
(03:37):
and you know, the accolades because sometimes, like I said,
it's the only time you're going to get that. In addition,
you're hobnobbing with other creative people like yourself, other filmmakers.
So generate a festival, they'll be I don't know, twenty
thirty forty filmmakers whose films got submitted and were shown
at the festival, and then you know, potentially maybe hundreds
(03:58):
of other filmmakers who were interested to see other people's films.
So that's a nice environment too. You get to network
with these people, you get to talk with them, and
they're like minded people. They're also creatives, they've made films.
You talk about the crafting of films and the crafting
of scenes and stories and stuff like that. That's the
nice environment and part of the festival. So a lot
(04:21):
of people, a lot of filmmakers say to me, oh,
but the other reason I like doing festivals is so
that my film will get discovered because distributors send representatives
to the festivals and hopefully they will watch my film
and discover it and want to do a distribution deal
with me. So let me just debunk that legend. All right.
Does that happen? Yes, but only at the top. I'm
(04:43):
going to say ten festivals maybe in the world, like
Sun Dance Can Toronto, Berlin, like the big Venice, the big,
big festivals. That's the only festivals that really distributors. At ten,
the bigger ones, you know, Okay, I'm leaving some out
of obviously, maybe it's twenty or twenty five. They don't
attend the smaller I'm gonna call them A, B and
(05:04):
C level festivals, the A level festivals. Hopefully they attend
because distributors need product and they're you know, it's a
good place to see a lot of product, right, The
B and C level festivals do not get attended by distributors.
There's just too many of them. They just don't have
enough time to attend too many festivals. Now, at the
A level festivals or the A plus level ones, you know,
the sun Dances of the world, most of the films
(05:26):
are already pre spoken for at those festivals. So even
though so called buyers or distributors are coming, they've generally
done a deal before they got to the festival, generally
seen the film. But you know, you always hear these legends, Oh,
this film got sold for ten million dollars, or Netflix
came to the festival and saw it and they bought,
you know, put down ten million dollars for the film.
Does it happen? Yeah, probably not a lot though, doesn't
(05:47):
happen not these days. You know, you're trying to do
these deals before the festival happens, all right, because you
don't want to take the chance that nobody's gonna come
or nobody's gonna make you an offer. So then why
even bother with the festival if the film's already sold.
It's because the festivals for the studios, the bigger festivals,
are fantastic marketing ploys to get the word out about
(06:09):
these big films. When some film wins the Palm or
it can or so that's an award ceremony, all right,
or something big, the word starts to travel quickly. All right.
Somebody wins the Audience Choice Award at Toronto, everybody starts
to hear about it. And when I say everybody, I'm
talking audience. So the industry has already heard about it,
they've already probably spoken for it, all right. But winning
(06:32):
say the Audience Choice Award at a big festival starts.
It's almost like free marketing. It starts to get the
buzz going. So there's a really good function that a
festival serves for bigger films, it's publicity basically, But for
smaller films, like getting into a large festival like a
Toronto like a Tiff or a Sun Dance or something
like that is very very very difficult, all right. It
(06:56):
happens once in a while, but it's like winning the lottery,
all right. There's ten of thousands of submissions and most
films don't get in because there's not enough slots, all right,
which is understandable. So that's numbers. It's a numbers game. Now.
Even if you do get accepted to one of those festivals,
then congratulations. It's exciting, it's fun. But then there's other
(07:17):
elements that you have to navigate, like, for instance, you're
probably not going to be your low budget indie film
in the Toronto Film Festival is probably not going to
be one of the premier screenings. They're going to go
with the bigger budget Hollywood stuff, with the A list
actors who are going to come to town and create
all the buzz because that's how they get the audience
to come to the festivals with the buzz. All right,
(07:37):
your low budget any film that's no name film, albeit
it's great and it got accepted into the festival, is
not going to get say a seven o'clock screening on
a Friday night or a Saturday night because not enough
people attend. That's the business side of running a festival.
It's probably going to get a ten am screening on
a Tuesday morning, which is okay because festival goers will
(07:59):
still hear about it. You'll still get a full auditorium.
But will it get the buzz that the bigger films
have gotten. No. But at least you're there and hopefully
maybe somebody will come to it and discover it, or
hopefully they didn't the buyers didn't party tonight the night
before the bigger film and then couldn't wake up in
time to come to your screening. So there's that. Plus
(08:20):
you also have to probably create a lot of awareness.
You need a publicist when you're at a big festival,
to create awareness for your screening so that people will
know about it, because you're competing with lots of other films.
I mean, there could be you know, two to three
hundred screenings at a big festival, So in order to
create awareness of your film, you need to let people
know just like you do. It's marketing. It's just marketing
within the confines of that festival. So that's the bigger festivals.
(08:43):
So I wouldn't put your hopes too high into getting
into a bigger festival, but you know, a try. It's
kind of like I talk about it. You know, my
kids went to college right getting into the bigger universities
these days. UCLA got one hundred and forty thousand submissions
for I don't know, five thousands floughts or something like that.
It was a very low percentage. It's numbers. It's just numbers.
(09:04):
So you got to try. As I say about lotteries,
if you don't buy a ticket, you got no chance
of winning. When you buy the ticket, at least you
have a chance. It's not a good chance, but at
least you have a chance. So should you submit to sundance,
of course you should you got one chance to try
to win that Sundownce lottery. Why not give it a shot.
There's an expense to it, one hundred dollars or whatever
it costs. But you know you made this film, you
(09:25):
put your heart and soul into it. Why not maybe
you'll win the lottery. I'm not saying you shouldn't do that,
all right, I'm just saying, don't hold your breath on
the big festivals. The acceptance rates are very, very very low.
Let's talk about the other festivals. The main way to
submit to festivals here in the United States anyways, is
through a platform called film Freeway. So some of you
have probably been hurt on it and done it. It's
(09:46):
a really really good platform. But anyways, film Freeway has
now become sort of the premiere place to submit, and
it's a wonderful platform. I love it. You create a profile,
you put your film in, and then up pops all
the festivals with great descriptions and an overview and all kinds,
very very well organized platform, and all you got to
do to submit is basically say this is the film.
(10:09):
You can have multiple films in your profile. Here's the
film I want to submit. Here's the festival I want
to submit it to. Then there's the entry times you know, early, submission, regular, late, whatever, feature,
non feature, doc, whatever, the categories, and then you just
choose the criteria. You push submit, and your credit card's
already in there and it bills you. It makes life
(10:30):
super easy to submit to festivals and all your stuff
is already there, the screening version of the film and
the trailer, and everything's already in the profile, so you
don't have to keep resubmitting everything. It's just super well organized.
So it's a great way to do it. It's not
the only way. Some festivals don't even use film freeways.
Sometimes you have to submit directly to them, right, but
the quickest and easiest way to do it is generally
(10:50):
that through film Freeway. So film Freeway people, if you're listening,
I just gave you great plug. But you run a
great pro platform. So congratulations. Now you've got this profile
set up out. Now you go to navigate the platform.
Do you know how many festivals are on that platform?
And this is not all the festivals in the world.
These are the ones that they represent on the platform,
which is a good chunk of them. Right when you
(11:12):
first put it in and you don't set the criteria.
There's about fourteen thousand choices. Fourteen thousand when you start
on the left side. Just seat when you get onto
a film feed where there's filters, so you can say,
I only want festivals because they also have writing competitions
and other things. So as soon as you put in festivals,
it narrows it down to say, I know, seven or
(11:34):
eight thousand, takes out all the other competitions and the
other stuff that they have in there that they represent.
Then you can start to say you want something that
only does you know, that does features because not all
some of them are just for shorts. You want narrative
features because some are just for docs. So you start
to filter down. You want, say, you know, drama or
you know or whatever category it is, and you can
(11:54):
start to narrow say, ones that focus on horror or
sci fi or something like that. So the more you
put in, the more it filters down the number of
festivals that it pop up, that it populates and shows
you based on your criteria. So you could get say
fourteen thousand down to a couple one hundred. You could
probably get it down to fifty if you want, and
(12:16):
you can keep filtering and filtering and filtering till you
get it down to let's say you get it down
to fifty, right, and let's say you want to submit
to twenty festivals, all right, So at that point you
go through them. You go through and you say, hey,
look at this one, look at this one, look at
this one. So how do you decide which festivals to
submit to? This is a real juggling act, all right,
(12:38):
because I got to tell you sort of all the
criteria that you have to go through in your head
to understand how to navigate this process. Right, So this
isn't in any particular order. One of the components of
deciding which festivals to submit to is obviously the filters,
right you want you don't want to submit a narrative
film to a festival that only does documentaries, because you're
(12:59):
wasting your money. Is not going to get accepted because
they don't accept documentaries, right and vice versa. Don't submit
docs to a narrative festival, right. So make sure that
at least the criteria fits what your film is, so
you narrow it down. Now you've got the criterias all
in order, it's in place, so you know the festivals
that you potentially are looking at all fit the criteria
of your film. Some of the festivals have criteria as
(13:23):
to the premiere status of your film. Generally, the bigger festivals,
like the really big ones, the A plus ones that
I was talking about before, like Tiff and can and
Sun Dance, they generally want to have a world premiere
of your film, meaning that the first time your film
ever plays in front of an audience, it would be
at that screening at that festival, because that's the caliber
(13:45):
of those festivals. They want world premiers. So right away,
if you think you're going to be doing other festivals
before that festival happens, you're going to disqualify yourself from
that festival. Like it happens when they say TIFF. Tiff
happens Toronto International Film Festal what happens in September every year.
And now you're in January and you're you know you're
(14:06):
gonna apply to TIFF, right but in between from January
to September, there might be twenty other film festivals that
you would like to apply to and hopefully get accepted to.
And if you get accepted to, you got to decide
or you're gonna want to be in it. So let's
just take an example. So let's say you apply to
the Denver International Film Festival. Okay, and I don't even
(14:28):
know if there is one. I just kind of made
that up, but I think there is. Every city has one, right,
and that's going to happen in June, and you're gonna
apply for both TIFF and that one in January. Now,
all of a sudden, in say late April, you get
a notice, congratulations, you got accepted to the Denver Film
Festival and way to go. You're going to have a
(14:51):
great premiere screening. The minute you accept that invitation, you
have disqualified yourself from TIFF because now all of a sudden,
your film played in, you know, to an audience, and
they wanted a world premiere. So you got to make
that decision. Are you going to hold off and wait
to see because you're not going to hear from TIFF
until say, June, until afterwards, So now you've got to
(15:13):
make a decision. Are you willing to forego the opportunity
to get into TIFF to take something that you already
got accepted to. And this happens all the time in
the festival world. You got to make these decisions. You
got to juggle is a what they call a bird
in the hand better than not, Like, do you take
what you know for sure is going to happen, which
(15:34):
is your acceptance into Denver, and forego the opportunity or
for go the you know, the hope that you're going
to get into Tiff. Or do you say, thanks, Denver,
I'm not really interested because I'm waiting for Tiff. But
then I'm going to say, if that's the case, why
did you apply to Denver in the first place? Why
apply to any of them until you've heard from the
(15:55):
biggest one, the one that you really want, Because ultimately
you're not going to anything anyways until you hear back
from the big one that you really wanted. So that's
part of navigating that process. That's one criteria. All right,
here's another criteria. And you're gonna laugh when you when
I say this, but it's true generally speaking, when you
when you get accepted to a festival, it's exciting. It's
(16:18):
like you know, winning a prize, you got accepted to
the festival. You know, you always like to have acceptance.
Everybody likes acceptance into something, all right, So getting into
a festivals, it's it's a you feel good. It's a
good feeling, all right. But generally, you probably are going
to want to attend the festival that you got accepted to,
especially if you're the director, all right, or the actor
(16:38):
or somebody like that. You want to go. You want
to be part of that environment I talked about at
the beginning. You know, that whole celebration of the film.
That's one of the reasons why you apply to the
festival in the first place. So chances are you're going
to want to go to the festival to be part
of the screening, to do the Q and A, to hobnob,
to be part of the whole environment of the festival,
(16:59):
which means that you're going to have to incur some costs.
All right. So let's say you live in California and
your festivals in New York. You're going to have to
fly there, you have to stay in a hotel, you
have to have food, and the festivals generally don't pay
for that. There was a time way back when when
sometimes they would pay for the director to come, but
that ship is sailed a long time ago. Generally you
(17:22):
have to pay for it all maybe once in a
while festivals subsidize it, but usually the cost is on you,
so it could be very expensive, especially if you're attending
multiple festivals. So number one, you have to have a
budget in place to decide how much you want to
spend to attend. Also, by the way, submitting to festivals
it's not free. There's a cost, and depending on when
you submit, if it's like early, late, middle, whatever, the
(17:45):
cost is different. All right. So it's somewhere between let's
say twenty five to one hundred and twenty five dollars
to submit to each festival, depending on the caliber the
festival and the timeframe that you submit. All right. So
you've got a cost of submission, but the bigger cost
is the cost of attending. So you have to make
a choice do I want to spend the money to
attend this certain festival. So a lot of people say, well,
(18:06):
you know, I'm not going to go there. I'm not
going to go to that place, And I say, well,
why just submit it there? Then the answer is you
don't have to attend the festival that you got accepted to.
You generally want to, but you don't have to. The
festivals want you to attend for obvious reasons. It's more
interesting for the patrons of the festival when the director
of the filmmakers actually attend, so they encourage you to attend.
(18:29):
It's not mandatory, but they want you. Sometimes it is.
Sometimes they say you have to agree to attend if
we're going to agree to screen your film, but not
all festivals do. That depends on the level and the
caliber of the festival. So when you're making the decision
as to whether or not you should attend the festival,
you got to look at the cost, because the cost
might be very excessive, more than you can afford. But also,
(18:51):
here's another thing. When I said you're going to laugh
at this is generally like I submit to festivals, but
I've come to the point where I only submit to
the festivals of the places that I want to go,
like more or less the cities or the towns that
I actually want to go to. If I'm going to
spend the money to go on a trip, and you know,
to go to a festival and to go to the
screenings and stuff like that, I probably also want to
spend a day or two or something in the town
(19:13):
enjoy the trip, because it's going to be expensive. You know,
it's going to be a flight and hotels and all
the stuff we talked about. So one of the criterias
that I use is where would I want to go
if I got accepted? Like if there's certain places where
I say, no, I would never even go there, then
I don't even bother submitting to those places, all right,
So I only submit to the places where I think
I would enjoy going. Now, the criteria of what the
(19:35):
festival is, how long it's been running, how legitimate it is,
comments and feedback from other filmmakers and everything. That has
a lot to do with also maybe some of the
festivals you're going to submit to, So you want to
kind of qualify the festival. You want to say, is
this festival well attended? Was there good feedback from other filmmakers?
Here's a big one, is the festival actually live in person?
(19:58):
See when COVID hit, all the went online because you
couldn't have screenings obviously, right, So a lot of them
still haven't come back offline, so a lot of them
are still online. And there's hundreds of other new festivals
that have begun that don't even have live screenings. So
you've got to make sure when you're submitting if you
want live screenings, like you want an actual place to
(20:19):
go that there's actual screenings and there's an actual festival
as opposed to just an online festival that takes place
virtually and people come on at a certain time and
watch on zoom. But if that's what you want, then
that's fine. That exists as well. So there's a lot
of things that you have to look at to kind
of qualify the festival as to what festivals to choose
(20:40):
based on the criteria that you set that is important
to you, Like one, do you want the festival to
actually be in person? Do you want it to be
in a certain location, Do you want it to be
a certain status, do you want it to be a
certain years running? And the you know, the caliber and
the quality and the age of the festival. So that's
how you qualify and you know, and then does it
(21:00):
You know that I talked about this world premiere that's
only for the you know, the Super eight plus list festivals.
Some of them are it has to be, say, a
national premier the first time it plays in the United States.
Some of it has to be a state premier the
first time it plays in California. Some of it's a
city premier the first time it plays in Los Angeles.
Some of it is, you know, a county thing. It
(21:21):
goes lower and lower and lower the criteria of the premiers,
and a lot of them there is no premier status.
You can submit whatever you want. Also, there's time frames,
like people say you can only submit within twelve months
of the film actually having been made. They don't want older,
stale films, all right, you can submit within this timeframe
of finishing the film. It's a bit of a juggle
(21:44):
sorting all this stuff out, and it can get complicated,
all right, And filmmakers often say to me, wow, like
I didn't realize the film festival thing was so complicated.
I thought, hey, i'll put it in a couple of
festivals and you know, I'll have some fun. The other
thing is the acceptance rates on festivals are can be
very very low these days because there's so many submissions,
all right, everybody's submitting to festivals, so it's just a
(22:07):
numbers game. You know, if there's two hundred slots for
acceptances and they get ten thousand submissions, you know, two
percent acceptance rate. So that's how it works, so just
get ready for that, and it doesn't mean your film
isn't good. But let's just talk about the acceptances for
a second, all right. Let's say they get ten thousand
(22:28):
submissions a festival, all right, and I'm just throwing that
number out. Most festivals don't. They don't get that many,
but you know the bigger ones do, right, And they're
all feature films. Let's say they're all one hundred minutes long.
Ten thousand, all right, So that's a lot of viewing
ten hundred minute films. Do you know how many people
it would take to watch all of those films? I
(22:51):
often question, like festivals actually hire a like an army
of people to watch all the films. And if so,
so Number one, do all the films actually get watched
or do they just get spotted? You know, watch the
first five minutes, the middle, the end, you know, or
if the first ten minutes aren't engaging, just shut the
film off. So that's number one. Do the films actually
(23:13):
get watched? Number two? It's not possible for one person
to watch all the films, so there has to be
a team of people. So in the example I gave,
say ten thousand films. They might have a team of
say twenty five people watching films, you know, for a
two month period. Those twenty five people are going to
be different. They're subjective watching films, totally subjective, right, These
(23:36):
five people might like think this way, these five people,
this way, these five people. So depending on who watches it, it
could have a different impact on them. And the criteria
is different, So you're not always comparing apples to apples,
because a film is completely subjective, whether or not you
like it or not. So how do they choose, you know,
what films should get accepted or what shouldn't. The criteria
(23:57):
is very very subjective. So one do the films get
watched to who do they get watched by? And how
do they set the criteria as to what gets accepted
or not? Then number three is and I question this
always not just at festivals, but primarily with awards shows
like the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes and all
this kind of stuff. I think to myself, Man, if
(24:19):
you have ever been a judge at a festival? So
I have judged festivals. I have been a judge at
certain festivals. They're primarily student festivals because you know, I
teach so to decide which films should get which awards,
like best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Actor, best lighting, best this, Right,
it is so difficult to choose, especially when you're dealing
(24:41):
with fantastic films. All of them are great, Like best Cinematography.
You've got ten films in front of you, and they
all look fantastic, and they all have you know, well
crafted angles and lighting and everything like that. Like, it's
so difficult to choose, all right, Best Director. I mean, like,
I direct, so I know what kind of things I'm
(25:02):
looking for, but also they're subjective to me. Do I
like long scene? Short scenes? Do I like this cut?
And by the way, there's so much that goes into it.
That directing is just you know, affected by the editing,
by the sound design, but there's lots of things that
can have an impact on all these kind of things.
So there is so much subjectivity as to number one,
which films get accepted, and then to which films are
(25:25):
sort of acclaimed for certain awards or whatever. So the
reason I'm saying this is that I want you to
enjoy the whole festival thing, but I don't want you
to feel bad or rejected if your film doesn't get
in or doesn't win an award. It's just so subjective.
It doesn't necessarily mean that another film was better than yours.
(25:47):
I mean, I'm going to say that most of the
top films are all equally good for different reasons. They're
all equally entertaining. But a lot of filmmakers personalize it
because it's it's almost, you know, the way students would
is getting into a college or something like that, which
is true. I mean, you know, you everybody likes to
be accepted, nobody likes rejection. But the film festival thing
(26:09):
is just so subjective. There's so much subjectivity that goes
into the choosing of the awards and the acceptances of
the films. I enjoy the festival thing, but I take
it sort of with a grain of salt, because at
the end of the day, the festival thing, again, as
I said, is the celebration of the movie. And do
I enjoy celebrating the art Yeah, of course, who doesn't.
(26:31):
It's a good party, and it's nice to hob nob
and talk talk the artistic stuff. It's the only time
that I really talk artistic stuff, like talk about the
making of the movie, the crafting of the scene, the
inspiration of the acting, of the sound design, of all
this kind of stuff. I like talking about that. You
usually don't get a lot of opportunities to talk about
it because I'm usually talking too much of the business side,
you know, of distribution and finance and all this kind
(26:53):
of stuff. So it's a nice break for me to
talk about that kind of stuff. But at the end
of the day, I'm so focused on the business side
that I'm still thinking all about the distribution. The festival
thing is not about distribution. Distribution is about distribution. So
in addition to festivals, there's these things called markets. So
film market is where the business of film gets addressed. So,
(27:17):
for instance, say the American Film Market takes place in
Los Angeles every year. I mean last year was in Vegas,
but this it's back to Los Angeles. This is where
the industry comes together. When I see the industry, I'm
talking about, it's a private event for people who register
in the industry. So it's buyers and sellers. It's distributors
for the most part, trying to sell their stuff to
people who want to buy, like streaming companies, television, other
(27:40):
distributors from around the world. It's a market where there's
trading that goes on, you know, in business, and it's
a lot more expensive to attend. So generally filmmakers sometimes attend,
but you know, the general public is not even encouraged
to attend because there's it's not like there's screenings. The
screenings are for industry only. It's industri people watching films
and screening them. And it's much more expensive. Whereas you
(28:02):
could go to say a film at a film festival
for say ten to twenty dollars, to register for a
data film market is three to four hundred dollars because
it's an industry function and there's a lot going on.
So there's you know, five or six really big markets.
There's probably a dozen that take place around the world,
but five or six really big ones. American Film Market,
(28:22):
European Film Market, Can Toronto. Sometimes people are confused with
the markets because sometimes they happen together, adjacent to a
film market and a film festival happened together. So let's
look at Can for instance. All right, So the Can
Film Festival, which is in May, happens in the exact
same time and place as the what we call the
(28:43):
marchade you can, which is the film market. So they happen.
It takes what you've seen it on TV, the big festival,
the convention center. All right. So on the left, if
you've been to this place, which I've been many times,
all right, on the left side is the big building
with the big red carpet and the stairs walking up
and you see the limousines pull up and the stars
get out and the whole red carpet thing right, and
(29:05):
they walk in, and that's the festival and all the
paparazzis they are taking the photos and all the crowds
that they're looking at the celebrities. So that's the festival side,
and that takes place when you're facing the building on
the left side. Right on the right side is this
sort of convention center, and they're attached to each other,
and that is where the market takes place. That's where
all the vendors come, all the distributors are there, all
(29:28):
the business people are there. So the public is on
the left side because they're coming to the screenings, but
the business people are on the right side and they're
there to hobnob with other industry people. Did they go
to some of the screenings. Yeah, sure, because they're in
the film business, so they like the hoopla of going
to the screenings and stuff like that, but their primary
objective is to have the business meetings with other people
who've come to buy and sell films together. Right now,
(29:51):
they happen to be at the exact same time because
it's convenient. It's convenient for the industry to do the
screenings and the meetings at the same time, so you
can attend both. But there's markets that don't have that.
I mean Toronto has that also, but like the American
film market, there's no festival that goes on. There's another
sort of some screenings that go on, but for the
most part, the American film market is just a market.
(30:13):
It's not known as a festival. So some of them
have festivals at the same time as markets, but they're different,
all right. So if you go to can you can
go and just go and pay for a screening and
go in as regular public to go to the festival.
But if you go there and you want to get
into the market, you've got to register. You got to
(30:34):
pay a lot more money. You've got to register. You
have to be part of the business. To register to
get in, and it's a different function, it's a different
it's it's at the same time, but these people are
looking to buy and sell the movies, and these people
are just looking to screen and celebrate them. So you've
got the celebration of the films going on on the
left side and the business of distribution going on the
(30:55):
right side, which is really interesting dynamics. So some of
my students have actually being to can and they said,
I was a little confused at first, like you're telling
me that you know this whole thing for fifteen dollars
to get into a screening, I said, no, No, that's
got nothing to do with the distribution. The distribution is
all happening over here, and you know that's three hundred
and fifty dollars to get into that or four hundred
(31:16):
depending on what day you're going, if you can even
get in, which makes sense, all right. So this is
the separation. So as a filmmaker, don't think that because
your film is screening in a festival, it's going to
be seen by the distribution people. Sometimes it will, but
usually not unless it's a really big festival. So the
distribution side has to be dealt with differently. So a
(31:38):
lot of filmmakers believe that once they when they submit
to festivals, that's part of the distribution process, and I'm
telling you it usually isn't. It's not going to hurt.
All right, it's definitely not going to and it's not
going to definitely not gonna hurt if you win awards
and get acceptances and all this kind of stuff. The
more accolades you can get for your film, the more
I'm going to say marketing tools you have to help
(32:00):
support your film. Like when you say to a distributor,
in my film won you know, Best Choice Audience Choice
award is these three festivals and I won Best Director
and everything like that, then that speak bodes well for
your film. Somebody says, ooh ah, that sounds good. I mean,
because you know there's some legitimacy to that, right, So
people say, hey, it sounds like some real people, some
real audience watch your film and liked it, and you
(32:22):
know you won the award. Great. Doesn't mean you're gonna
get a deal right away, but it doesn't hurt. It
helps a lot. It's something else to talk about that
is positive about your film, all right, but it's not
getting you distribution. If you win you know, the Audience
Choice award at a say a B level festival, it
doesn't guarantee anything about distribution. It just says that other
(32:44):
filmmakers and audience enjoyed watching your film and celebrated it.
Now you got to take that, and you still got
to go through distribution. You still got to get a distributor,
You got to send your film. You got to go
through all the processes that I talk about, you know,
at nausea, about how to find a distributor, how to
negotiate the right deal, how to navigate, how to market
(33:05):
all this kind of stuff. The festival is just one
other little box maybe that you can use as a
check mark to say, hey, my film is credible and
that it you know, it was acknowledged and celebrated by
certain audiences. To summarize the festival thing is fun. I
like it on the artistic side. As I said, It's
one of the few times that I get to be
(33:26):
an artist and really celebrate and hobnob with other artists.
That's why I enjoy it, because I once in a
while I actually enjoy wearing my artistic hat. Believe it
or not, but I do realize that I'm not going
there with the intent to the festivals that I attend
and get accepted to with the intention of finding distribution
at all. If it happens, maybe all right, maybe once
(33:47):
in a while distributor's there, But I don't go there
for that reason. I go to celebrate the film and
to hear audience feedback and to kind of get, you know,
a better sense of how my film is reacting with audiences.
I still have to work it on the distribution side,
so I still have to go and do all the
same motions to get distribution. Now. I do attend markets
(34:08):
because because I still, you know, work in the distribution side.
So I do spend the money and I go to
the big markets, and you know, as I said, and
can't if I go to Kent, I actually don't even
go to the festival. I just go to the market
because for me, the priority is obviously getting distribution and
dealing with the with the business side. All right, maybe
once in a while go to a screening or something.
(34:28):
I mean, obviously my film got accepted into cant then
I would go to the screenings and I would hobnob
in that area. But usually I don't even submit there
because I just because of the things I explain, you know,
I don't want to pay the submission fee, I don't
want to wait for the acceptance. I don't want to
forego all the other festivals. So I've come to kind
of realize, for my own films and the films that
(34:51):
I represent, that I would rather take something that I
know is going to be for sure. Like when I
said earlier about say the Denver Festival versus the Try Festival,
you know, and again I'm making it up because I'm
not sure when that festival actually is. But if I
get accepted for a decent sized, say b festival, and
I got a screening time, and I know that it's
(35:12):
you know, ten fifteen, twenty years running, it's a you know,
legitimate festival. It's going to have a legitimate audience there,
and I think it's real and I want to go there,
then I would generally forego my Toronto submission. Why would
I submit to Toronto? Then it's if I don't get
accepted to anything else, so it still stays active throughout
(35:32):
that period. And then maybe, just maybe for all the
wrong reasons, it's because I didn't get accepted to anything
that that one stays active and chances are I'm not
going to get accepted to that either, but maybe, just
maybe I get accepted to that for whatever reason, and
luckily I didn't get submitted accepted to anything else. So
you know, it's a it's a real balancing act. You
(35:53):
got a lot of balls in the air. And there
are people who are what we call festival consultants who's
specialize in this, who understand sort of the timing of
all the festivals, the dynamics, the premier status. A lot
of them actually were festival programmers, so they have worked
in that industry. They actually know the other A lot
(36:14):
of the other people who program for the festivals, who
choose the movies. They charge a lot of money. But
you can hire a consultant to help you lay out
a plan and a strategy to actually go into submit
to festivals, choose which ones you want to go to,
choose the right ones you want to submit to. So
in some cases maybe it's worth it if you want
to spend the money. I think they obviously know what
they're doing because they come from the festival world. It's
(36:37):
just a balancing act. Is how much you want to
spend and what your turn on investment is going to be.
So bottom line, enjoy the whole festival thing. It's a
lot of fun, but make sure you understand that that
is not distribution. Good luck. As always, I welcome all
of your comments and feedback. In questions, please email me
directly at Jadevrett at Deverrett Media at dot com and
(37:01):
wherever you're listening, please subscribe mm hmm
Indie filmmakers get really excited about putting their films into
film festivals. Some of the festivals are fantastic and some
of them aren't. Today, we're going to look at the
inside workings of film festivals. If you want to be
a successful indie filmmaker, you need to know a lot
(00:20):
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. All right,
so you've made an indie feature film and it's pretty good.
You made a good film. Congratulations, Now what do you
do with it? So a lot of filmmakers, so I say,
(00:43):
you should really start thinking about distribution. Now, obviously I
say you should start thinking about distribution before you make
your film. But you know, a lot of filmmakers don't
listen to me, and they go and make the film.
Then they start thinking about distribution. But generally, sort of
the first step that they think about in distribution, I
don't even think they call it distribution. They think I
need to submit my film to film festivals, like I
(01:05):
need to go through what we call the festival circuit.
And I say, okay, no problem. So let's just talk
about what that's all about for those of you who
haven't experienced sort of the film festival circuit. And obviously
I'm going to talk from my perspective as they do always,
you know, on all the topics. What is a film festival.
Here's what I think a film festival is. A film
(01:26):
festival is basically the celebration of filmmaking. That's what it is.
The celebration, all right. It is really not the business
of film sales. It's the celebration of making movies. That's
what film festivals were designed for. The design for filmmakers
to basically showcase their work of art to the general
(01:49):
public or to other filmmakers in the industry and celebrate
what they created, their work of art. That was the
concept behind film festivals when they first started, and it
still is to this day. Right now, some of the
bigger festivals have moved into the whole business side of
the business. But for the most part, it could be
the only time your film actually gets screened in a
(02:10):
movie theater on a big screen, a big environment, and
maybe the only time your film will ever be in
that environment in front of an audience. So as a filmmaker.
You get to go. Hopefully the festival is live, like
some festivals are online. We'll talk about that after, but
the festival that a live festival. You get to go,
there's an actual screening or two people come, they buy tickets,
(02:32):
they sit there, their real audience, and then afterwards, generally
there's a Q and A with the director or some
of the actors or the producer whatever, and you get
to People get to ask you questions about how do
you make the film, what was your motivation, you know,
just the stuff that people are curious about. And during
the film you get to see the reaction, you get
to ask them questions what you think, and it's a
(02:52):
nice interaction of filmmakers conversing and interacting with hopefully real audience.
Sometimes it's the only time you actually get to do
that as a filmmaker, because then when your film goes
into distribution and maybe goes onto streaming platforms or something
like that, you get absolutely no feedback. So that's why
I call it the celebration. In addition, you can hopefully
(03:14):
get accolades. The simplest accolade is after the film plays,
people clap we liked your film. Hopefully or they clap
out of you know, courtesy, maybe you win an award,
maybe your film, you know, gets celebrated with higher with
rewards and stuff like that. So it's really fun. Filmfests
was are really fun for filmmakers because of the interactivity
(03:37):
and you know, the accolades because sometimes, like I said,
it's the only time you're going to get that. In addition,
you're hobnobbing with other creative people like yourself, other filmmakers.
So generate a festival, they'll be I don't know, twenty
thirty forty filmmakers whose films got submitted and were shown
at the festival, and then you know, potentially maybe hundreds
(03:58):
of other filmmakers who were interested to see other people's films.
So that's a nice environment too. You get to network
with these people, you get to talk with them, and
they're like minded people. They're also creatives, they've made films.
You talk about the crafting of films and the crafting
of scenes and stories and stuff like that. That's the
nice environment and part of the festival. So a lot
(04:21):
of people, a lot of filmmakers say to me, oh,
but the other reason I like doing festivals is so
that my film will get discovered because distributors send representatives
to the festivals and hopefully they will watch my film
and discover it and want to do a distribution deal
with me. So let me just debunk that legend. All right.
Does that happen? Yes, but only at the top. I'm
(04:43):
going to say ten festivals maybe in the world, like
Sun Dance Can Toronto, Berlin, like the big Venice, the big,
big festivals. That's the only festivals that really distributors. At ten,
the bigger ones, you know, Okay, I'm leaving some out
of obviously, maybe it's twenty or twenty five. They don't
attend the smaller I'm gonna call them A, B and
(05:04):
C level festivals, the A level festivals. Hopefully they attend
because distributors need product and they're you know, it's a
good place to see a lot of product, right, The
B and C level festivals do not get attended by distributors.
There's just too many of them. They just don't have
enough time to attend too many festivals. Now, at the
A level festivals or the A plus level ones, you know,
the sun Dances of the world, most of the films
(05:26):
are already pre spoken for at those festivals. So even
though so called buyers or distributors are coming, they've generally
done a deal before they got to the festival, generally
seen the film. But you know, you always hear these legends, Oh,
this film got sold for ten million dollars, or Netflix
came to the festival and saw it and they bought,
you know, put down ten million dollars for the film.
Does it happen? Yeah, probably not a lot though, doesn't
(05:47):
happen not these days. You know, you're trying to do
these deals before the festival happens, all right, because you
don't want to take the chance that nobody's gonna come
or nobody's gonna make you an offer. So then why
even bother with the festival if the film's already sold.
It's because the festivals for the studios, the bigger festivals,
are fantastic marketing ploys to get the word out about
(06:09):
these big films. When some film wins the Palm or
it can or so that's an award ceremony, all right,
or something big, the word starts to travel quickly. All right.
Somebody wins the Audience Choice Award at Toronto, everybody starts
to hear about it. And when I say everybody, I'm
talking audience. So the industry has already heard about it,
they've already probably spoken for it, all right. But winning
(06:32):
say the Audience Choice Award at a big festival starts.
It's almost like free marketing. It starts to get the
buzz going. So there's a really good function that a
festival serves for bigger films, it's publicity basically, But for
smaller films, like getting into a large festival like a
Toronto like a Tiff or a Sun Dance or something
like that is very very very difficult, all right. It
(06:56):
happens once in a while, but it's like winning the lottery,
all right. There's ten of thousands of submissions and most
films don't get in because there's not enough slots, all right,
which is understandable. So that's numbers. It's a numbers game. Now.
Even if you do get accepted to one of those festivals,
then congratulations. It's exciting, it's fun. But then there's other
(07:17):
elements that you have to navigate, like, for instance, you're
probably not going to be your low budget indie film
in the Toronto Film Festival is probably not going to
be one of the premier screenings. They're going to go
with the bigger budget Hollywood stuff, with the A list
actors who are going to come to town and create
all the buzz because that's how they get the audience
to come to the festivals with the buzz. All right,
(07:37):
your low budget any film that's no name film, albeit
it's great and it got accepted into the festival, is
not going to get say a seven o'clock screening on
a Friday night or a Saturday night because not enough
people attend. That's the business side of running a festival.
It's probably going to get a ten am screening on
a Tuesday morning, which is okay because festival goers will
(07:59):
still hear about it. You'll still get a full auditorium.
But will it get the buzz that the bigger films
have gotten. No. But at least you're there and hopefully
maybe somebody will come to it and discover it, or
hopefully they didn't the buyers didn't party tonight the night
before the bigger film and then couldn't wake up in
time to come to your screening. So there's that. Plus
(08:20):
you also have to probably create a lot of awareness.
You need a publicist when you're at a big festival,
to create awareness for your screening so that people will
know about it, because you're competing with lots of other films.
I mean, there could be you know, two to three
hundred screenings at a big festival, So in order to
create awareness of your film, you need to let people
know just like you do. It's marketing. It's just marketing
within the confines of that festival. So that's the bigger festivals.
(08:43):
So I wouldn't put your hopes too high into getting
into a bigger festival, but you know, a try. It's
kind of like I talk about it. You know, my
kids went to college right getting into the bigger universities
these days. UCLA got one hundred and forty thousand submissions
for I don't know, five thousands floughts or something like that.
It was a very low percentage. It's numbers. It's just numbers.
(09:04):
So you got to try. As I say about lotteries,
if you don't buy a ticket, you got no chance
of winning. When you buy the ticket, at least you
have a chance. It's not a good chance, but at
least you have a chance. So should you submit to sundance,
of course you should you got one chance to try
to win that Sundownce lottery. Why not give it a shot.
There's an expense to it, one hundred dollars or whatever
it costs. But you know you made this film, you
(09:25):
put your heart and soul into it. Why not maybe
you'll win the lottery. I'm not saying you shouldn't do that,
all right, I'm just saying, don't hold your breath on
the big festivals. The acceptance rates are very, very very low.
Let's talk about the other festivals. The main way to
submit to festivals here in the United States anyways, is
through a platform called film Freeway. So some of you
have probably been hurt on it and done it. It's
(09:46):
a really really good platform. But anyways, film Freeway has
now become sort of the premiere place to submit, and
it's a wonderful platform. I love it. You create a profile,
you put your film in, and then up pops all
the festivals with great descriptions and an overview and all kinds,
very very well organized platform, and all you got to
do to submit is basically say this is the film.
(10:09):
You can have multiple films in your profile. Here's the
film I want to submit. Here's the festival I want
to submit it to. Then there's the entry times you know, early, submission, regular, late, whatever, feature,
non feature, doc, whatever, the categories, and then you just
choose the criteria. You push submit, and your credit card's
already in there and it bills you. It makes life
(10:30):
super easy to submit to festivals and all your stuff
is already there, the screening version of the film and
the trailer, and everything's already in the profile, so you
don't have to keep resubmitting everything. It's just super well organized.
So it's a great way to do it. It's not
the only way. Some festivals don't even use film freeways.
Sometimes you have to submit directly to them, right, but
the quickest and easiest way to do it is generally
(10:50):
that through film Freeway. So film Freeway people, if you're listening,
I just gave you great plug. But you run a
great pro platform. So congratulations. Now you've got this profile
set up out. Now you go to navigate the platform.
Do you know how many festivals are on that platform?
And this is not all the festivals in the world.
These are the ones that they represent on the platform,
which is a good chunk of them. Right when you
(11:12):
first put it in and you don't set the criteria.
There's about fourteen thousand choices. Fourteen thousand when you start
on the left side. Just seat when you get onto
a film feed where there's filters, so you can say,
I only want festivals because they also have writing competitions
and other things. So as soon as you put in festivals,
it narrows it down to say, I know, seven or
(11:34):
eight thousand, takes out all the other competitions and the
other stuff that they have in there that they represent.
Then you can start to say you want something that
only does you know, that does features because not all
some of them are just for shorts. You want narrative
features because some are just for docs. So you start
to filter down. You want, say, you know, drama or
you know or whatever category it is, and you can
(11:54):
start to narrow say, ones that focus on horror or
sci fi or something like that. So the more you
put in, the more it filters down the number of
festivals that it pop up, that it populates and shows
you based on your criteria. So you could get say
fourteen thousand down to a couple one hundred. You could
probably get it down to fifty if you want, and
(12:16):
you can keep filtering and filtering and filtering till you
get it down to let's say you get it down
to fifty, right, and let's say you want to submit
to twenty festivals, all right, So at that point you
go through them. You go through and you say, hey,
look at this one, look at this one, look at
this one. So how do you decide which festivals to
submit to? This is a real juggling act, all right,
(12:38):
because I got to tell you sort of all the
criteria that you have to go through in your head
to understand how to navigate this process. Right, So this
isn't in any particular order. One of the components of
deciding which festivals to submit to is obviously the filters,
right you want you don't want to submit a narrative
film to a festival that only does documentaries, because you're
(12:59):
wasting your money. Is not going to get accepted because
they don't accept documentaries, right and vice versa. Don't submit
docs to a narrative festival, right. So make sure that
at least the criteria fits what your film is, so
you narrow it down. Now you've got the criterias all
in order, it's in place, so you know the festivals
that you potentially are looking at all fit the criteria
of your film. Some of the festivals have criteria as
(13:23):
to the premiere status of your film. Generally, the bigger festivals,
like the really big ones, the A plus ones that
I was talking about before, like Tiff and can and
Sun Dance, they generally want to have a world premiere
of your film, meaning that the first time your film
ever plays in front of an audience, it would be
at that screening at that festival, because that's the caliber
(13:45):
of those festivals. They want world premiers. So right away,
if you think you're going to be doing other festivals
before that festival happens, you're going to disqualify yourself from
that festival. Like it happens when they say TIFF. Tiff
happens Toronto International Film Festal what happens in September every year.
And now you're in January and you're you know you're
(14:06):
gonna apply to TIFF, right but in between from January
to September, there might be twenty other film festivals that
you would like to apply to and hopefully get accepted to.
And if you get accepted to, you got to decide
or you're gonna want to be in it. So let's
just take an example. So let's say you apply to
the Denver International Film Festival. Okay, and I don't even
(14:28):
know if there is one. I just kind of made
that up, but I think there is. Every city has one, right,
and that's going to happen in June, and you're gonna
apply for both TIFF and that one in January. Now,
all of a sudden, in say late April, you get
a notice, congratulations, you got accepted to the Denver Film
Festival and way to go. You're going to have a
(14:51):
great premiere screening. The minute you accept that invitation, you
have disqualified yourself from TIFF because now all of a sudden,
your film played in, you know, to an audience, and
they wanted a world premiere. So you got to make
that decision. Are you going to hold off and wait
to see because you're not going to hear from TIFF
until say, June, until afterwards, So now you've got to
(15:13):
make a decision. Are you willing to forego the opportunity
to get into TIFF to take something that you already
got accepted to. And this happens all the time in
the festival world. You got to make these decisions. You
got to juggle is a what they call a bird
in the hand better than not, Like, do you take
what you know for sure is going to happen, which
(15:34):
is your acceptance into Denver, and forego the opportunity or
for go the you know, the hope that you're going
to get into Tiff. Or do you say, thanks, Denver,
I'm not really interested because I'm waiting for Tiff. But
then I'm going to say, if that's the case, why
did you apply to Denver in the first place? Why
apply to any of them until you've heard from the
(15:55):
biggest one, the one that you really want, Because ultimately
you're not going to anything anyways until you hear back
from the big one that you really wanted. So that's
part of navigating that process. That's one criteria. All right,
here's another criteria. And you're gonna laugh when you when
I say this, but it's true generally speaking, when you
when you get accepted to a festival, it's exciting. It's
(16:18):
like you know, winning a prize, you got accepted to
the festival. You know, you always like to have acceptance.
Everybody likes acceptance into something, all right, So getting into
a festivals, it's it's a you feel good. It's a
good feeling, all right. But generally, you probably are going
to want to attend the festival that you got accepted to,
especially if you're the director, all right, or the actor
(16:38):
or somebody like that. You want to go. You want
to be part of that environment I talked about at
the beginning. You know, that whole celebration of the film.
That's one of the reasons why you apply to the
festival in the first place. So chances are you're going
to want to go to the festival to be part
of the screening, to do the Q and A, to hobnob,
to be part of the whole environment of the festival,
(16:59):
which means that you're going to have to incur some costs.
All right. So let's say you live in California and
your festivals in New York. You're going to have to
fly there, you have to stay in a hotel, you
have to have food, and the festivals generally don't pay
for that. There was a time way back when when
sometimes they would pay for the director to come, but
that ship is sailed a long time ago. Generally you
(17:22):
have to pay for it all maybe once in a
while festivals subsidize it, but usually the cost is on you,
so it could be very expensive, especially if you're attending
multiple festivals. So number one, you have to have a
budget in place to decide how much you want to
spend to attend. Also, by the way, submitting to festivals
it's not free. There's a cost, and depending on when
you submit, if it's like early, late, middle, whatever, the
(17:45):
cost is different. All right. So it's somewhere between let's
say twenty five to one hundred and twenty five dollars
to submit to each festival, depending on the caliber the
festival and the timeframe that you submit. All right. So
you've got a cost of submission, but the bigger cost
is the cost of attending. So you have to make
a choice do I want to spend the money to
attend this certain festival. So a lot of people say, well,
(18:06):
you know, I'm not going to go there. I'm not
going to go to that place, And I say, well,
why just submit it there? Then the answer is you
don't have to attend the festival that you got accepted to.
You generally want to, but you don't have to. The
festivals want you to attend for obvious reasons. It's more
interesting for the patrons of the festival when the director
of the filmmakers actually attend, so they encourage you to attend.
(18:29):
It's not mandatory, but they want you. Sometimes it is.
Sometimes they say you have to agree to attend if
we're going to agree to screen your film, but not
all festivals do. That depends on the level and the
caliber of the festival. So when you're making the decision
as to whether or not you should attend the festival,
you got to look at the cost, because the cost
might be very excessive, more than you can afford. But also,
(18:51):
here's another thing. When I said you're going to laugh
at this is generally like I submit to festivals, but
I've come to the point where I only submit to
the festivals of the places that I want to go,
like more or less the cities or the towns that
I actually want to go to. If I'm going to
spend the money to go on a trip, and you know,
to go to a festival and to go to the
screenings and stuff like that, I probably also want to
spend a day or two or something in the town
(19:13):
enjoy the trip, because it's going to be expensive. You know,
it's going to be a flight and hotels and all
the stuff we talked about. So one of the criterias
that I use is where would I want to go
if I got accepted? Like if there's certain places where
I say, no, I would never even go there, then
I don't even bother submitting to those places, all right,
So I only submit to the places where I think
I would enjoy going. Now, the criteria of what the
(19:35):
festival is, how long it's been running, how legitimate it is,
comments and feedback from other filmmakers and everything. That has
a lot to do with also maybe some of the
festivals you're going to submit to, So you want to
kind of qualify the festival. You want to say, is
this festival well attended? Was there good feedback from other filmmakers?
Here's a big one, is the festival actually live in person?
(19:58):
See when COVID hit, all the went online because you
couldn't have screenings obviously, right, So a lot of them
still haven't come back offline, so a lot of them
are still online. And there's hundreds of other new festivals
that have begun that don't even have live screenings. So
you've got to make sure when you're submitting if you
want live screenings, like you want an actual place to
(20:19):
go that there's actual screenings and there's an actual festival
as opposed to just an online festival that takes place
virtually and people come on at a certain time and
watch on zoom. But if that's what you want, then
that's fine. That exists as well. So there's a lot
of things that you have to look at to kind
of qualify the festival as to what festivals to choose
(20:40):
based on the criteria that you set that is important
to you, Like one, do you want the festival to
actually be in person? Do you want it to be
in a certain location, Do you want it to be
a certain status, do you want it to be a
certain years running? And the you know, the caliber and
the quality and the age of the festival. So that's
how you qualify and you know, and then does it
(21:00):
You know that I talked about this world premiere that's
only for the you know, the Super eight plus list festivals.
Some of them are it has to be, say, a
national premier the first time it plays in the United States.
Some of it has to be a state premier the
first time it plays in California. Some of it's a
city premier the first time it plays in Los Angeles.
Some of it is, you know, a county thing. It
(21:21):
goes lower and lower and lower the criteria of the premiers,
and a lot of them there is no premier status.
You can submit whatever you want. Also, there's time frames,
like people say you can only submit within twelve months
of the film actually having been made. They don't want older,
stale films, all right, you can submit within this timeframe
of finishing the film. It's a bit of a juggle
(21:44):
sorting all this stuff out, and it can get complicated,
all right, And filmmakers often say to me, wow, like
I didn't realize the film festival thing was so complicated.
I thought, hey, i'll put it in a couple of
festivals and you know, I'll have some fun. The other
thing is the acceptance rates on festivals are can be
very very low these days because there's so many submissions,
all right, everybody's submitting to festivals, so it's just a
(22:07):
numbers game. You know, if there's two hundred slots for
acceptances and they get ten thousand submissions, you know, two
percent acceptance rate. So that's how it works, so just
get ready for that, and it doesn't mean your film
isn't good. But let's just talk about the acceptances for
a second, all right. Let's say they get ten thousand
(22:28):
submissions a festival, all right, and I'm just throwing that
number out. Most festivals don't. They don't get that many,
but you know the bigger ones do, right, And they're
all feature films. Let's say they're all one hundred minutes long.
Ten thousand, all right, So that's a lot of viewing
ten hundred minute films. Do you know how many people
it would take to watch all of those films? I
(22:51):
often question, like festivals actually hire a like an army
of people to watch all the films. And if so,
so Number one, do all the films actually get watched
or do they just get spotted? You know, watch the
first five minutes, the middle, the end, you know, or
if the first ten minutes aren't engaging, just shut the
film off. So that's number one. Do the films actually
(23:13):
get watched? Number two? It's not possible for one person
to watch all the films, so there has to be
a team of people. So in the example I gave,
say ten thousand films. They might have a team of
say twenty five people watching films, you know, for a
two month period. Those twenty five people are going to
be different. They're subjective watching films, totally subjective, right, These
(23:36):
five people might like think this way, these five people,
this way, these five people. So depending on who watches it, it
could have a different impact on them. And the criteria
is different, So you're not always comparing apples to apples,
because a film is completely subjective, whether or not you
like it or not. So how do they choose, you know,
what films should get accepted or what shouldn't. The criteria
(23:57):
is very very subjective. So one do the films get
watched to who do they get watched by? And how
do they set the criteria as to what gets accepted
or not? Then number three is and I question this
always not just at festivals, but primarily with awards shows
like the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes and all
this kind of stuff. I think to myself, Man, if
(24:19):
you have ever been a judge at a festival? So
I have judged festivals. I have been a judge at
certain festivals. They're primarily student festivals because you know, I
teach so to decide which films should get which awards,
like best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Actor, best lighting, best this, Right,
it is so difficult to choose, especially when you're dealing
(24:41):
with fantastic films. All of them are great, Like best Cinematography.
You've got ten films in front of you, and they
all look fantastic, and they all have you know, well
crafted angles and lighting and everything like that. Like, it's
so difficult to choose, all right, Best Director. I mean, like,
I direct, so I know what kind of things I'm
(25:02):
looking for, but also they're subjective to me. Do I
like long scene? Short scenes? Do I like this cut?
And by the way, there's so much that goes into it.
That directing is just you know, affected by the editing,
by the sound design, but there's lots of things that
can have an impact on all these kind of things.
So there is so much subjectivity as to number one,
which films get accepted, and then to which films are
(25:25):
sort of acclaimed for certain awards or whatever. So the
reason I'm saying this is that I want you to
enjoy the whole festival thing, but I don't want you
to feel bad or rejected if your film doesn't get
in or doesn't win an award. It's just so subjective.
It doesn't necessarily mean that another film was better than yours.
(25:47):
I mean, I'm going to say that most of the
top films are all equally good for different reasons. They're
all equally entertaining. But a lot of filmmakers personalize it
because it's it's almost, you know, the way students would
is getting into a college or something like that, which
is true. I mean, you know, you everybody likes to
be accepted, nobody likes rejection. But the film festival thing
(26:09):
is just so subjective. There's so much subjectivity that goes
into the choosing of the awards and the acceptances of
the films. I enjoy the festival thing, but I take
it sort of with a grain of salt, because at
the end of the day, the festival thing, again, as
I said, is the celebration of the movie. And do
I enjoy celebrating the art Yeah, of course, who doesn't.
(26:31):
It's a good party, and it's nice to hob nob
and talk talk the artistic stuff. It's the only time
that I really talk artistic stuff, like talk about the
making of the movie, the crafting of the scene, the
inspiration of the acting, of the sound design, of all
this kind of stuff. I like talking about that. You
usually don't get a lot of opportunities to talk about
it because I'm usually talking too much of the business side,
you know, of distribution and finance and all this kind
(26:53):
of stuff. So it's a nice break for me to
talk about that kind of stuff. But at the end
of the day, I'm so focused on the business side
that I'm still thinking all about the distribution. The festival
thing is not about distribution. Distribution is about distribution. So
in addition to festivals, there's these things called markets. So
film market is where the business of film gets addressed. So,
(27:17):
for instance, say the American Film Market takes place in
Los Angeles every year. I mean last year was in Vegas,
but this it's back to Los Angeles. This is where
the industry comes together. When I see the industry, I'm
talking about, it's a private event for people who register
in the industry. So it's buyers and sellers. It's distributors
for the most part, trying to sell their stuff to
people who want to buy, like streaming companies, television, other
(27:40):
distributors from around the world. It's a market where there's
trading that goes on, you know, in business, and it's
a lot more expensive to attend. So generally filmmakers sometimes attend,
but you know, the general public is not even encouraged
to attend because there's it's not like there's screenings. The
screenings are for industry only. It's industri people watching films
and screening them. And it's much more expensive. Whereas you
(28:02):
could go to say a film at a film festival
for say ten to twenty dollars, to register for a
data film market is three to four hundred dollars because
it's an industry function and there's a lot going on.
So there's you know, five or six really big markets.
There's probably a dozen that take place around the world,
but five or six really big ones. American Film Market,
(28:22):
European Film Market, Can Toronto. Sometimes people are confused with
the markets because sometimes they happen together, adjacent to a
film market and a film festival happened together. So let's
look at Can for instance. All right, So the Can
Film Festival, which is in May, happens in the exact
same time and place as the what we call the
(28:43):
marchade you can, which is the film market. So they happen.
It takes what you've seen it on TV, the big festival,
the convention center. All right. So on the left, if
you've been to this place, which I've been many times,
all right, on the left side is the big building
with the big red carpet and the stairs walking up
and you see the limousines pull up and the stars
get out and the whole red carpet thing right, and
(29:05):
they walk in, and that's the festival and all the
paparazzis they are taking the photos and all the crowds
that they're looking at the celebrities. So that's the festival side,
and that takes place when you're facing the building on
the left side. Right on the right side is this
sort of convention center, and they're attached to each other,
and that is where the market takes place. That's where
all the vendors come, all the distributors are there, all
(29:28):
the business people are there. So the public is on
the left side because they're coming to the screenings, but
the business people are on the right side and they're
there to hobnob with other industry people. Did they go
to some of the screenings. Yeah, sure, because they're in
the film business, so they like the hoopla of going
to the screenings and stuff like that, but their primary
objective is to have the business meetings with other people
who've come to buy and sell films together. Right now,
(29:51):
they happen to be at the exact same time because
it's convenient. It's convenient for the industry to do the
screenings and the meetings at the same time, so you
can attend both. But there's markets that don't have that.
I mean Toronto has that also, but like the American
film market, there's no festival that goes on. There's another
sort of some screenings that go on, but for the
most part, the American film market is just a market.
(30:13):
It's not known as a festival. So some of them
have festivals at the same time as markets, but they're different,
all right. So if you go to can you can
go and just go and pay for a screening and
go in as regular public to go to the festival.
But if you go there and you want to get
into the market, you've got to register. You got to
(30:34):
pay a lot more money. You've got to register. You
have to be part of the business. To register to
get in, and it's a different function, it's a different
it's it's at the same time, but these people are
looking to buy and sell the movies, and these people
are just looking to screen and celebrate them. So you've
got the celebration of the films going on on the
left side and the business of distribution going on the
(30:55):
right side, which is really interesting dynamics. So some of
my students have actually being to can and they said,
I was a little confused at first, like you're telling
me that you know this whole thing for fifteen dollars
to get into a screening, I said, no, No, that's
got nothing to do with the distribution. The distribution is
all happening over here, and you know that's three hundred
and fifty dollars to get into that or four hundred
(31:16):
depending on what day you're going, if you can even
get in, which makes sense, all right. So this is
the separation. So as a filmmaker, don't think that because
your film is screening in a festival, it's going to
be seen by the distribution people. Sometimes it will, but
usually not unless it's a really big festival. So the
distribution side has to be dealt with differently. So a
(31:38):
lot of filmmakers believe that once they when they submit
to festivals, that's part of the distribution process, and I'm
telling you it usually isn't. It's not going to hurt.
All right, it's definitely not going to and it's not
going to definitely not gonna hurt if you win awards
and get acceptances and all this kind of stuff. The
more accolades you can get for your film, the more
I'm going to say marketing tools you have to help
(32:00):
support your film. Like when you say to a distributor,
in my film won you know, Best Choice Audience Choice
award is these three festivals and I won Best Director
and everything like that, then that speak bodes well for
your film. Somebody says, ooh ah, that sounds good. I mean,
because you know there's some legitimacy to that, right, So
people say, hey, it sounds like some real people, some
real audience watch your film and liked it, and you
(32:22):
know you won the award. Great. Doesn't mean you're gonna
get a deal right away, but it doesn't hurt. It
helps a lot. It's something else to talk about that
is positive about your film, all right, but it's not
getting you distribution. If you win you know, the Audience
Choice award at a say a B level festival, it
doesn't guarantee anything about distribution. It just says that other
(32:44):
filmmakers and audience enjoyed watching your film and celebrated it.
Now you got to take that, and you still got
to go through distribution. You still got to get a distributor,
You got to send your film. You got to go
through all the processes that I talk about, you know,
at nausea, about how to find a distributor, how to
negotiate the right deal, how to navigate, how to market
(33:05):
all this kind of stuff. The festival is just one
other little box maybe that you can use as a
check mark to say, hey, my film is credible and
that it you know, it was acknowledged and celebrated by
certain audiences. To summarize the festival thing is fun. I
like it on the artistic side. As I said, It's
one of the few times that I get to be
(33:26):
an artist and really celebrate and hobnob with other artists.
That's why I enjoy it, because I once in a
while I actually enjoy wearing my artistic hat. Believe it
or not, but I do realize that I'm not going
there with the intent to the festivals that I attend
and get accepted to with the intention of finding distribution
at all. If it happens, maybe all right, maybe once
(33:47):
in a while distributor's there, But I don't go there
for that reason. I go to celebrate the film and
to hear audience feedback and to kind of get, you know,
a better sense of how my film is reacting with audiences.
I still have to work it on the distribution side,
so I still have to go and do all the
same motions to get distribution. Now. I do attend markets
(34:08):
because because I still, you know, work in the distribution side.
So I do spend the money and I go to
the big markets, and you know, as I said, and
can't if I go to Kent, I actually don't even
go to the festival. I just go to the market
because for me, the priority is obviously getting distribution and
dealing with the with the business side. All right, maybe
once in a while go to a screening or something.
(34:28):
I mean, obviously my film got accepted into cant then
I would go to the screenings and I would hobnob
in that area. But usually I don't even submit there
because I just because of the things I explain, you know,
I don't want to pay the submission fee, I don't
want to wait for the acceptance. I don't want to
forego all the other festivals. So I've come to kind
of realize, for my own films and the films that
(34:51):
I represent, that I would rather take something that I
know is going to be for sure. Like when I
said earlier about say the Denver Festival versus the Try Festival,
you know, and again I'm making it up because I'm
not sure when that festival actually is. But if I
get accepted for a decent sized, say b festival, and
I got a screening time, and I know that it's
(35:12):
you know, ten fifteen, twenty years running, it's a you know,
legitimate festival. It's going to have a legitimate audience there,
and I think it's real and I want to go there,
then I would generally forego my Toronto submission. Why would
I submit to Toronto? Then it's if I don't get
accepted to anything else, so it still stays active throughout
(35:32):
that period. And then maybe, just maybe for all the
wrong reasons, it's because I didn't get accepted to anything
that that one stays active and chances are I'm not
going to get accepted to that either, but maybe, just
maybe I get accepted to that for whatever reason, and
luckily I didn't get submitted accepted to anything else. So
you know, it's a it's a real balancing act. You
(35:53):
got a lot of balls in the air. And there
are people who are what we call festival consultants who's
specialize in this, who understand sort of the timing of
all the festivals, the dynamics, the premier status. A lot
of them actually were festival programmers, so they have worked
in that industry. They actually know the other A lot
(36:14):
of the other people who program for the festivals, who
choose the movies. They charge a lot of money. But
you can hire a consultant to help you lay out
a plan and a strategy to actually go into submit
to festivals, choose which ones you want to go to,
choose the right ones you want to submit to. So
in some cases maybe it's worth it if you want
to spend the money. I think they obviously know what
they're doing because they come from the festival world. It's
(36:37):
just a balancing act. Is how much you want to
spend and what your turn on investment is going to be.
So bottom line, enjoy the whole festival thing. It's a
lot of fun, but make sure you understand that that
is not distribution. Good luck. As always, I welcome all
of your comments and feedback. In questions, please email me
directly at Jadevrett at Deverrett Media at dot com and
(37:01):
wherever you're listening, please subscribe mm hmm
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