10 Tips for Entering Your Film in Film Festivals
Whether you are distributing your own film or seeking a distributor, being in a film festival is a great opportunity to create publicity to add to your media portfolio. This media attention can help you gain more recognition and sales for your film as well as help you find a distributor. While you can get in many festivals by just paying the entry fee, the biggest festivals which the major distributors attend are selective and choose about 4% of the films from thousands of entries.
These big festivals can be a good opportunity to help you find a major distributor if you win, as long as you are willing to wait out long selection process of several months to learn if your film has been selected, and if it has wait several more months, since your film has to premiere at the festival. Plus you have to pay the substantial fees to attend, and only about 10–20% of these films end up with distribution deals.
However, if you are doing your own distribution or hope to eventually find a distributor, entering one or more of the many other festivals can be a good investment. These range from well-known and established second tier festivals to the smaller, less well known, and often specialty third-tier festivals appealing to a certain niche. Deciding which festivals to enter can seem daunting, since there are more than 8000 festivals around the world, including 155 Academy Award / BAFTA Award accredited festivals featured on Film Freeway (www.filmfreeway.com), which is now the biggest site for listing festivals.
This is an overwhelming number of festivals, and with an average entry fee of $35–60 if you enter early, or even more — $50–75 — as a late entrant, so the entry fees can mount up. For example, enter 10 festivals, that’s about $500; enter 20, and you’re up to $1000. Then, if you go to any festivals accepting your film, which you should attend if you can, add another $1000 per festival for travel, hotel, and promotional expenses, and maybe even more if a team of people from your film attend.
Thus, you need to be selective in choosing which festivals to enter. If you have a limited budget for entries and travel, as most new filmmakers do, which film festivals should you enter? Following are tips for selecting and entering a festival.
1) Consider the personal connections which you, the cast or crew have with the directors or staff of the film festivals that are selective, since these connections can help you get in. You may still have to pay the entry fee, so your entry is processed like the others, but this personal relationship can make your film more likely to be accepted.
It can help if you, your cast, or crew previously won an award in a festival. That will increase your chances of getting accepted again, though you still need a good film for consideration.
2) Consider the festivals in your area or where your top cast and crew live. Not only may this local connection up your chances of getting into the festival, but it will make it easier and less costly to attend should your film be selected. Another advantage is that you may be better able to publicize the showing at the festival because of your own or your cast and crew’s connections in the area.
You can readily search for the festivals in your area through Film Freeway. Just put in the state or city in the search box, and festivals in that state or city will turn up. Or browse through the upcoming festivals to look for festivals in your area.
You can narrow your search still further by looking for festivals in your areas which are interested in your type of film. For example, some festivals specialize in comedies, others in horror, sci-fi, social justice, and films in multiple categories.
Or do a more expanded search to enter festivals outside your area, even if you can’t attend, because you can use any acceptances and awards to build interest in your film. In this way you can both increase sales and interest prospective distributors.
3) Consider the dates when the festivals will occur, and preferably choose those with dates you or other film members can attend if your film is accepted, so you can build up your press coverage at the festival. But while your attendance can help, it is not necessary to attend to use the festival showing in your publicity.
Also, in considering the dates of festivals to enter, determine when your completed film will be available — or when you will have a trailer or short for it, since many festivals feature trailers and shorts, usually with feature films, though some only show trailers and/or shorts.
4) Besides entering festivals where you have personal contacts or which are in your area, winnow down the number of festivals to enter by identifying the festivals which show your kind of films and the preferred dates to enter your film, whether you want to attend or not. Conversely, eliminate the festivals that don’t show your kind of film or not in the range of dates when you want to enter your film.
5) If you plan to enter a number of films through FilmFreeway, get a Gold Festival Pass, which means you get extra discounts and services. As the company describes it, FilmFreeway Gold is a premium service that allows its members to receive special discounted pricing to hundreds of verified Gold festivals and more. FilmFreeway Gold members receive: 10% to 50% off entries to all Gold festivals, Free Submission Protection for all entries to all festivals, 50% off all FilmFreeway Marketing Services. You pay either $10.99 a month or $99 a year.
The various categories for entering your film on FilmFreeway include documentary, experimental, feature, and television, plus there are categories for music videos, short scripts, and screenplays. You can limit the festivals you view by the amount of the entry fee from free to over $100, by the years the festival has been running from 1 to over 20 years, and the runtime, so you select only festivals that screen feature length films. You can also select the regions and countries where you do or don’t want to screen your film as well as by the entry deadline and the event date. After you pick the categories, hundreds if not thousands of festivals in that category will show up.
6) After determining the range of dates when you want to enter your film, look for festivals that will occur within that time period. Also, determine if you want to include festivals in other countries or limit your submissions to the U.S. or to the U.S. and Canada. Or perhaps limit your film to English speaking countries only, so you don’t have to get your film subtitled. Or within English speaking countries, you might limit those outside the U.S. and Canada to Britain, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Australia, and New Zealand. In short, establish your limits and exclude countries outside these parameters from your search.
7) A further consideration is whether the festival permits or only allows online screeners. These screeners have become increasingly popular, and they are more efficient and cost less than the traditional way of mailing a DVD or Blu-Ray disc. These online screeners also make it more convenient for the judges, since they play the screener online and don’t have to deal with unpacking and storing video discs.
Plus now there are some festivals that are online only. Many of these are newer and often smaller festivals, but they can be very convenient to enter. The festival dates are posted and promoted on the Internet, and viewers can click the link to view whatever is playing or search through the archives to find other films.
8) Another good strategy is to enter festivals early, since you will generally pay early-bird prices that will be $10 or more less than the regular price — a cost which can mount up if you are entering numerous festivals. These early submittals might also provide you with better consideration in the early rounds of judging, when the judges have more time to look at your video and may not have already seen a number of similar videos before yours, so you have a better chance of being passed on by the judges for further consideration.
Should you miss the early submission cut-off date, you will still get a lower price than if you wait until the last weeks or days to submit, when the late-bird pricing costs even more. Moreover, with a late entry, you may reduce your chances of festival acceptance, since by now the judges may be tired from viewing many submissions. So they may spend less time viewing your film rather than seeing it all the way through, and they may have seen many similar films, so now your film may seem like an also ran. Thus, the earlier you submit, the more you can not only save money, but the better your chances of getting through the first round of judging and ending up as a festival selection.
9) If you know the name of a specific festival, you can search for it by name. Otherwise, browse the festivals, where you can see them by various categories, such as those with secure online screeners, just announced, a hot list with the most popular films, recent spotlights, bigger discounts, something different, IMDB qualifying, established, emerging, and more.
10) If you’re still not sure which festivals to enter, check the recommendations made by various film organizations, workshops on distribution, and film industry magazines. One of the best sources for guidance on festival entries is MovieMaker, which has several annual lists, including “50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee,” and“25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World.” MovieMaker also selects some specialty film festival as being very cool in selected categories, including documentary, horror, sci-fi, comedy, LGBT, ethnic/national, environmental/social causes, and women’s film festivals, as voted upon by magazine readers. Visit the MovieMaker website, http://www.moviemaker.com, for a more detailed descriptions about the different festivals.
Here is their list of 50 festivals worth the entry fee in 2019.
American Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Ashland Independent Film Festival, Atlanta Film Festival, Austin Film Festival, Bendfilm Festival, Bentonville Film Festival, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, Brooklyn Film Festival, Burbank International Film Festival, Calgary International Film Festival, Camden International Film Festival, Camerimage, Chagrin Documentary Film Festival, Cleveland International Film Festival, Cucalorus Film Festival, Dc Shorts Film Festival, Deadcenter Film Festival, Dok Leipzig — International Leipzig Festival For Documentary And Animated Film, Edmonton International Film Festival, Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival, Fantasia International Film Festival, Female Eye Film Festival, Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival, Florida Film Festival, Galway Film Fleadh, Heartland International Film Festival, Hollyshorts Film Festival, Indie Memphis Film Festival, Mammoth Lakes Film Festival, Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival, Nashville Film Festival, Nevada City Film Festival, New Hampshire Film Festival, New Orleans Film Festival, Omaha Film Festival, Oxford Film Festival, Portland Film Festival, San Diego Underground Film Festival, San Luis Obispo International Film Festival, Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Santa Fe Independent Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival, Sene Film Music & Arts Festival, Slamdance Film Festival, Stony Brook Film Festival, Tacoma Film Festival, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, Warsaw International Film Festival, Woods Hole Film Festival.
And here’s their list for the 25 coolest festivals in 2019.
Always For Pleasure, Bendfilm, Borscht Film Festival, Crested Butte Film Festival, Docs Against Gravity, Dokufest International Documentary Film Festival, Gimli Film Festival, Glasgow Shorts Fest, Indie Grits, Indie Memphis, Insideout, Main-Slider-Feature, Maryland Film Festival, Milwaukee Film Festival, Montclair Film Festival, Naples International Film Festival, New Orleans Film Festival, Oak Cliff Film Festival, Palm Springs International Film Festival, Regard — Saguenay International Short Film Festival, Rooftop Films, San Francisco International Film Festival, Skabmagovat Film Festival, Sound Unseen, Third Horizon, True/False Fest.
GINI GRAHAM SCOTT, Ph.D., J.D., is a nationally known writer, consultant, speaker, and seminar leader, specializing in business and work relationships, professional and personal development, social trends, and popular culture. She has published 50 books with major publishers. She has worked with dozens of clients on memoirs, self-help, popular business books, and film scripts. Writing samples are at www.changemakerspublishingandwriting.com.
She is the founder of Changemakers Publishing, featuring books on work, business, psychology, social trends, and self-help. The company has published over 150 print, e-books, and audiobooks. She has licensed several dozen books for foreign sales, including the UK, Russia, Korea, Spain, and Japan.
She has received national media exposure for her books, including appearances on Good Morning America, Oprah, and CNN. She has been the producer and host of a talk show series, Changemakers, featuring interviews on social trends.
Scott is active in a number of community and business groups, including the Lafayette, Pleasant Hill, and Walnut Creek Chambers of Commerce. She is a graduate of the prestigious Leadership Contra Costa program. She does workshops and seminars on the topics of her books.
She is also the writer and executive producer of 10 films in distribution, release, or production. Her most recent films that have been released include Driver, The New Age of Aging, and Infidelity.
She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and her J.D. from the University of San Francisco Law School. She has received five MAs at Cal State University, East Bay, most recently in Communication.