Stephen Elliott recently posted The Great Film Festival Swindle on The Rumpus.
It’s a fascinating read for filmmakers about to devise a film festival strategy.
The issue is that you need people to see your film — you need to find your audience.
It seems obvious that film festivals can deliver that audience to you.
But it turns out that not all film festivals are created equal. In fact, some are much better than others. And some are downright greedy.
Elliott started with the question, “Why are film festival submission fees so high?” and then started digging and ended up unearthing some invaluable data he now shares with us all.
In essence, he cross-referenced the stories film festivals and filmmakers told him. He was particularly concerned with a film paying the submission fee and its chances of actually being selected. It turns out that over twenty well-known film festivals in the last couple of years collected feature film submission fees but only programmed invited films or ones that had a waiver — none of the films that paid the fees got in.
Elliott asks:
“Is it okay to fund a festival based on exorbitant submission fees and not program the movies that are paying the fees? It’s as if the losers were throwing a party for the winners.”
According to Elliott’s research, the top seven “level-playing field” film festivals are:
- Slamdance Film Festival
- Dances With Films
- Cinequest Film Festival
- Blow-up Arthouse Film Festival
- Woods Hole Film Festival
- NAPA Valley Film Festival
- SXSW Film Festival
For a balanced view, see The Other Side’s Truths about Film Festival Submission Fees.
My take: I’ve had a feature and a few shorts screen at film festivals. It’s nice! It strokes your ego. But the brutal truth is that the explosion of content today means you now have to pay (and pay big) to get into film festivals. It’s almost a full-time job researching, submitting, paying, following up, delivering media, promoting and, potentially, attending film festivals. Be sure the exposure plays into your overall marketing plan. Added thought: I challenge all film festivals to publish their ratio of fee-paying selections to invited or fee-waived selections.