Organize Your Festival Submission

Make a list of festivals you want your film in then research the hell out of them. The worst thing a filmmaker can do, is submit to a horror flick to a festival that mostly concentrates on family genre films.

Once you've figured out all that, get a calendar and figure out their submission dates and when the festival goes live. DCP's are expensive. Another thing that sucks is realizing that you've been accepted into two festivals around the same time when you only have the budget to get one DCP made.

A reason why organizing submissions is great.

Let’s say you’ve been accepted somewhere and a programmer has watched your film screening. Now you happen to meet this programmer and they are very interested in screening your film in their festival next month. Having a list handy will help you negotiate the best screening time with this programmer before returning home.

Find out who is attending, media and distributors alike, and see if it's possible to fly out there to schmooze face-to-face. Say you have your eye on Studio Canal, a European distribution company, knowing if they are attending festivals from your list ups your chances on meeting with them in person.

#featurefilm #shortfilm #knowledge #makingmovies #love #womeninfilm #festival #indiefilm #ilovefilms #films #movies #trynahelpsomebody #festivalstrategy #filmmakers #ilovetoronto