Mastering Film Festival Submissions

There are thousands of film festivals worldwide. Some are focused on a specific genre, like comedy or horror. Others are meant to uplift a specific community, like LGBTQ filmmakers or women filmmakers. However, most film festivals are “general” festivals: festivals that take a little bit of everything. So, when so many festivals look alike on the outside, how do you know which festivals to send your film to?

By following these three steps, you can narrow down your festival submissions, increase your chances of getting selected, and save yourself a lot of money.

Step 1 – What’s your goal?

Festivals are a tool. A stepping stone. A vehicle that can drive your career forward. But not all festivals are created alike. Which is why you need to look inward first, not outward, and answer a simple question: Why do you want to go to festivals?

Are you looking to meet other filmmakers? Are you looking to get hired? Are you looking for distribution? Awards? Financing for your next movie? Are you trying to grow your audience? Are you just looking to have a good time?

Knowing what you want out of festivals is the most important step before submitting. If you want to get financing for your next film, but you only submit to local festivals, you’re going to be disappointed. If you’re looking to get hired on projects and meet filmmakers in your area, but all you do is target big-name festivals, you’re going to be disappointed.

In order to align yourself with a festival, you need to understand what you are trying to achieve with your festival submission and whether the festival in question will facilitate that goal. In other words, know what you want and shop around before submitting. That alone will help you cross out hundreds of festivals and dial in on the ones that will truly help you.

Step 2 – Past programming

Okay, you’ve narrowed down the festival field by looking into which festivals will help you meet your goals. Now the real research begins. This is when you start looking into the festival’s past programming. What kinds of films do they take, and more importantly, what kinds of films don’t they take?

Let’s say you have a 20-minute documentary. The first thing you should be looking into is whether the festival has a short documentary category. If yes, that’s a good sign, but also… that’s where most filmmakers stop. But you aren’t most filmmakers, so you dig deeper. You look into the past three years of the festival’s slate to see if they specifically screen 20-minute documentaries.

This is where you get a granular understanding of the festival’s personality. Even “general” festivals have personalities in their programming: what they like and what they don’t like. To go back to our example, if you see that a festival has a history of programming 20-minute documentary shorts in a similar vein or on a similar topic to yours, then that’s a green flag to start submitting!

Of course, this can be applied across the board to features, shorts, music videos, and episodic projects of every kind. From arthouse to horror to drama and everything in between, first check if the festival programs movies like yours.

Step 3 – Your strategy

By now, you should have narrowed down enough festivals to have a good idea of where to submit: festivals that help you reach your goal and, furthermore, festivals that play films like yours. It would be easy to call it good from here and start submitting, but before you do, you need to consider one final thing: your strategy.

Many festivals have premiere requirements. Many festivals have “in-person” requirements, meaning they require the filmmaker to attend. There are some festivals that program their films based on what other festivals program, and some festivals that are looking for undiscovered voices. The last thing you want to do is submit to 10 festivals, get into one, and sabotage your chances of playing at the other nine (yes, this happens all too often on the festival circuit).

There are many different festival strategies, so it’s impossible to say which will be the best for your film. There’s the “top-down” or the “waterfall” strategy, where filmmakers premiere at a larger, more notable festival, then focus on regional and local festivals thereafter. Conversely, there’s the “bottom-up” strategy, where filmmakers build momentum on the circuit by targeting smaller festivals, building a base, and then submitting to a handful of larger events. In either case, premiere status should be kept at the forefront of your mind before submitting.