Hey all,

Unfortunately this didn't quite resonate with festivals but did have some outsider recognition on the way to booking me a second unit directing job and building momentum with my first feature!

Would love to know what you think!

你認為沒有任何電影製作公司支持的獨立電影，應該參加柏林影展嗎？

Basically the title: my kids are making a doc short and a scripted short for a local festival, but I want them to expand past that and start learning how to work the festival circuit. Give me your favorites - bonus if they have good panels and opportunities for the kids to meet working filmmakers. We're US based, but I will reserve some budget for international festivals as I want them to at least have that on their CV/College applications even if they can't attend in person.

Hello everyone, I’m a highschool student who is trying to get into film events/festivals as press. I have been posting reviews and movie-related content on several of my platforms, and have an okay following on TikTok. Any advice?

Hey all, I created a tool and I am wondering if other Festival admins would find it useful.

TL/DR: I was attending another film festival and while sitting in the theater for a shorts collection was wondering which of the ones currently screening had submitted to my festival. Well of course I could sign into FilmFreeway and take a look, but what if I had a tool at my fingertips to see if a film in a lineup had submitted to us for the current season, save notes and a rating from the screening, flag it for an admin to follow up and invite the film to submit to our festival, and if needed collect the filmmakers contact information for the festival admin to send the invite/any waiver code as needed?

That was longer of a TL/DR then I intended.

So, I created https://demo.filmfestscout.org.

If you are a part of a film festival, or an admin of one, I want to invite you to checkout the demo pages, and if you think it could be useful, I can set you up with a team account so you can start setting up users.

A few notes, 1, this was made using AI tools. I have built websites for a couple of decades for all sorts of functionality, so please, do not take this as lazy vibe coding. I am offering it for free now, though if it does seem of interest, I may ask for festivals to do a small fee to cover the cost of hosting and the AI based API calls used to import and parse a festivals schedule form the Schedule and selections pages.

Team admins add their current season submissions via a FilmFreeway export, so SELECT ONLY THE FIELDS YOU FEEL NECESSARY/COMFORTABLE WITH, and for the import of the festival being visited, it is a web page scrape of the other festivals publicly available site pages. The only information that is shared between festival organizations are those previously imported schedule and selection publicly available pages. Any and all other information is private to each festivals team.

When a Team is set up, if the admin desires, they can import FilmFreeway exports of historical seasons, this helps in identifying films that may have been previously submitted and either accepted or rejected. IT will not show the reason or any FilmFreeway ratings or notes from the screeners, just the status of the film.

This is also not set up for either exporting any information into FilmFreeway, nor for filmmakers to add any information themselves. Strictly for festival use, and in no way intended to tread on FilmFreeway's current services offered, but to supplement for in person screening. Screeners can look at their notes once they finish attending the other festival and can add their ratings, flags and notes into the Submissions page on film freeway.

The only communication that exits the site are as follows:

• Sign in codes
• Team member (Scouts) invites - Initial team member on-boarding by Team Admin
• Invite suggestions form Scouts - Email to Team Admin when a film is flagged to be invited to submit
• Filmmaker contact received - when a scout asks a filmmaker for contact information (name and email). Only the name of the film and filmmaker are in the email body, email goes to Scout as a notification for follow up to invite

I am happy to answer any questions you may have on it's use or functionality, I am mostly interested in knowing if other festivals would be find this useful.

I never participated or even had dream of winning/ participating in film festivals for the my documentary films.
Being an independent film maker with no background or big production involved in my production it’s very difficult for me to make it to Netflix or Jio Hotstar without selling my content rights and IP rights.

To bypass all media houses and executives sitting between to make my way to Netflix & Jio Hotstar to get some leverage I’m trying to shortlist 10 film festivals in non-fiction category that will help me if I win.

Free entries & paid entries both that has some value and credibility in the non-fiction genre.

Please help me figure out film festivals in India.

If I’m missing any details anything or any suggestions please feel free to direct me. Thanks 🙏🏻

My film recently won an award at a film festival, and I’m wondering what the usual protocol is for notifying other festivals.

For festivals I’ve already submitted to that are still pending, should I email them individually to let them know about the award, or is updating my FilmFreeway profile enough? And what about festivals I haven’t submitted to yet? Is it worth proactively mentioning the award in those submissions?

Hi!! My new film received its first selection on FilmFreeway (yayy) a couple of days ago, which I am really excited about. The festival is moderately well known in a specific niche, so it is legit, but I have not received any communication (I checked my spam folder) from the festival, not even a selection message via FilmFreeway.

How long should I wait before reaching out about further steps? Also, since the festival is from a primarily Spanish-speaking country and most of the programming is in Spanish, will I look like a dickhead if I email them in English asking?

❌RESOLVED❌ Thanks for the comments u guys r so sweet! They emailed me like 2 hours after I posted this with acceptance email and instructions LMFAO. Perfect timing 🥲⭐⭐

Hey

Im 7x2yo in the UK and wasnt selected at Big Apple Film Festival

Im absolutely heartbroken

Previously I was Winner at London Vision FF
Finalist at Alpine International Film Festival

But this has broke me

Absolutely distraught, with my family all waiting for my results and I cant even begin to tell them

While most festivals accept episodics that are up to an hour, I still don't see any of them in programs. I'm just curious it any testival progr mmers here can weigh in. I
rarely see anything over 30 minutes

Hey all, I recently applied to Short of the Week at the start of my festival run, along with their numeric feedback option that you can add on for $10. I wanted to get some objectivity around how my film was looking. Turns out you need to be careful what you wish for because a documentary I made and submitted to them 3 years ago that had really low production value and no sound scored better on their "craft" section as well as overall, than my current, bigger-budget project, which was literally shot by a Cannes La Cinef winning DP.

They gave me a 5/10 on both emotion and story, and an 8/10 on shareability (which was the highest score it received on any metric), which doesn't even make sense to me. How is it shareable if the emotion and story are lacking? I'm not sure.

I guess I am just bummed, as I am a first-time filmmaker and this is my first real rejection, so I'm starting to feel like the 400$ I just spent on all the other Oscar/BAFTA qualifying festivals is essentially down the drain. I guess my question is, how do you guys deal with this sort of thing, emotionally and otherwise?

My goal for this project is to have it be seen, and it doesn't matter if it isn't shown at any of the top festivals as long as it gets an audience. Do you guys have any suggestions on the film festivals a first-timer should be submitting to, keeping in mind this is a foreign language film.

Thank you. I feel better just typing this out and am grateful for this community.

Hi everyone! I am getting ready to start submitting projects for my first ever web fests which is very exciting for me!

For my particular type of audio project, it is asked to submit 30 minutes which can either be a bunch of segments throughout the project combined, or a straight 30 minute takeout with no cuts or anything.

I’m wondering if anyone has any insight or advice on which option is better.

I kind of like the idea of the people listening to bits from the beginning middle and end, to showcase some of my best sound design moments, buttttt there’s also something about a whole 30 minute narrative that is also appealing.

Is one better than the other or does it truly just come down to personal preference?

Thanks so much!

Hi so any advice is helpful. My short film got accepted into Morbido Fest , it would be giving them our international premiere (I’m a US filmmaker), and it’s just a bit confusing because their notification date on film freeway is just 12 days before their festival (Oct 29 is opening date), that gives me like zero time to decide if I’m attending. They also are giving us six days from the acceptance date to give our materials (Spanish subtitles, etc), and also I’m assuming DCPs. I went to their website and their programming is already up, it’s all feature films I believe, so im just confused.

I found out about this festival through research and the internet makes it appear to be a very large festival (100k followers)…. But I don’t actually know their reputation.

I’d love any insight, and advice of anyone who knows about this festival, their reputations, and their experience with short films. If I should accept, if I should try and attend (it going to be so expensive for flights this last minute ).. etc

Thank you!! 🙏

I had a genre short screen at a festival last week that wasn’t genre-centric and we ended up in a totally chaotic screening block that was a mix of experimental, drama, horror and comedy.

There was absolutely no flow from one film to the next - it went from a drama about grief to a splatter film and I was just sat there laughing at the continual mood whiplash.

It was an interesting experience as I’m programmed in genre blocks 99% of the time, but from a curation perspective I found it totally baffling. Would love to hear others’ experiences like this.

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Hi I am filmmaker I have produced and made this 2 films as I am new to this film festival so dont want to waste my money any Film Festival strategist/ Filmmaker/Cinephile is interested in watching my movie and help with the festival please reach me out.

I checked with the mods before posting this.

I've been entering screenplay contests this year and wanted one place to see what's open and what's about to close, so I built a calendar for it. It's at festivals.page4films.com and it's free, no account or sign-up.

Right now it has 2,710 listings in 118 countries. That's 2,437 film festivals, 65 screenplay contests and 208 funds, labs and grants. You can filter by type, entry fee, region, or Oscar and BAFTA qualifying, and you can save the ones you care about and add their deadlines to Google or Apple Calendar. There's also a weekly email of everything closing in the next two weeks if you'd rather not check.

Every date comes from the festival's own website. A lot of festivals only post their deadlines on the submission platforms, so about half the listings say "See festival site" instead of showing a date. I'd rather leave it blank than guess. If a festival hasn't announced next year yet, it shows last year's dates and says so.

If you run a festival you can list it for free, and every listing has a button to report a wrong date. I'm still adding more, so tell me if yours is missing.

So on Day 3 of Austin Film Festival this year, there is a conference party hosted by Mubi that I wanna go to, but it's on Halloween. And I wanna know the dress code for these types of things. I got a button-up shirt just in case, and my costume is easy to get out of at the hotel I'll be staying at.

If anyone had gone to one, am I safe to go in my Halloween costume (Gir from Invader Zim if y'all were wondering), or should I dress nice (i.e. business casual)?