festival recommendations at DVinfo.net

Brannon Bates · May 20th, 2011, 07:57 AM

Hi, I have two features and a short I want to send to festivals. Here are links to the trailers, could you recommend what festivals they would fit best in. Greatly appreciated:

features:
Payback Jack
YouTube - ‪Payback Jack Movie Trailer‬&rlm;

SHE
YouTube - ‪"SHE" movie trailer‬&rlm;

short:

Remember
YouTube - ‪Remember Movie Trailer‬&rlm;

Josh Bass · May 20th, 2011, 02:18 PM

Ha!

The simple answer is: there is no simple answer.

The festival world, ah, she is mysterious beast where some thrive and others perish, often not based on how good a movie is but. . .the way that---oh hell, who knows?

Anyway, there are at least 6000 festivals all over the world, maybe more like 10,000 by this point. Most accept all genres and lengths, though there are some specific to the horror genre, sci fi, short films, etc.

The quickest way might be to simply figure out what genres you consider each movie to be (action? sci fi? slasher? etc.) and google "sci fi film festival" or whatever, and start clicking through each search result to see if it looks like a promising fit for your film.

What do you look for? Who knows. I tried to find screen shots of accepted films from previous years. If they all look way higher budget than yours, might not be the film fest for you. If most films are longer/shorter than the length of whichever film you're thinking of, may not be the fest for you. If there are no movies in the genre your film is in, might not be the fest for you. I say MIGHT 'cause each year could have different judges, etc. You never know.

A more tedious method would be to go to something like "withoutabox", a service that streamlines the festival submission process, and literally click through every festival in their database (unless it's clearly, by name, not something you're interested in ("The San-Fransisco Totally Not Action Oriented Children's Film Festival"), and go the festival website, and look for the criteria above.

But again, I have no idea why things do well or don't in the fest world. So good luck. With the feature you might consider skipping fests and look into distribution. . .unless you have some specific reason you'd like to go the fest route first.

Sareesh Sudhakaran · May 20th, 2011, 10:52 PM

Without marketing, submitting to any festival is a waste of time. The advantage of withoutabox is that it gets you an IMDb credit.

Josh Bass · May 20th, 2011, 11:06 PM

Not sure I agree with that. . .withoutabox saves you a ton of time with the whole process if you do a lot of submissions. Normally, you would fill out a form and possibly prepare a press kit for each and every festival. With withoutabox, you fill out the form once, and prepare an online press kit once, and from then on simply click "submit" on the withoutabox site each time you want to enter a fest. You can even store your movie online to submit (for some fests anyway) so you don't have to mail a DVD each time, though some folks don't like that because the quality is not too good and that would be the copy of your movie they use to judge you at each fest.

Nuno Dias · May 25th, 2011, 02:23 PM

The quality is as good as what you put there. I'm using withoutabox to tour the festivals with my short and thank god I found withoutabox! it's such a time saver, wonderful opportunities and in depth information on each and every festival. You can submit to probably 80% of all festivals by the online secure screening, I did a very good resolution mov file and uploaded it. It looks great, even if they see it full screen.

And it's also much easier to keep track of everything, dates, notification dates, press kits, etc... it does it all for you!

May 20th, 2011, 07:57 AM	#1
Brannon Bates Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 27	festival recommendations Hi, I have two features and a short I want to send to festivals. Here are links to the trailers, could you recommend what festivals they would fit best in. Greatly appreciated: features: Payback Jack YouTube - ‪Payback Jack Movie Trailer‬&rlm; SHE YouTube - ‪"SHE" movie trailer‬&rlm; short: Remember YouTube - ‪Remember Movie Trailer‬&rlm;

May 20th, 2011, 02:18 PM	#2
Josh Bass Slash Rules! Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Houston, Texas Posts: 5,472	Re: festival recommendations Ha! The simple answer is: there is no simple answer. The festival world, ah, she is mysterious beast where some thrive and others perish, often not based on how good a movie is but. . .the way that---oh hell, who knows? Anyway, there are at least 6000 festivals all over the world, maybe more like 10,000 by this point. Most accept all genres and lengths, though there are some specific to the horror genre, sci fi, short films, etc. The quickest way might be to simply figure out what genres you consider each movie to be (action? sci fi? slasher? etc.) and google "sci fi film festival" or whatever, and start clicking through each search result to see if it looks like a promising fit for your film. What do you look for? Who knows. I tried to find screen shots of accepted films from previous years. If they all look way higher budget than yours, might not be the film fest for you. If most films are longer/shorter than the length of whichever film you're thinking of, may not be the fest for you. If there are no movies in the genre your film is in, might not be the fest for you. I say MIGHT 'cause each year could have different judges, etc. You never know. A more tedious method would be to go to something like "withoutabox", a service that streamlines the festival submission process, and literally click through every festival in their database (unless it's clearly, by name, not something you're interested in ("The San-Fransisco Totally Not Action Oriented Children's Film Festival"), and go the festival website, and look for the criteria above. But again, I have no idea why things do well or don't in the fest world. So good luck. With the feature you might consider skipping fests and look into distribution. . .unless you have some specific reason you'd like to go the fest route first. __________________ The Bass' camerawork The Bass on IMDB

May 20th, 2011, 10:52 PM	#3
Sareesh Sudhakaran Trustee Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Mumbai, India Posts: 1,385	Re: festival recommendations Without marketing, submitting to any festival is a waste of time. The advantage of withoutabox is that it gets you an IMDb credit. __________________ Get the Free Comprehensive Guide to Rigging ANY Camera - one guide to rig them all - DSLRs to the Arri Alexa.

May 20th, 2011, 11:06 PM	#4
Josh Bass Slash Rules! Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Houston, Texas Posts: 5,472	Re: festival recommendations Not sure I agree with that. . .withoutabox saves you a ton of time with the whole process if you do a lot of submissions. Normally, you would fill out a form and possibly prepare a press kit for each and every festival. With withoutabox, you fill out the form once, and prepare an online press kit once, and from then on simply click "submit" on the withoutabox site each time you want to enter a fest. You can even store your movie online to submit (for some fests anyway) so you don't have to mail a DVD each time, though some folks don't like that because the quality is not too good and that would be the copy of your movie they use to judge you at each fest. __________________ The Bass' camerawork The Bass on IMDB

May 25th, 2011, 02:23 PM	#5
Nuno Dias New Boot Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Portugal Posts: 15	Re: festival recommendations The quality is as good as what you put there. I'm using withoutabox to tour the festivals with my short and thank god I found withoutabox! it's such a time saver, wonderful opportunities and in depth information on each and every festival. You can submit to probably 80% of all festivals by the online secure screening, I did a very good resolution mov file and uploaded it. It looks great, even if they see it full screen. And it's also much easier to keep track of everything, dates, notification dates, press kits, etc... it does it all for you!