Festival screenings

Posted on October 2, 2007

Still no word on when the short will play at its next festival. I’ve heard back from a couple that my short was not chosen. This can be a hard pill to swallow. Especially when you want your short to play everywhere. The reality is, at least what I’ve heard from others doing the same thing as me, that shorts have a high rejection rate.  I’ve even heard that filmmakers should expect only a 10% acceptance rate.  Boy, I hope it isn’t really like that.  If so, it means I could be in for more disappointment in the future. I guess I need to be prepared.

Coincidentally, while I was at Palm Springs, I attended a panel discussion of festival programmers. There were guests from several festivals across the country, large and small. One of the things they talked about was why films are turned away. The reasons were vast. Everything from, it is too long for the time they have remaining, the story doesn’t fit into the theme they are trying to reflect in the festival or a particular showing, or a plethora of other reasons. It was very sobering.

With that said, I expected this from the beginning and there are tons more festivals out there.


Filed Under TDDUP-Festivals

Comments

3 Responses to “Festival screenings”

  1. Rok Andic on October 3rd, 2007 2:23 am

    10% acceptance looks pretty scary to me. Wish you a better rate in your festival run!

  2. David on October 4th, 2007 9:38 am

    I have a couple of friends that have done the festival thing too. Theyve told me that the acceptance rate was somewhere around 20% for them.

    Ten percent sounds a little low, but I guess it depends on who you send it to. If you choose only the big festivals that have low acceptance rates you will probably only get 10%. choose all the little guys and it will probably be more like 60%.

  3. Teresa on October 5th, 2007 2:32 pm

    There are so many variables that affect a film being selected for a festival I think the percentages of acceptance might be misleading. In my experience some films do better at festivals than others, i.e. I have one film that people found particularly funny that was accepted by most festivals that I sent it to, whereas the other films that aren’t so funny didn’t have such a high rate of acceptance. The “funny” film also was under 3 minutes and think that helped too. I don’t have official statistics, but I think shorter comedic films have a better chance of being selected. Of course I am not implying that films should be made according to what festivals want to screen. I believe in making the film you want to make, and if you are happy with it, someone else, including some festival directors will be too.

    I also think it is a numbers game and the more festivals you submit your film to, the greater the chances are of it being screened at more festivals.

    I’ve had a pleasant surprise after having a film be rejected from a festival, when someone on that festival’s screening committee told a distributor about the film. I ended up getting a pretty good distribution deal from it — it probably wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t sent it to that festival. I don’t know how often this might happen, but the thing is, the people screening films for festivals are connected and just because your film might not be selected by that festival, they may refer it to a distributor or perhaps another festival. As you saw at the Palm Springs Festival — Festival directors go to other festivals and talk to one another.

    So, if you can afford it, keep sending it out. I am looking forward to seeing it someday!

    Are you planning to release it on DVD?

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