ASK & DISCUSS
INDEXFilm festival submission fees, multiple fees, recommendations, one to avoid, please discuss?
7 years, 6 months ago - Ray Brady
Hola,
Just completed a new narrative feature and also a feature length doco. Am in the process of submitting them to festivals and would love to hear any recommendations from shooters to submit too, or just as importantly, alternatively fests to avoid please? If possibly too litigious to post please send me a personal message?
More information and stills for your ref can be found on the imdb:
the dramatic psychological feature "Psychomanteaum" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5443372/ and the doco, which is avant-garde/experimental http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6906230/ (which I will be submitting to Cannes Directors Fortnight).
Also I have noticed that some festivals are now charging multiple submission fees to be considered in different award categories. I am familiar with established festivals not charging anything to submit, I personally find it onerous apart from financially prohibitive, after already funding the production of my films, to pay submission fees. Whilst I fully appreciate the time and effort it takes to properly review submitted films, I am in the belief that I have already contributed, just by making my film enough personal input, whilst the vast majority of festivals charge admittance/tickets, no profit share is ever offered as far as I can see to the filmmakers for their films. So, film fest submission fees are unfair when the festivals make income from the films that they screen. I realistically understand that without stars or a established following that I have to accept their necessity. Though festivals that charge fees for each and every different possible award category consideration, I find this an insulting egregious step to far. Some festivals out there even have year quarterly award ceremonies, with therefore a very limited amount of films to be in competition with and often being the single film nominated in a more obscure catagory, it begs the question, are these festivals purely there to allow filmmakers to buy awards and as festivals have they been set up as purely exploitative money making schemes? Am I being to cynical, am I completely wrong here or does anybody agree with me please?
Any and all thoughts, experiences and recommendations would be very greatly appreciated? I promise in turn to leave personal amendments to this posting in the not too distant future when I have experiences to contribute.
I can for now at least highly recommend the following from past festival screenings: Sitges, Fantaspoto, Sci-fi London, Stockholm, Edinburgh IFF.
Many thanks
Kindest regards Ray Brady
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7 years, 6 months ago - Ray Brady
PS The following link may be of use:
http://www.filmfestivallounge.com/list-of-festivals/
Response from 7 years, 6 months ago - Ray Brady SHOW
7 years, 6 months ago - Ray Brady
After using FilmFreeway for the last two weeks I just found this very useful "highest reviewed" link, a great way to start looking through the hundreds of festivals submission links on their excellent website:
https://filmfreeway.com/festivals?utf8=%E2%9C%93&has_query=&q=&call_for_entries=0&ft_ff=0&ft_sc=0&ft_audio=0&ft_photo=0&ft_oe=0&ft_in=0&ft_na=0&fees=0%3B100&years=1%3B20&runtime=Any&entry_deadline_when=0&entry_deadline=&event_date_when=0&event_date=&sort=rating
Response from 7 years, 6 months ago - Ray Brady SHOW
7 years, 6 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrzNtTcOplg
If that helps your appreciation of what the festival experience can be like.
Response from 7 years, 6 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin SHOW
7 years, 6 months ago - Ray Brady
Many, many thanks for that, Kudos Paddy!
I watched it the last time you very kindly took the time to post the excellent link for us all. A perfect example and exactly the type of festival that I would like Shooters to warn each other to beware of,
number one on a list then, hopefully soon to grow when other shooters contribute their experiences for the benefit of our community.
Kindest regards Ray Brady
Response from 7 years, 6 months ago - Ray Brady SHOW
7 years, 6 months ago - Caroline Bottomley
Hi, I'm speaking as a festival / awards organiser. We charge submission fees of £35 for music video/ shorts/ documentary - anything under 5 minutes.
We've taken a new approach to the existing system.
The current approach is a bit of a lottery from a filmmakers' point of view, ie there's a relatively small chance that an entrant gets any benefit from paying a submission fee.
Instead, we share ratings and written feedback with each entrant about their submission. Ratings & feedback is from professionals working in the music video and commercials industry, and ranges from EPs, CDs and MDs through to assistants & co-ordinators.
This way, if entries aren't shortlisted, the director will have a good idea why. Directors who entered the current awards series have anonymised feedback from at least 5 industry professionals.
Entrants have been giving us positive feedback in their droves - there's a selection of comments here http://www.shinyawards.com/enter
I hope we start a trend!
And if anyone would like to go on the mailing list to find out about the next awards (call for entries probably opening in April), drop me a line caroline@shinyawards.com
Response from 7 years, 6 months ago - Caroline Bottomley SHOW