“Film Festivals have been around a long time. The first event was the Venice Film Festival in 1932, with other major fests launching within the years after WWII, including: Locarno (1946), Edinburgh (1947), Cannes (1947), Melbourne (1951), and Berlin (1951). “ (1) Film Festivals are not only a great opportunity to show a new movie to an audience, but it is also a notable way of making connections in the industry. Under the visitors are not only interested viewers but often also people representing companies and organisations related to the festival. At more well known festival like Sundance it is not unusual that upcoming filmmakers are discovered and have the opportunity to start their career as a filmmaker on a higher level. Besides that it is a great chance to get to know other filmmakers, take part in workshops and talk more about the message of your film in Q&A sessions after your film is screened.
One popular website to submit films through is film freeway, browsing through this site it gets clear that there are a lot of film festivals out there. Yet not every festival is for every film. When planning a film the director should have an audience in mind, so as the film is done at the end of the process, the right festival for this audience needs to be found.
Most festivals do have a fee for submissions, so choose festivals wisely in order to spend your budget for the right festivals and increase the chance of your film being shown at festivals. It is also a good idea to think of where you want your film to premiere. “When planning your festival strategy, it’s important to think about them as marketing opportunities, but also knowing where you have a chance to shine. For example, while it`s great if you get invited to a top-tier festival, it can be difficult without a publicist or rep to get any attention with so many films. Yes, it’s always nice to get the indentation to Sundance, but too many filmmakers count on this. In 2017, they had thousands of entries for approximately 120 slots. Not good odds. And a number of smaller tests can give little films great opportunities.” (2)
Here a list of some documentary film festivals: IDFA, HotDocs, Full Frame, Sheffield, Silver Docs, Thessaloniki, True/ False, DC Environmental, SXSW, Doc NYC
Top 25 Film Festivals:
Sundance
IDFA & Toronto
Hot Docs
Sheffield Doc/ Fest
Berlin
Silverdocs
Tribeca
SXSW
Los Angeles
CPH:DOX
True/False
Full Frame
Ambulante/ Morelia
Jihlava
San Francisco
Edinburgh
Thessaloniki
Camden
Sarasota
Doc Lisboa
DokuFest Kosovo
Denver
Traverse City
Ashland
There are also a lot of smaller festival which are especially for environmental films like the Jackson Wild Film Festival (the nature equivalent to the Oscars), Suncine, Environmental Film Festival Australia, International Environmental Film Festival Green Vision, Planet in Focus International Environmental Film Festival (Canadian Screen Award Qualified), Colorado Environmental Film Festival, CinemAmbiente-Environmental Film Fest, Wild and Science Film Festival, Envirofilm, Save the Waves Film Festival, International Ocean Film Festival, Blue Ocean Film Festival & Conservation Summit, and many more.
There are many things to think about when submitting a thing, the three most important ones are:
-the budget: When thinking of the film festival budget, it is important to not only focus on the costs for submissions. When the film gets selected the director and some members of the crew might want to make appearances at a couple of the festivals. Some festivals do pay for accommodation or transport, but in general, it’s better to plan a budget for appearances.
-the timing: The timing of the release should be planned after knowing to what festivals the film is going to be submitted. Festivals do have deadlines and most festivals are yearly, so if the deadline is missed the release has to be pushed back a year. A lot of filmmakers plan the release of their film based on the Sundance deadlines, if you choose to do so, have a back up plan or more than one. Most filmmakers submit their films to a lot of film festivals expecting to get accepted at a few, which is a realistic point of view, especially if the film does not show any revolutionary footage or has a world star in it.
-the goal: The goal of the film should be clear from the beginning, the right film festival can bring the filmmaker closer to reaching this goal. It could be to find distribution opportunities or just to show the film to the wanted audience.
