Your Film Festival Checklist: A Guide to Surviving Film Festivals for Indie Filmmakers
A short guide to everything you'll need now that you finally got into a film festival, complete with what to do and what not to do.
We’ve all been there. Anxiously refreshing Vimeo to see if you nabbed any new views on your film and Googling the weird towns they came from, setting your alerts for the infamous Reddit Film Festival Thread watching all these random Redditors boast about their acceptances (or lurk like the rest of us), and experience the crushing feeling of defeat when you get the cookie-cutter response from Generic Film Festival on FilmFreeway, thanking you for your time, your talent (even though you know they only watched five minutes of your film) and your entry fee, but ultimately letting you know that they have decided to go in a different direction.
And oh, here’s a great consolation prize: $50 off badges to a festival you didn’t even get into. They’ll even provide the extra salt to pour into your wounds, free of charge!
How thoughtful! Perhaps they'll provide lemon juice as well.
But when the day FINALLY comes and you get that notification….
CONGRATULATIONS!!! (digital confetti)
(this is not my film, I pulled this from the interwebs).
You did it! SOMEONE out there VALUES your movie as much as you do, enough to want to screen it in front of possibly HUNDREDS of people! Woo hoo!
Even though you might be feeling like you’ve made it and can relax now, I’m very sorry to inform you that the real work has only just begun…
After we premiered at Dances with Films in June of 2023, I spent the entire next day in bed recuperating. Not because I was hungover (it was actually more like our wedding in that we didn’t get to eat or drink anything because everyone wanted to talk to us) but because I was SO exhausted.
It was worth it though…
There was all of the marketing and PR and the social media and the after party and the brand sponsors and the 1000 other things I needed to do as a one-man-band to make sure we maximized our festival experience. I’m delighted that we did, but I was utterly spent at the end of it.
So this time, I’m updating my own playbook as we go into our next big festival and sharing some of what I learned in the hopes I won’t run myself into the ground and that this insight can help you too.
This Film Festival Checklist is tongue-in-cheek but definitely has some nuggets for you that you want to pay attention to in order to maximize your festival experience.
Ready to jump in? OK… let’s go!
Define your goals for the festival. What are you angling for? Is it to get your name out there? Network? Get repped? Sell your film? (be sure to check out my posts regarding sales and distribution for indie films, these waters are rife with sharks). Whatever your goals are DEFINE them early so you can work toward them. For my film, I had several goals in mind as we launched our campaign, the first being to prove that there was an audience and a demand for my movie. I therefore made it my goal to sell the theatre out and our team did… twice. Selling out your screening is an incredible way to demonstrate actionable and tangible value to potential buyers as well as give you and your team some serious cred.
Make sure your materials are ready to go. What I mean by this is making sure your DCP, your poster, your EPK, any postcards or promo items you plan on handing out are ready. You want to be FOCUSED while you’re there and not stressing about the minutia. And, this is huge… PREPARE A DROPBOX OR GOOGLE DRIVE WITH ASSETS AND COPY FOR YOUR CAST AND CREW TO COPY AND PASTE. Just give them all the materials you want them to post along with the hashtags you want to use (PLEASE don’t forget alt text for those with low vision - this small attention to detail will endear you tremendously and people DO pay attention). Send that link out to your crew and I promise the engagement for your socials will go up, because YOU, savvy filmmaker, made it EASY and foolproof. Look at you, you star.
Don’t break embargoes. If the festival told you not to announce your inclusion in the lineup they probably have a good reason for doing so and you pre announcing anything in a public format isn’t going to endear you to anyone. It’s only going to make you stand out for the wrong reasons and piss off their PR team who won’t feel pressed to do you any favors because you didn’t listen, jerk.
Traveling? Book early. The sooner you can get accommodations and travel booked the better. We all know how taxing and expensive indie filmmaking is, but this is not the time to question your life choices! You just got into a festival damnit! Now is the time for action! There’s a number of filmmaking groups on social media that set up apartment swaps, mostly between New York and Los Angeles but check it out. And if you can save a few bucks, see about getting a place with another filmmaking team. Which brings me to….
Network with your fellow filmmakers. Some festivals are better at this than other ones but for any opportunity you get, network with people! You’re meeting your peers here, your future collaborators! The best way to grow your network is to reach OUT not UP and you’re in amazing company with a group of filmmakers all seeking the same thing you are. There’s utter strength in this solidarity and you’re finally surrounded by not one, not two but DOZENS of people who “get it”. Take care of each other. Be kind and…
Don’t talk shit about the other films. Seriously. Even if you HATED the film, keep your mouth shut. You know as well as everyone else how GD hard it is to make a movie. The unpaid hours that went into it, the overwhelming feelings of anxiety as you put your WHOLE LIFE out there for everyone to judge… seriously. Be kind to everyone and show up for each other. I can’t even describe the relief you’ll feel when you FINALLY get to surround yourself with others who get it.
DO YOUR HOMEWORK ON DISTRIBUTORS. If you get hit up by a distributor (and you will), make sure you know what you’re getting into. The Film Collaborative has an EXCELLENT resource on some of the main distributors and what other filmmakers liked and didn’t like about working with them. It’s called THE DISTRIBUTOR REPORT CARD and it’s linked here. And you will, I promise, get hit up by a company asking for your airline rights only. Here’s a post I made about what I did when that happened to me and my film and what you should consider doing as well.
Don’t focus on reviews. I have seen this time and time again with indie filmmakers hellbent on focusing on getting the CERTIFIED FRESH review on the all-powerful RT. There’s a time and a place to chase those reviews but now, coming into a festival like a brand-new bebe without the stains of the world on you is not the time. Trust me. We can deal with those later.
This list is in no way comprehensive but I hope it starts you thinking about the laundry list of items on your plate that you need in order to maximize your festival experience. This list is good for your first festival or your fiftieth, but if this is your first, well, I hope you enjoy it because it is true, you always remember your first.
One last thing you need to know: some random person on the internet is going to think they’re doing you a favor by changing your film to “released” on IMDB. They are NOT doing you a favor, all they’ve done is start the clock for you because, I hate to say it, films have a shelf life in the eyes of distributors. Be aware of this and know that as you go into your first festival, the clock has started ticking. That means you basically have 12 - 18 months to do what you wanted to do with your film so you need to be working toward those goals every day.
No one is going to do a better job at marketing and promoting your film than you are, especially at the budgets we all know indie filmmakers are working with.
If you want more info or advice, you can always hit me up on my website at www.klamediagroup.com where I do one-on-one consultations and more comprehensive deep dives.
Now go out there and show the world how amazing you are! And congratulations for getting into a film festival: it’s not easy!!!!!
I’m showing at DWF:NY this year for my first fest ever and this eased so much of my pre-planning anxiety. Thank you!🙏🏽