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Film Festival Dos and Don’ts
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RULE THREE: PROMOTE, PROMOTE, PROMOTE! • It can be humiliating, and you may feel like the most disingenuous bastard ever, but it’s time to stop being an artist and become a completely shameless huckster. You want people to come to your movie; this is what you must do.
It’s important to note that some moviemakers feel promotion is the job of the festival staff—after all, they’re the ones putting on the event—but this isn’t true. The festival’s task is to cull a local audience for the festival itself, a process which develops over years and creates a potential pool of people for any given movie. It’s your job to draw from that pool of people and get them to see your movie. If you don’t, these folks will happily see something else at the festival, made by moviemakers who did get out and bang their own drums.
First, right after you get accepted to a festival, ask to get in contact with the festival publicist. Early and polite contact with a PR person is crucial, because you not only need to account for the lead times required by the media you hope they’ll pitch you to, but because the closer the festival start date gets, the busier the PR people become.
Let the publicist know what materials you can provide, the dates you’ll be at the festival and that you would love to participate in any press coverage they may offer. You can also ask for a media list, enabling you to pitch to local TV, radio, Web and print outlets yourself.
Public relations folks tend to be overworked, and in my experience they appreciate three things: Politeness, patience and help. They often toil harder for moviemakers who aren’t wallflowers, but who also aren’t pains in the ass.
Prior to the festival, you should promote your film’s screening online via Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, your own Website and anywhere else you can get the movie’s name and screening info in front of receptive eyeballs. But once you get to the festival, it’s time to do the more humiliating—but crucial—step of promotion: Taking to the streets and slathering the area surrounding the venues with as many posters, flyers and cards as you can carry. (Yes, you sent a ton of these to the festival already, but you’ll need to bring more with you.)
Your promotional game plan can be as simple as asking store owners if you can put a flyer up in their window or as aggressive as standing on the street corner handing out postcards to passersby (just make sure local laws don’t prohibit this first).
Find the level of hucksterism that you almost can’t stand, and do that. It may feel awful, but you can create a real local buzz about your movie if it suddenly seems to be everywhere. Plus, when the festival director staggers into a Starbucks after two hours of sleep and sees a stack of your postcards at the cash register (essentially promoting his festival), you’ll make his day.
RULE FOUR: BE THE FESTIVAL’S BITCH. • Ask not what the festival can do for you, ask what you can do for the festival. Contact the festival early and offer yourself up for anything in which they’d like to include you. Whether they want you to participate in a panel, read and judge screenplays, speak with junior high students about the merits of film school, juggle chickens or hop on one foot—whatever it is, without hesitation, say “yes.” The more you participate, the more plugged in you are and the bigger your presence at the festival becomes.
At a recent festival, I found myself with nothing to do, so I helped the volunteers assemble lanyards. I was actually just completely bored and wanted to kill some time, but this simple act of sitting down and stuffing all-access passes into plastic sleeves simply blew the festival staff away. I was a favorite moviemaker for the rest of the event, had two posters up at the main venue (everyone else had one or none), was slipped an overabundance of drink tickets and was told (off the record) that they purposely stuffed my swag bag with extra goodies.
Moviemakers cannot change the system into which they will introduce their movies. All they can control is how they behave within that system, and therein lies the true secret of having a successful festival run. Sure, the best reason for being a “model moviemaker” should be to show respect and appreciation to the programmers who loved your film enough to make it part of the event they have worked so tirelessly to create. But if that’s not enough for you, let’s look at the situation on a completely selfish, pragmatic level.
First, festival directors speak to each other. Not everyone knows everyone, but everyone knows someone. The directors of the festivals you’re playing at already like your movie, but if they like you, they’re infinitely more likely to recommend you and your film to other festivals. Say goodbye to application fees and blind submissions—you’ll start getting invited to play.
Then there’s the matter of distribution down the road. When your film is being released, notify these festival directors; most festivals have massive e-mail lists of hungry film fans, and the festival organizers who like you will be happy to blast them with an announcement of your movie’s release date.
Lastly, assume that you’re going to make another film. When you do, the festivals you’ve pleased will still be there—ready and waiting to embrace it. MM
PAUL OSBORNE is the director of Official Rejection, a documentary about the experience of independent moviemakers at film festivals. He also wrote and produced the indie feature Ten Til Noon, released theatrically and on DVD in 2007, and will be interviewed in the next edition of Chris Gore’s Ultimate Film Festival Survival Guide.
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COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT 
- Comment by Nicole on 10/26/09 at 10:18 am
Great article. I had the privilege of meeting Paul last month at a festival and I loved “Official Rejection”. I will be buying the DVD when it comes out soon.
If there were one book that you would recommend for a new independent filmmaker, what would it be?
- Comment by Julie Keck on 10/26/09 at 3:08 pm
Thanks so much for the great article. I have a short in 2 film fests in November and I’ve been looking for exactly this sort of advice regarding promotion and film fest etiquette.
- Comment by Scott Hillier on 11/04/09 at 6:36 am
What an amazing article, this is a PERFECT guide on how to attack film festivals. I’m the president of The European Independent Film Festival but I’m also an indie filmmaker who submits films to other festivals (YES, NOT MY OWN!). We all have our dreams and this is a succinct two page guide on how to manage that dream and do it properly.
The truth hurts but the reality is that you have to, like Mr. Osborne says, “PROMOTE PROMOTE PROMOTE!” His advice that “right after you get accepted to a festival, ask to get in contact with the festival publicist” and “let the publicist know what materials you can provide” is excellent. Last year, Sam Bozzo (director of the film “Blue Gold: World Water Wars") worked closely with our press team leading up to the festival and throughout the event and received great media coverage.
I can’t agree more with Mr. Osborne WHEN HE SAYS : it’s quite optimistic to expect that once you arrive everyone is going to want to see your film. You have to market yourself! : There was one film at our festival last year from England who did this (handing out flyers to everyone, Facebook campaigning, Twitter feeds, etc.) and their theater was packed! There’s a certain amount of work that YOU as the filmmaker NEED to do. Our festival team work for months to put this festival on and filmmakers turning up with the expectation that crowds will be knocking down the doors to see their filmsare being unrealistic. Festival are a collobative thing - particularly indie festivals. You have to do a certain amount of work to make it a success for yourself as well. So from one filmmaker to another, thank you for writing this article as I will be taking your advice to heart - and as a festival organiser I’m hoping to see filmmakers arriving with drive and enthusiasm that you implore.
- Comment by Benjamn Barnett on 2/08/10 at 10:20 pm
Paul, There is so much to say! You could of course go into the actual “gritty” lifestyle that is Film Festing (!) (Film Festing: To fest: To produce and / or travel extensively to film festivals; One who will produce, program, write, direct a film festival as a passion) but maybe we can save that for a film festival to make there own doc movie about their experience producing one? Here are some thoughts:
So, as far as we see it, there are many ways to look at a fest director’s role but we define it as providing a creative lead, creating media strategy, constantly designing, taking notes, working from multiple lists, accessing and building multiple db’s, possessing many contacts (hack a fest director phone and you’re connected at the core!), and providing finger-tip access to sponsor info, movie reviews (their own and others), etc. and are always in-contact if they are making it happen as well as (they should be) responsive to calling back etc. They also watch all of the submitted movies ;) PR and Media mostly maintain the “daily” contact and all work together as part of the core fest team. A fest director and its PR and Media need to be tight and responsive for as much time prior to the actual fest! This is important.
For a Fest Director, filmmakers getting in touch and involved is the only way to go. With upwards of 50- 200 people contacting us over a 6 month period at random daily intervals, juggling agility is required but we’re committed to offering opportunities to do more than just get filmmakers in touch. We actively seek to assist your activation and integration into the existing festival digital media strategy and community at large. Hopefully you’ll do that for us as well.
As well, we can’t agree more that seeing the festival acceptance/release as your theatrical release is right on mark and sound advice. We think this is the point actually and perhaps you might see a Global Independent Film Festival circuit for example one day. ;)
For the filmmakers, I think it is important to remember the festival has very limited rights to their movie and they know it. This reason alone means you should be busting your hump to make it happen for your movie. This is a cost of doing business and ultimately you get the benefits (ownership / royalties). Maybe you go for it in larger media markets for example, you need to plan a strategy at some level. I see plenty of filmmaker apathy to this regard. Festivals should be utilized as springboards in as many ways as possible and that means integrating with the fest effort. One thing to start with would be to Post to the fest blogs (links of your imdb page, reviews, etc).
But as well, we also know that a healthy minority of filmmakers who could care less about this crap and just have a movie to submit and screen. We have been suggesting if you’re a film artist, do us a favor and explain what the heck we have, in your own way is fine, because we’re trying to explain it to the rest of the world out there. ☺
But really, for festivals, this reason alone (ownership) makes it hard to allocate money to a movie that people may have never heard of and has little collateral / support from the filmmaker. BUT, if the festival is really looking to break cool new people / movies (we’re talking Independent), then your press info, EPK, etc. or whatever you have are a great place to start as a team. The Independent film festival, however, is trying to expose all of its programming to a (hopefully!) increasing and ever-expanding audience at once so the fest goer “can‘t miss”
Some filmmaker submitting to festival marketing advice is to latch on to the fest’s overall digital media strategy that is (always on!) underway from the festival and cross-link, discuss, post, and promote. An Independent fest should be focusing their media strategy largely on the integration of filmmaker/festival as a means to attract an audience to the screenings, events, and (cool) sponsors in the first place. As well, it is good to see what the festival is doing outside of the fest itself (screenings, webisodes, podcasts, original content, social networking, other sponsorships, etc). You are and can be a direct part at any stage if the fest has your best interest in mind! You might be surprised at the strategies of some festivals.
If you have been accepted to Philadelphia Independent for example, we will email you an extensive local, regional, national, and international contact list. We also post a version of this list to the fest website to help generate some publicity.
A good festival should do it’s best to enable you to be a click or two away from your festival audience.
Hopefully this helps the discussion! Great movie !!
Thanks for a cool article … See you at #PUFF !!!Benjamin Barnett
Festival Director
Philadelphia Independent Film festival
23-27 June, 2010- Comment by gerwinters on 6/07/10 at 7:19 am
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A good festival should do it’s best to enable you to be a click or two away from your festival audience.
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If you have been accepted to Philadelphia Independent for example, we will email you an extensive local, regional, national, and international contact list. We also post a version of this list to the fest website to help generate some publicity.
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For the filmmakers, I think it is important to remember the festival has very limited rights to their movie and they know it. This reason alone means you should be busting your hump to make it happen for your movie. This is a cost of doing business and ultimately you get the benefits (ownership / royalties). Maybe you go for it in larger media markets for example, you need to plan a strategy at some level. I see plenty of filmmaker apathy to this regard. Festivals should be utilized as springboards in as many ways as possible and that means integrating with the fest effort. One thing to start with would be to Post to the fest blogs (links of your imdb page, reviews, etc).
But as well, we also know that a healthy minority of filmmakers who could care less about this crap and just have a movie to submit and screen. We have been suggesting if you’re a film artist, do us a favor and explain what the heck we have, in your own way is fine, because we’re trying to explain it to the rest of the world out there. ☺
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