Wes Anderson was dining with French friends when he got the call—three months after submitting his resplendent new feature, Moonrise Kingdom, to Cannes—that his eccentrically funny-sad, 1965-set charmer was chosen for opening night at the world's most prestigious film festival. Sharing such thrilling news with his dinner companions, they all offered up the same reaction: "Better to be in competition."

Fortunately for Anderson, as the director recalled during an intimate press conference more luxurious than your average hotel junket (the sound of raindrops bouncing softly off an open-air tent on the Riviera beach), Moonrise later rose to a competition slot, and remains this writer's first and favorite selection seen at this year's Cannes. It's for that reason that only now, while fruitlessly waiting for a second film to rank as highly, that MovieMaker checks in at the fest's midpoint. Which is not at all to say that this has been a "weak year," as some jaded critics have grumbled, but we haven't yet seen any cinematic pleasures to collectively knock us out of our chairs (or wildly polarize) à la 2011's Melancholia, Drive and Palme d'Or winner The Tree of Life.

Independent moviemakers are renowned for having tons of creativity, scads of grit and boatloads of determination, but there's one crucial element that most of them lack: Cash. If there’s one thing that's music to a moviemaker’s ears, it’s the simple four-word phrase “No entry fee required.” For a film entered in multiple film festivals, submission fees alone can run into the hundreds of dollars, and it's important to submit your film to a festival that won’t put you in the poorhouse. With that in mind, join us as we take a look at 10 diverse, cost-effective fests with zero dollar entry fees.

The PS22 Chorus isn't your normal elementary school extracurricular group. A certified viral sensation after chorus director Gregg Breinberg started posting their performances on YouTube, in 2010 they were invited to perform at the Academy Awards. There to capture their journey from Staten Island to the Kodak Theatre was director Jonathan Kalafer, for whom the making of the film was its own sort of underdog story. In advance of world premiere of Once in a Lullaby: The PS22 Chorus Story at the Tribeca Film Festival, Kalafer took the time to share with MM his experience filming the PS22's Chorus incredible journey—and the personal impact doing so had on him.

Making the decision to screen at a festival is easy. But which fests are truly worth a withdrawal from your hard-earned Entry Fee Bank Account? Here's our 2012 list of 25 festivals worth the entry fee.

Co-directors of the Oscar-nominated Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud have tackled another one of graphic novelist Satrapi's works for their second collaboration, the dreamy, fairy tale-esque Chicken with Plums, which debuted at the Venice Film Festival last year and is having its U.S. premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. In advance of the film's first Tribeca screening this Sunday, the duo took the time to chat with MovieMaker about their second collaboration and the source of their visual inspiration for this truly stunning film.

In Benjamin Dickinson's feature directorial debut First Winter, a group of Brooklyn hipsters at a yoga retreat in upstate New York are forced to learn survival skills the hard way after an immense blackout hits, stranding them a drafty farmhouse with dwindling supplies and miles separating them from any passable roads—or, indeed, the rest of humanity. With their stock of food shrinking and temperatures dropping, buried tensions come to the fore, straining the friends' ability to work together even though—in a world with no electricity, no way to communicate with the outside world and virtually no chance of making it back to the city alive–all they really have is each other.

To get a sense of Finnish director Petri Kotwica's Rat King, try imagining a standard thriller. Then infuse it with a heavy dose of Hitchcockian suspense, add a dash of high school drama and flavor the whole thing with a cyberpunk aesthetic. In advance of the film's international debut at this month's Tribeca Film Festival, Kotwica shared with MM his inspiration, influences and favorite silver screen villains.

In Irish director Ian Fitzgibbon's Death of a Superhero, teenager Donald's creativity, active imagination and innate talent combine to make him a highly talented comic book artist. His future would be bright were it not for one thing: Donald, 15, is dying of leukemia. With a cast that includes Thomas Brodie-Sangster as Donald, a non-mocap Andy Serkis as his unconventional psychologist and Michael McElhatton and Sharon Horganas his struggling-to-cope parents, Fitzgibbon has managed to direct a film about a teen with cancer that manages to be inspiring but not melodramatic, sad and poignant but not unrelentingly grim.

With his film coming out on VOD tomorrow courtesy of Tribeca Films, Fitzgibbon took the time to chat with MovieMaker about what initially drew him to the script and how he crafted his own approach to the material.

One of the few facts we can rely on is that things change. And in this age of increasingly advanced technology, it can feel that change is coming at a rate impossible to keep up with, especially when it comes to the world of making movies. New media, transmedia, interactive storytelling... there's always something new going on, but if you're a forward-looking indie moviemaker who wants to take advantage of the Next Big Thing, the Tribeca Film Institute (TFI) has your back.

With today's announcement of the Tribeca Film Festival's Spotlight, Cinemania and Special Screenings lineups, cinephiles now have 44 more films to look forward to at this year's festival, among them Julie Delpy's 2 Days in New York, Morgan Spurlock's Mansome, Persepolis directors Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's Chicken with Plums and Tanya Wexler's historical rom-com Hysteria.

We already know this year's Tribeca Film Festival will be opening with Nicholas Stoller's rom-com The Five-Year Engagement, and today the world-renowned fest has given us a more complete look at the films that will be making their way to lower Manhattan this April by announcing the lineup of their World Narrative Competition, World Documentary Competition and out-of-competition Viewpoints sections.

The Tribeca Film Festival approacheth. The 11th edition of the festival, founded in 2001 by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff as a way to assist the economic and cultural revitalization of post-9/11 lower Manhattan, doesn't kick off until April 18th, but today movie fans found out one film they'll have to look forward to at the fest: The Five-Year Engagement, directed by Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him to the Greek), which has been chosen as Tribeca's opening night film.

Cinequest isn't your average film festival. While it screens films like all the rest, its devotion to spreading the world about cutting-edge technology—and its history of being an early adopter of those technologies itself—means it tends to leave other festivals in the dust, at least when it comes to once lesser-known ideas like online distribution and digital projection. MM spoke with director and co-founder Halfdan Hussey about Cinequest's evolving mission and some of the highlights of this year's fest, which kicks off next Tuesday, February 28th.

Last month, Josh Gibson went to the Slamdance Film Festival with his short film Kudzu Vine… and came back with his very own Panasonic AG-AF100, a full HD camcorder that retails for $4,995.00. Gotta say, not too shabby. For Gibson, an associate director and instructor of film at Duke University, the boon came courtesy of Panasonic's Five Flavors of Filmmaking contest, held in cooperation with Slamdance. The contest called upon five teams to use the AF100, the official camera of the festival, to create a one-minute film based on a flavor. Gibson chose to interpret the flavor he was assigned—watermelon—with an experimental film that brought to life three haiku poems by the 17th century Japanese poet Basho.

A hefty check of $10,000 and year-round support from one of indie film’s leading role models? This fantastic prize has been awarded to four moviemakers courtesy of the Mahindra Global Filmmaking Award, presented by India-based conglomerate the Mahindra Group in cooperation with the Sundance Institute. Designed to recognize and support moviemakers from around the globe, the award provides its winners with financial support, mentoring from creative advisers, participation in a Sundance Institute Directors or Screenwriters Lab, attendance at the Sundance Film Festival and additional support over the course of the year.

The Sundance Film Festival ♥s New York. At the 2012 edition of the celebrated festival, which wrapped up its ten days of indie mayhem yesterday, one in three of the films screened was impacted in some way by a graduate of New York University's (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts in the form of a director, producer, writer, editor, set designer, cinematographer or actor who graduated from the world-renowned film school.

With the 2012 Sundance Film Festival now in full swing, we've asked some Park City-bound moviemakers one burning question: Why Sundance? Here's what they had to say.

The Amazonas Film Festival, which took place from November 3-9, completed its eighth annual run with a rich cycle of features from around the globe. The festival takes place in the Brazilian city of Manaus, an urban island of some two million people situated right next to the Amazon rainforest, not far from where the Rio Negro and Solimões rivers join to form the Amazon River. Unique not only for its location, Amazonas distinguishes itself by focusing on a limited slate of eight feature films and just over two dozen shorts, with most screenings taking place in the majestic Teatro Amazonas, the Belle Époque opera house featured in Werner Herzog’s cult classic Fitzcarraldo.

Following last week's dual Sundance announcements (of its competition and much of its out-of-competition lineup), the Sundance Institute has today announced the films screening in the Premieres and Documentary Premieres section of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, taking place from January 19-29 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Odgen and Sundance, Utah.

Following on the heels of yesterday’s announcement of the films selected to screen in the four competition categories of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, the Sundance Institute has announced the lineup for its out-of-competition categories: Spotlight, Park City at Midnight, NEXT <=> and New Frontier. Among the films now added to the lineup are Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim’s Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie and Aurora Guerrero’s Mosquita y Mari.

With less than two months to go until the annual electrification of the indie film scene that occurs courtesy of the Sundance Film Festival, the films selected for the festival's U.S. and World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competition categories have been announced. Of the over 4,000 feature films submissions the festival received, only 110 were were selected; those lucky few represent 31 countries and 46 first-time moviemakers.

Founded in 2001 by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff, the Tribeca Film Festival is unique in its origins: It is a film festival established to instigate the economic and cultural revitalization of lower Manhattan after the attacks on the World Trade Center while helping emerging and established moviemakers reach a broad range of viewers. A decade later, the festival has accomplished this and more, generating $725 million in economic activity for New York City and making its stamp on diversity by screening over 1,200 films from over 80 countries, attracting a widespread international audience in the process. As it nears it’s 11th year, the Festival has attracted a new artistic director as well: Veteran film festival executive Frederic Boyer.

Houston, Texas is internationally recognized for its vibrant and varied art scene, and the Cinema Arts Festival Houston taps into the city’s creative energy by celebrating and advancing the collaboration between film and art. In addition to the wealth of foreign and independent films screening at this year's festival—among them Pina, Wim Wenders' 3-D tribute to the late choreographer Pina Bausch—the festival will also feature a variety of media installations and art performances to compliment its stellar lineup. Among the guests appearing at this year's festival are actor/director/novelist Ethan Hawke, winner of this year's Levantine Cinema Arts Award, and director Richard Linklater, both of whom will be on hand to present a screening of their 2001 collaboration Tape. We caught up with the festival's artistic director Richard Herskowitz, who took the time to discuss Houston's art scene and this year's festival, running from November 9th through the 13th.

In his feature directorial debut A People Uncounted, directed Aaron Yeger sheds light on the story of the Roma, commonly referred to as Gypsies. While the Roma have to a large extent been romanticized in popular culture, the real-life intolerance and persecution, both past and present, inflicted upon them has been largely ignored. With his documentary, Yeger explores the rich culture of the Roma, linking their present state to the tragedies of their past, notable among them the murder of an estimated 500,000 of the Roma during the Holocaust.

I was on page 60 of my first draft when I got the bad news. I was in a groove. The story was flowing out of me. My fingers could barely type fast enough, and I wanted nothing more than to get the whole thing down on paper. I was right in the middle of a major set piece when the phone rang. My managers, Aaron and Sean, were on the line. “Got some bad news for you," they said. “Chris Columbus just sold a screenplay to Warner Bros. about a guy who lives his life out of order.” I was two-thirds of the way through the first draft of my screenplay for Shuffle... about a man who begins experiencing his life out of order.

Today marks the first day of the 34th annual Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF), an 11-day celebration of film that every year brings hundreds of moviemakers to Marin County, California to experience the best in independent, art house and world cinema. The 2011 MVFF features a stellar lineup of films, a tribute to actress Glenn Close and the New Movies Lab, where a panelists of moviemakers and distribution experts gather to discuss the future of the film industry. As this year's festival kicks off, MovieMaker had the chance to chat with senior film programmer Janis Plotkin about the philosophy of the festival and its continued longevity.

This year's New York Film Festival (NYFF), which kicked off on Friday, September 30th and runs through Sunday, October 16th, features a diverse array of films that ranges from current festival favorites to offerings from up-and-coming directors to the latest films from masters of the medium and newly-restored classics. One thing all the films screened at NYFF have in common is their quality, and as a festival that accepts an average of 28 feature films out of close to 2,000 submissions, NYFF can afford to be selective. MovieMaker had the chance to speak with NYFF's programming chief Richard Peña about this year's festival.

Nowadays, horror film festivals seem to be popping up faster than the undead in a George Romero zombie flick. For those looking to spend this Halloween season in style, MM has picked 13 fests that offer just about everything a horror fan would die for. So take a look at some of the most frightfully fun festivals taking place this October. You’re guaranteed to have a spookactular time!

The 18th annual Austin Film Festival is fast approaching, and with preparations for the festival in full swing, the festival has announced the 2011 Script-to-Screen Panels that will take place during the conference. This year, the panel discussions include examinations of Fight Club with screenwriter Jim Uhls, The Graduate with screenwriter Buck Henry and “Veronica Mars” with creator Rob Thomas.

The Margaret Mead Film Festival, which will be held November 10th through 13th, 2011 at New York City’s American Museum of Natural History, is the longest running international documentary film festival in the United States. Since 1977, the MMFF has been dedicated to presenting audiences with the best in nonfiction film from around the world.

The first annual Woods Hole Film Festival, held in 1991 in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, consisted of five films shown in one trailer over the course of a single day. The 20th annual Woods Hole Film Festival takes place from July 30th to August 6th and includes numerous events for the large number of moviemakers and industry professionals who attend the festival.

Septien, which premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, is the story of Cornelius Rawlings—played by the film's writer-director Michael Tully—a man who returns home to Tennessee after disappearing 18 years earlier. The film explores the dynamic between Cornelius and his brothers—Amos (Onur Tukel) and Ezra (Robert Longstreet)—and the roles (caretaker, artist and athlete) that each brother plays in their dysfunctional little family. As the story unfolds we learn why Cornelius left home and how his brothers and a mysterious drifter help him overcome the pain of his past.

The wins just keep rolling in for John Lasseter. The two-time Academy Award-winning director will receive this year’s Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking Award at the Austin Film Festival and Conference this October. Considering that Lasseter has been instrumental in the creation of most of Pixar’s masterpieces, including Up, WALL-E and the Toy Story franchise, the award is well deserved.

Contrary to what people may think, Gucci isn’t only concerned with handbags and sunglasses. For the past four years they've teamed with the Tribeca Film Institute (TFI) with the Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund, which provides documentary moviemakers whose films highlight important social issues with financial support as well as the tools and advice needed to complete and market their films. The six winning films--announced last week by TFI and Gucci--will receive a total of $100,00 as well as a year-long mentorship from TFI.

This year more than 200 films from 30 countries will be screened at the 2011 Los Angeles Film Festival. The festival has just announced that acclaimed director Richard Linklater’s latest film, Bernie, will open the festival on June 16th.

Bernie is the story of a small town mortician who remains beloved by the community even after he commits a terrible crime. The LAFF will mark the world premiere of this black comedy (based on a true story), starring Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine and Matthew McConaughey. Festival director Rebecca Yeldham says, “With its fabulous all-star cast, Bernie is a perfect stage setter for the incredible lineup of original entertainment we’ve assembled for this year’s festival.”