Resources: How To Festival
What other people have to say.
I ran a post the other day on how to build your film festival strategy.
My post was essentially about how a festival strategy fits into a distribution strategy, but over the years others have written quite a bit on how to plan for and best utilize festivals. Today we will explore a few of those.
Stephen Follows doesn’t just write about cinema. He gives you the facts, as in the data. Sometimes though he offers a How To guide. Check this out:
But if the data is more your bag, he still examines that to see what it reveals.
What is the purpose of film festivals anyway?
Regular HFF comment contributor Christopher Schiller has contemplated that for awhile:
https://scriptmag.com/features/it-depends-the-evolving-purposes-of-film-festivals
And I like what Donny Broussard had to add:
See what Christopher had to say about how to determine which festival is right for your project?
https://scriptmag.com/features/legally-speaking-it-depends-how-to-pick-a-film-festival
https://scriptmag.com/features/legally-speaking-it-depends-targeting-film-festivals
Maybe you need to start at the beginning though, and just ponder why you need to plan on attending a festival or two this year:
Interviews and overviews of festivals with or by their curators help give you a flavor of what to expect.
Like this one Kathleen Lingo did with SF Doc Stories Curator Jessie Armstrong:
Dan Mirvish not only started Slamdance, but he has always been good about sharing all he knows — and he knows a lot. Here’s some of his blasts from the past:
I collected a bunch of links previously on how to festival
and it is here on my old newsletter:
https://trulyfreefilm.hopeforfilm.com/2013/01/how-to-get-ready-for-that-film-festival.html
There are a lot of links in that post, and most of the same rules apply.
Anyways, I hope this was helpful and if you know of any other good articles on “HowToFestival” please link to them in the comments below.
When I was younger, I used to travel to film festivals regularly, but now not only do I not have the time, but I also no longer have the energy. As for a film I have written and/or produced, I would only enter in a festival if it had not only a good chance to be accepted to the competition, but a very good chance of winning a prize. Otherwise, it could be a major waste of time. I am more interested in finding an audience in other ways.
Handy resource, Ted.
If I may, I wrote a piece wherein a few filmmakers offer advice about what to do and not do at film festivals.
https://alifesworkmovie.com/2024/08/how-to-film-festival/
Thanks for your continued hard work and inspiration.
David