Who are the programmers at the top film festivals?
The list you need (in alphabetical order)
The fall film festival season is now upon us. Sure it is still summer, but I have booked my ticket for our first stop of a festival whirlwind.
The lucky few filmmakers who are playing Telluride, Toronto, Venice or any of The October Flurry will start to feel that there is a possibility that their film could break through and get to colonize our collective mindshare for a month or maybe more. Perhaps the film will even enter the cultural conversation. That still happens, doesn’t it?
In most conversations with filmmakers about their festival strategy, they have a first choice festival they hope to get into, but their plan often stops there. The truth is a festival strategy requires you to have the next festivals lined up too. It is possible — particularly for the films that are in the top Q1 & Q2 festivals — to take a break after the premiere and not begin their festival push for several months, but with the ones that play the second half of the year, you often have to hit the ground running.
Just like most filmmakers don’t have a true festival strategy, most don’t seem to know how to get into a festival. Sure, there once was a time when festivals could look at a work-in-progress and make a fair assessment, and as much as they still probably can do that with many films, there is no reason to. Why bother? There is a surplus of films so you might as wait until there is no denying whether something is great or not.
But getting in to the festival of your choice isn’t based on just making sure you put your best foot forward with your film — it also requires you put your best foot forward with your relationship. Festivals are overwhelmed with submissions. Despite everyone’s effort to give each and every film fair consideration, mind set matters. The truth is you want them to know it is your film and you want that it is your film to positively matter to one doing the viewing.
So who are they? Who are these folks who have a say in your future? And how are you going to develop a relationship with them? If you are already late to that game, maybe you know someone whose film screened there? Or perhaps your Executive Producer is pals with the Artistic Director? Or maybe you have mastered the cold Linked In message request? Whatever you can do, a personal touch helps. That is if you know how to reach them.
I have been in the business now for over five hundred years, and I have not once seen a handy dandy list (even an out-of-date one!) of all the programmers at all the festivals. I don’t want to get your hopes up. I don’t have that for you today either. But I do have a starter list. I am not the one to hand out emails and cell phones to all of them. But we could build out a more comprehensive one together. Perhaps you could put some of the missing pieces into the comments for the rest of us now that I got us going, okay?
The Festival Programmers, a starter list
Berlin, Cannes, CPH:Dox, IDFA, Karlovy-Vary, Locarno, Mill Valley, Rotterdam, San Francisco, San Sebastian, Sarajevo, Sidewalk, Sundance, SXSW, Toronto, Tribcea, True/False, Venice, & Woodstock — that’s almost 20!
1. Berlinale: https://www.berlinale.de/en/contact.html
Tricia Tuttle, Festival Director
