In response to rejection, many filmmakers frantically apply to most every regional film festival. The Raindance Festival is hosted in London each year and is known as the largest independent film festival in the UK, making it a bit competitive but also offering a lot of opportunities for new filmmakers. I feel I have been generous in allowing a counter-voice in what is agreed by all the experts I spoke to as an obvious point. I disagree with your interpretation and I remain convinced that the Likes are highly inflated. Sometimes they hire programming associates as contractors for 3-6 months (often the same programming associates screen for several festivals). And while the prospect of getting into top-tier festivals is intoxicating, many filmmakers do not accepted. Our oldest Festival is 9 this year so we are not exactly new. Instead, the value of participating in a film festival lies in the opportunity to get distribution deals. The London one is actually in it’s 6th year however it’s the first time in London (we hosted it locally in our home town before but airport access is bad so we spoke with WAB and have moved it). Instead, a film could make money from a combination of generating press at festivals and making money from alternative distribution at museums, cultural centers, smaller festivals and other events. 18% of festivals only accept entries via their website and 15% of festivals exclusively use Withoutabox (i.e. And even if your film gets a distribution deal it may never be released. I contacted 5,000 film festival directors from my original list, asking them to fill in a quick anonymous survey about their experiences. FESTIVAL CLOSED FOR SUBMISSIONS PRE-SELECTED FILMS WILL BE ANNOUNCED IN EARLY FEBRUARY 2021 About. I also get five mails a day offering to sell me 5,000 followers for X dollars. I knew that the overwhelming majority of films were rejected. If this sounds interesting please respond and i can outline the deal in more detail. If your film is accepted to a festival, you have a chance of winning prize money. This allows you to find a good fit while the program does much of the hard work for you. They also take 18% of submission fees right off the top. Lots is changing online and I wondered how this data would change in this day of age, Stephen Follows November 11, 2014 @ Earlier this year ‘Short of the Week‘ did a spot test and found that two thirds of major film festivals allow you to already have your film online when submitting. According to The Film Collaborative, the median screening fee for a film that premiered at Sundance is $32,650, $34,483 for a film that premiered at SXSW. Hi Eija. It’s an open and shut case of artificial manipulation rather than natural support. I noticed a slight correlation between with the percentage of income coming from submission fees and the age of the festivals. They’re either looking for films to pick up and distribute or for directors to hire for future projects. If you don’t get a distribution deal from one festival you can always take your film to more festivals and try your luck with a new crowd. Other people have written about this before and there is even a Facebook page. Filmmakers whose films have generated buzz from festivals can make money from speaker fees as well. I ended the questionnaire asking if there were any truths about film festivals that they felt filmmakers should know about. Film festival screening fee revenue is often a contentious topic, with festivals arguing the value of community and exposure while filmmakers point to the fact that the regional festival circuit is, for many, taking the place of traditional theatrical distribution. In 2013, writer, producer, and researcher Stephen Follows conducted a survey that revealed that festival directors rated Withoutabox “4.2 out of 10 for value for […], Guy Armitage November 11, 2014 @ So, instead of a film going to a festival to find a distributor, in this new model the festivals are the distributors. It needs a totally new structural approach. How do these filmmakers make money and how do the festivals themselves turn a profit? Terry Scerbak September 15, 2013 @ For years filmmakers have leveraged festivals as a way to get their work seen and hopefully sold. I put this increase down to SotW targeting just the “major festivals” whereas my survey had a wider dataset, including smaller festivals which are more likely to be relaxed about online exclusivity. He was tapped to direct Jurassic World, with a budget of $150 million. So Fishman did what most first-time filmmakers--and many independents--do: He hired non-union talent. Geraldine Ahrens August 25, 2013 @ He has published results of his study here and […], Eija Niskanen November 10, 2017 @ That is why we decided to keep ours free. I can’t prove anything, but their trends appear completely robitic and not at all organic. Consider the meaning of these words, “royalty-free”, “perpetual”, “irrevocable” combined with “right to use, copy, reproduce, transmit, adapt, publish, translate…in any media.” In my translation, this is an agreement giving Withoutabox permission to steal and sell your intellectual Property rights. As in my last post, I feel the need to point out that I am a film producer, not a statistician. A third of all festivals would describe their funding situation as “bad” or “awful”. short answer to the question of how filmmakers make money from film festivals is that they often don’t. I was actually pleasantly surprised by how similar the geographical demographics of this survey were to my overall film festival data. Ask our Investing expert. It is a total contradiction to what festivals and indie film competitions are all about. US6829612: Withoutabox’s Dirty Secret | Stephen Follows September 8, 2013 @ The bigger the festival, the more competition there is for sponsorship rights. without them we do not gain enough entries from our website alone as they have the database to market to. Ideally, what most filmmakers probably want is for their films to get sufficient positive feedback from audiences that it leads to the attention of distributors. Too much to allow him to pay his actors. The fee based entries are understandable, but 25 and 40 dollars to enter several festivals, only to be turned down, is too steep for many people. Needless to say, we’re one of the fests that don’t use WAB. Film festivals have helped open doors for many of today’s iconic filmmakers including Quentin Tarantino, Morgan Spurlock and Darren Aronofsky. I’ve spent several hundred dollars entering film festivals and never hear a fucking peep from those assholes. So where does their funding come from? The VIII Naples Human Right Film Festival (Locally- Festival Del Cinema Dei Diritti Umani Di Napoli) is a Italy based No Fee Film festival, now calling Entries of the Short Films (Less Than 30 Minutes) and Documentaries … A company can have its name on the wall of the gifting suite and have celebrities pose with branded gifts. According to the festival’s sponsorship deck, 37% of Telluride attendees have income of over $200,000. I will be posting another article next week with comments from festival directors, so today I’m going to concentrate on the numbers. SmartAsset can help. 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