The Documentarian by Roger Nygard

Author:Roger Nygard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2024-06-19T00:00:00+00:00

Choose Your Premiere Carefully

Every film gets one super-hyped screening. Strategize about which festivals to apply to and in which order. Choose the first festival screening with care because you can only premiere once. A-level festivals usually insist on having premieres. A top festival gets its reputation because it has a strong track record for getting distribution for films. There are thousands of film festivals but only a few where buyers actually attend. It would be malpractice not to submit your film to top-level festivals where deals happen, such as the Berlin International Film Festival (a.k.a. the Berlinale), Cannes Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Slamdance Film Festival, South by Southwest, Sundance Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, and Venice Film Festival. There are also festivals dedicated to documentaries that you should strongly consider, such as Cinéma du Réel, Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, Documenta Madrid, DOC NYC, DOK Leipzig, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, IDFA: International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival, Sheffield DocFest, Silver Docs, Sunny Side of the Doc, Thessaloniki International Film Festival, True/False Film Festival, and Visions du Réel.

Don’t neglect regional and mid-level festivals. You may need the leverage of acceptance in one festival to help get into another. Plus, B and C festivals can be cozier and more fun than A-level festivals. The programmers at some regional festivals have cultivated relationships with distributors and will advocate strongly on behalf of films. Michael Rabehl at Cinequest recalled, “We premiered two films last year that I pushed and pushed to distributors. I kept on doing that until they saw the films. HBO responded and put one on their platform. Even though I can’t focus on just your movie, if I’m going to put energy into your film, that means I’m also working as a sales agent during your time with us. Go with festivals that have that track record.”

Another reason to broaden your submissions is that you can’t count on winning the A-level festival lottery. South by Southwest programs 150 features and 100 shorts out of 8,000 submissions. That works out to about a 3.5 percent chance for any given submission. Each year, approximately 4,500 features and 9,500 shorts are submitted to the Sundance Film Festival. Around ninety to 120 features and sixty to seventy shorts make the final cut, fewer than 3 percent of the Sundance feature submissions and 1 percent of the shorts. And of the films that do get in, only about 20 percent are picked up for distribution; that is, half of 1 percent of the films submitted to Sundance find distribution at the festival. Reducing the odds further is the fact that many films arrive with distribution already in place because studios place films at festivals by promising stars will attend, taking away plumb screening slots from unaligned indie films. A typical acceptance rate for a regional festival is higher, around 6 to 10 percent, but still long odds.

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