My Film Festival Results might Anger you Just the Right Amount

I’ll show you:

• how I submitted my short film Man May Love to film festivals,
• what results I got, and more importantly answer the question
• are film festivals worth it?

Watch the video:

My opinion might not be popular, but I wanted to back it up with numbers and data. It might help you form your own opinions on the subject.

What’s the best way to submit your film to a film festival?

Submitting to festivals is one of the key goals for a lot of cash starved filmmakers, and it’s at the very end of my filmmaking blueprint:

To apply to festivals the only website worth mentioning right now is FilmFreeway. As a site they are legit, and I find the charges reasonable. You can apply directly to some festivals, though if you can do it via FilmFreeway I think you should.

I’m not affiliated with FilmFreeway in any way, just wanted to make it clear I had a smooth experience with the site. They make it simple to search and apply to tens of thousands of festivals, and they have good customer service, which I’ve experienced first hand.

Man May Love is a 30 minute short film, designed to be a technical experiment. I know a lot of filmmakers put passion into their stories so this might not make sense.

For me, it was a way to experiment with anamorphic composition and camera movement, deep focus cinematography and lighting for it (which is really tough on a budget), and finally to go through the grind of ADR, foley, sound design and mixing it in multiple formats. It has a certified Dolby Atmos mix for OTT, and all this taken together was why I made it.

You can watch it here:

It really didn’t need to go to any film festival, but FilmFreeway makes it easy so I thought it might be another fun experiment.

Ten years ago you had to mail a DVD across borders – that was expensive all around. I decided I’d make a video and article about my experiences in a year, and this is that video and article.

I didn’t market the film, didn’t advertise or create any hype. I just didn’t have the time. It was on FilmFreeway, and later, on YouTube.

How to submit your film to film festivals

Setup your account with FilmFreeway and fill in the details of your project.

You can upload a full screener to Vimeo and password protect it. Link the screener to your project page and show the password only to the festivals you’ve applied for. Nobody else gets to see your film.

You can also upload your film directly but I like Vimeo because you get analytics.

As you can see above, I have 46 views on the screener since the beginning, and my total submissions are about 33 so far. 

Does this mean every festival I applied to saw my film?
No, it doesn’t.

You can and should drill down to the town or city and see if there are any views from there during the selection period. I’ve found there were multiple cases where the festival didn’t even bother to watch my film. It just got rejected “automatically”.

Sometimes it happens because you’ve applied to the wrong festival. No point sending your zombie horror film to a children’s animation festival. The 35 festivals I’ve applied to all fit the bill for Man May Love, and it should have been seen at least once.

But that’s not all.

Vimeo also tells us if they’ve watched the film from beginning to end or just a few seconds. You’ll need the non-free version of Vimeo for the detailed analytics, but I think it’s worth it.

There’s nowhere to hide.

What the analytics show is that there are many shady film festivals that just want to make a quick buck.

It’s hard to tell which is which, so you must chalk it down to the cost of doing business. Sometimes, FilmFreeway might refund your entry fees if you can prove the festival didn’t watch your film. I didn’t bother, because it wasn’t worth the effort.

Like this one case where a film festival asked me for the entire film on Google Drive so they could watch it. I reported it, and FilmFreeway customer service at least got back to me and said they’ll look into it. I don’t know what happened thereafter, because I’ve had other things to do.

I’m not going to tell you which festival didn’t watch my film. Public shaming isn’t fair unless I have solid proof.

What do I mean?

It could have been a bad rep in the chain, or maybe Vimeo’s reporting isn’t completely precise. You can’t lay blame unless you know all the facts.

All I know is my film wasn’t watched by every festival, and you shouldn’t expect yours to be either.

Should you get the Gold plan on FilmFreeway?

The Gold plan discounts the entry fees considerably.

I also purchased a Dedicated Spotlight email which was $125 after the Gold discount. What it does is it gets your film in front of festivals directly. They’ll look at your film profile, and offer you a discount or a free pass to their festival.

I got to apply to a few free festivals this way, as they waived the fee. Some others discounted their fees considerably. I figure if I had sent more of these emails it would have given me more free entries, though I’m paying for the email. Bottom line, it worked for me.

Should you get the Gold plan on FilmFreeway?

Yes, if you’re submitting your film to many festivals and want to take advantage of their marketing emails.

My results after submitting to FilmFreeway

I submitted to 35 festivals. Two are still pending. I got selected in six, and won two awards – for best cinematography and best costume design. I’ll talk about awards later. Let’s focus on the results now.

Here’s a breakdown of my expenses:

Results for Man May Love	In USD
Dedicated Filmmaker Spotlight Email	$125.00
FilmFreeway Gold	$76.93
Entry fees only	$476.87
Total expenditure	$678.80
Average expenditure	$19.39

I spent about $679. This means my average cost per submission is about $20. It’s not cheap, at least to a filmmaker who has spent his or her last dollar on their film already.

According to Vimeo 46 eyeballs have watched the film, but not all festivals have watched it, as I said earlier.

I know exactly how many have watched it, and I could give a number here, but I won’t. The data size isn’t large enough to draw any sort of general conclusion, though I really feel FilmFreeway should and can do a lot more to get people’s films seen.

Since my film was selected for 6 festivals out of 33, my acceptance rate is about 18%. If you count the remaining two, it’s about 17%.

What’s the typical acceptance rate to a film festival?

This is one answer FilmFreeway should honestly disclose. They can do a lot more to inform filmmakers as to what’s in store for them.

Searching on google isn’t easy, I found a site that says 13%. Many festivals say about 5%. The biggest festivals have a much smaller number. For the sake of argument, I have three options here – 5%, 10% and 20%. I believe a good film can go higher, but this data will give you something to target:

Acceptance rates	5%	10%	20%
Selections expected for 35 submissions	2	4	7
Shows per festival*	2	2	2
People watching per show @100 seats per hall	350	700	1,400
People watching per show @300 seats per hall	1,225	4,900	19,600

At the high end, your film is amazing, is selected by many festivals, and it plays housefull at least two times. That’s really an unlikely expectation for most filmmakers. Some rare films do get this kind of mileage, but they don’t pay for your submission, so you might want to keep your expectations in check.

A more reasonable number is between 1,500 to 5,000 or so.

So, it would seem I went through all this trouble for only 5,000 views.

These are regular views – regular humans who like films – no different from the general public and audience for your film.

For the amount I spent and the views I need, this is what my average cost per viewer turns out to be:

Results for Man May Love
Views expected	5,000
Expenditure	$678.80
Views per dollar spent	7

This number will vary depending on the festivals and emails you send. So what if you wanted to submit to a lot more festivals?

If you want to submit to more festivals, you can see, for a hundred festivals, the cost multiplies proportionately, to about $2,000:

Results for Man May Love	Views you’ll get	Submissions	Cost
My scenario	5,000	35	$678.80
More festivals	14,286	100	$1,939.43

I’m assuming you’re taking the Gold plan, because it makes everything cheaper.

We’re going to stop at this figure for now:

7 views per dollar.

Why do filmmakers submit their films to film festivals?

Filmmakers submit their films to film festivals for these reasons:

1. Getting into a prestigious festival could mean being seen by the right people 
2. Networking
3. Getting people to watch your film
4. Winning awards 

Will my film get into a prestigious film festival?

Getting into a prestigious festival is next to impossible.

Every year you’ll see a great film in one festival but not another, due to exclusivity. It’s a fake exclusivity. It’s like saying the films that won SAG or Golden Globes can’t compete for the Academy Award.

Just because a few hundred people saw a film in one city doesn’t mean. it’ll lose its value across an ocean. If it did, we wouldn’t have film theaters and the cinema industry.

Let’s call it what it is. It’s a kind of mafia.

Some films do get through. Most don’t. And by most, I mean 99.99% don’t. Should that deter you?

Let’s take a COVID vaccine as an example. Would you inject yourself with a vaccine that only had a 0.01% chance of vaccinating you? Probably not. But those are the odds filmmakers are perfectly happy to ignore.

By all means, apply to the biggest film festivals in the world. There are only twenty or so. No harm in that if the money isn’t an issue.

Are film festivals the best place to network?

Here’s a question for you:

If you’re not good at networking in your own home town what makes you think you’ll do better at a festival, where everyone’s got some kind of agenda?

A better yet question:

Why do you have to make a film at all to network? Why not just attend the festival and save tons of money? Or even better, just wait outside the gates and you can still talk to enough people.

You do get to meet great people at a festival, or at a park or gym or library. Great people are everywhere, at least the ones as special as you are.

Even producers or directors or film crew; they, too, live in homes and apartments. There are ways to network and make new friends, and a film festival is not the best place for it.

In any case, networking can’t be your prime reason to submit your film, unless we’re talking film market, which is a totally different ball game.

A film market is an event designed to introduce buyers and sellers of films.

A film festival is an event dedicated to showcase interesting films.

Sometimes, both happen simultaneously. So people mistake one for the other.

Many filmmakers with money want the prestige of being at a festival, and they can pay to rent spaces in film markets at the biggest film festivals.

Then they “market” it back home as if they were invited to the. prestigious film festival, just because it happened next door at the same time.

Guess what? You can go too, if you spend tens of thousands of dollars. Booths in film markets are for sale to any person.

But one assumes the best festivals only select the “best” films. The only films that matter at a festival are the ones in competition, the rest are there just to sell their film. If being in the film market is your goal (to sell your film), you don’t need to submit your film to the festival.

Can you get more views for your film on YouTube than a film festival?

Open Google Ads (all you need is a Google account).

Put in keywords that define your film. Let’s say your film is about leather wearing zombies. It’s a leather-wearing zombie horror film. Let’s say you want to market your film to the USA (you can pick any country):

By putting in those keywords and selecting your geographical region you can get a rough estimate of how many clicks you might get on your ad.

What ads should you place?

You can upload your film to YouTube and directly link to it. Or, you can put up a film trailer on YouTube and use that as a pre-roll ad. I recommend the latter option. It’s more humane.

Where do the clicks go?

The clicks go directly to your film on YouTube.

What’s the cost per click? That’s the amount you have to focus on. Google gives you an estimate. In this case:

Google Ads Estimate	?15.00 per click
In other words…	$1 per 7 views

Beware!

You can go lower or higher with your spending. The CPC (cost per click) can change drastically depending on the keywords and geographical area. Don’t use this data to make y our own decisions!

Is it less than $7 per view? You bet.

So, for the same money, you’ll get your film in front of the same number of people, and save time and money in:

• Creating DCPs
• Marketing material, and 
• Tickets, meals and hotel costs, etc.

In the case of Man May Love, I didn’t advertise at all, and it has about 3,500 organic views on YouTube, with some great comments. That’s all I could hope for, considering the attention I gave it.

But, if your film is good, it can go viral, like my short The Tarpa Player, which has reached hundreds of thousands of viewers:

Didn’t spend a dime on marketing, didn’t send it to festivals.

My feature film The Impossible Murder wasn’t sent to any festival except Sundance, because I had completely run out of money. It has more than 2.5 million views on YouTube now. 

Are film festival awards worth it?

I won an award for best cinematography and best costume design.

I won’t deny it felt good to be recognized. I’m not sure it will do me any good, because I’m not looking to be a cinematographer.

But it still felt good.

Winning an award means something when the award is important and can lead to more movies. That, or it’s a lifetime achievement award. That’s a call only you can make.

Here’s a tip:

Find film festivals that hand out awards for the kind of recognition you want.

In the case of Man May Love, primarily an experiment in cinematography, it felt good that a festival recognized it.

Awards are the only remaining valid reason film festivals are still popular.

Should you submit your film to a film festival?

If only 20 or so of the top festivals are worth it, and only awards from these festivals actually lead to anything except stroking your own ego, why spend on other festivals?

I fully respect the efforts of many film festivals, the organizers and volunteers, but to what end? Eyeballs aren’t a good enough reason anymore.

There are tons of options today that didn’t exist before:

• Self distribute on Amazon, Vimeo, iTunes, etc. and get paid.
• YouTube ads revenue.
• Social media and social media advertising.
• Four wall your local theater (it’s probably never been cheaper because they’re going out of business!).
• Sell it to small OTT players.
• Give it away for free to small OTT players that can guarantee eyeballs.

The best way to market your film today (other than selling it) is to self publish and advertise it yourself. It’s cheaper, faster and you’re fully in control.

Getting into small film festivals might stroke your ego, you might even get laid!

But you won’t get paid.