Does anyone think festivals are a racket?

Nate North

Nate North

After producing my first independent feature film, I heard a lot, and recieved a lot of mail about film festivals. At first I thought my work had been noticed and someone was offering me a free plane ticket out of respoect for my 8 months of hard work and 40k spent on the film.

But then as I read on, it turned out that I was supposed to pay them, just to screen my film, which might or might not be included, Then I would pay all my own expenses and stay at an overpriced hotel the festival promoters have a kickback deal with. If I was one of the lucky ones, the festival promoters would then show my movie to large crowds of paying customers, make several thousand dollars just off the one showing, then they won't even return your screening deposit.

I came to find all film festivals are like this, with the exception of ones you have to be invited to. I'm also very skeptical about all the Hollywood talent agents that are supposed to be in the audience. How much bigger is American Idol than any one film competition, and yet not even one real celebrity has emerged in however many terrible years that it has been on.

Maybe I'm just ranting here, does anyone have any thoughts or opinions on whether festivals are exploiting indie filmmakers?
 
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Bringing this back around to the original topic - just saw this short doc about a film festival that clearly is a racket:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf6f6cIKvCQ

I haven't bothered submitting most of our films to festivals, other than a few local ones - partly because it seems like there's quite a few small festivals out there that are primarily about getting entry fees and it's often hard to tell. Maybe we need something like a Yelp for festivals...
 
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Film festivals could be a good networking event to meet others interested in film making. Just a thought. Besides it gets the word out about your film and your name out there too.

I some times wonder why film festivals have to charge the people that show up to watch movies so much. I think they should sell day passes that are not too crazy expensive. This way it gives all the films a chance to be seen.

I have paid $10 to see my own film that I acted in. Seems kinda pricey to me. I figure I should get a free ticket considering I was in the movie. But still to expect people that never seen the movie to pay $10 seems high to me considering it is not a blockbuster movie that had a huge budget or anything. I notice the people that show up are normally friends and family of the cast and crew.

Now if we were renting a theature like the IMAX or Regal or something real good then maybe the $10 to see the film in a good venue would be worth it.
 
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Just to follow up on my last post - I took a look at the Swansea Int'l site and followed their submission link to this page:

http://www.amritsa.com/subs.htm

Sounds great - "if we don't show your movie you don't pay!" But after watching the above documentary it's clear they pack in films to a random schedule, probably in order to get as many screening fees as possible. Then they make money from sponsors, the award dinner fees, etc. Plus, they have 16 different festivals listed that you can enter with one entry - again, this lets them fit as many of the submitted films into some screening as possible. I don't know if all 16 are as bad as the one shown in the documentary, but in any case I'd be extremely wary of any of the following festivals:

International Film Festival of West Wales
International Film Festival of Mind, Body, Spirit & Ecology
Heart of England International Film Festival
International Youth Film Festival
International Film Festival Ireland
International Film Festival of Australia - Barossa Valley
International Film Festival Thailand
International Film Festival of South Africa
Swansea Bay Film Festival (2012)
International Gay Film Festival UK (2012)
International Festival of Digital Arts (2012)
International Film Festival St. Lucia (2012)
International Film Festival London (2012)
Indian International Film Festival (2012)
International Film Festival of North america (2012)
International Film Festival Italy - Rome (2012)
 
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ItDonnedOnMe said:
J

Sounds great - "if we don't show your movie you don't pay!" But after watching the above documentary it's clear they pack in films to a random schedule, probably in order to get as many screening fees as possible.
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I dont completely understand what your saying here. If they dont play the movie you dont pay? So what would it matter how many other movies they fit in there or the 'order'? I know showing a movie at 1 AM is a bit different than 8pm, but the point is to have your movies seen and theyre not going back on their promise whats the issue?

ON a side note, I had a movie of mine played on a small (no entry fee) Campus Movie Fest and honestly it was the greatest feeling i had when the credits closed and the crowd cheered. Theres no feeling like when you have put some much work into something and to have other people appreciate your hard work- applaud and cheer for more. That being said i would never pay -huge- amounts of money to have my film shown, i would pay some money. Theres lots of money in the world, but you may never get another opportunity to experience something like a festival
 
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Robcbh said:
ON a side note, I had a movie of mine played on a small (no entry fee) Campus Movie Fest and honestly it was the greatest feeling i had when the credits closed and the crowd cheered. Theres no feeling like when you have put some much work into something and to have other people appreciate your hard work- applaud and cheer for more. Theres lots of money in the world, but you may never get another opportunity to experience something like a festival
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Now this has two upsides, no downsides. Yes, the validation and elation from people liking something you made is great. I love that feeling, especially if you doubted your work or if people saw your movie online and slammed it, but in that environment of a dark room with a bunch of strangers loving it instead - nothing greater.

The other upside is a chance to find out what worked and what didn't. Audience reaction can teach you something about your work. There are scenes that maybe drag too much and need to be trimmed down, or a joke didn't get the laughs you wanted or people obviously missed what seemed like an obvious queue. A live audience becomes this amorphous mob mentality that is greatly affected by the individuals in it, so the term "laughter is infectious" is very apt, but if everyone laughs at the same time, then you know you nailed it.

Film festivals are one of the few opportunities afforded to the no-to-low budget indie filmmakers to get their work seen on a movie theater screen in front of an audience that won't be entirely friends and family or people involved in the production.
 
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Robcbh said:
I know showing a movie at 1 AM is a bit different than 8pm, but the point is to have your movies seen and theyre not going back on their promise whats the issue?
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I assume you didn't watch the documentary? I'll sum it up - when the filmmakers arrived at the festival (after traveling from NY to the UK ), there was no set schedule for when their film was going to screen. Every time they were told a screening time it would change. When they asked about promotion they were told it was their job to promote their film and get people to come watch it, but without a fixed screening time there was no way to do this - when do you tell people to show up? As a result, the audience for most of the films primarily consisted of other filmmakers who were already attending the festival. Their film was finally screened starting 45 minutes before a big festival party - so most of the potential audience (the other filmmakers) was attending the party instead of watching their film. They ended up with less than 10 people in the audience, and they were the only people who stayed for the next film. On top of this, the awards banquet cost an additional £60 per person to attend, so most of the filmmakers ended up watching it on tv from a bar downstairs. It was clear that the films, and the filmmakers, were almost an afterthought to the organizers - which seems completely backwards to me for something calling itself a 'film festival'.

Theres no feeling like when you have put some much work into something and to have other people appreciate your hard work- applaud and cheer for more. That being said i would never pay -huge- amounts of money to have my film shown, i would pay some money.
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Absolutely - I'm not arguing against 'pay-for-play' type screenings, and I'd pay more than the $30 they are charging to play to a full theater for all the reasons you & sonnyboo stated. But the important part in that is the audience, and if the festival not only fails to do any promotion, but then actively makes it impossible for the filmmakers themselves to do so - I'd call it a scam. I'd rather get some friends together, book our own theater and do the promotion myself.
 
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I've played in about 10 festivals with my two films, and the situation you descibe is way worse than anything I have ever seen. It's a bad festival. Not all of them are.

Speaking of, getting on a plane in 3 hours to fly to Phoenix Az for the festivasl there where I am screening twice.
 
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The POV of a small horror festival director:

Hi my name is Michael Vallier and I am the director of Killer Film Fest.

I came across this thread and I needed to give my point of view as a festival director.

First off a little history on me and my fest; I am one of the many struggling filmmaker with many shorts, music videos etc... under my belt along with 1 feature film which has gone nowhere so far. I am far from a successful filmmaker but have the same dreams and goals as the majority.

I LOVE horror films and I love indie... That is the #1 reason I do this fest; not to make money. #2 is the fact that I live in Germany and moved here just after the first "Killer Film Fest" in 2009. With no real filmmaking network here in Frankfurt, I find that running this fest from here with my team in the US is my one way to stay connected to the indie film scene while I am here for the next 10+ years.

We started Killer Film Fest because we wanted to screen our horror feature and wanted to invite some of the other local filmmakers to show their shorts and share the theater space. We ended up getting so many local horror films wanting in, we ended up booking the theater for 3 solid nights instead of the 1 (on our dime) and showed 4 features and a bunch of shorts. Now people loved the idea of a new indie horror film fest in the area and loved the name "Killer Film Fest" so in 2010 we created a judging panel, got a few sponsors, 2 live rock bands and made Killer Film Fest a "real" festival. Well we dumped a ton of money since most of our sponsors were "in-kind" and ended up loosing money at the end. But I still found it to be a success because people still came and our reputation was just a bit better.


Now...

Are there festival scams???
Yes there are and in 2010 we were accused by a few filmmakers of being a scam because our website was lame, we charged small fees ($10-$20) and we were theoretically a "1st year festival". This got us thinking and we eliminated the fees and it only made sense for us. Now in 2011 I started asking for fees since our budget this year is much higher, but I would think to my self often that this was not right so I again eliminated the fees and I vow to never have them again as long as i am in control of the fest.

Celebs and distribution at the fest:
It goes without saying that any festival would love to have celebs and distribution representatives on site. But many small fests cant afford the celebs and are not large enough to attract reps. I would love to stock pile a vendor area with celebs but this is way out of reach for now and within the next 5 years. But I continue... What we do offer is a distribution deal offer from an indie distribution company RSquared Films. Our "Best Picture" will get an offer from them if they don't already have distribution and I feel that this is a good way to attract some filmmakers.

I could keep going on but I will not fill your screen with text.

I recommend to filmmakers to just do some research of the festivals they submit to and if the fest is new and charges any fees.

We are not the only festival that does not charge fees so just look and you will find them.

-Michael Vallier-
http://www.killerfilmfest.com
 
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