Once upon a time, one way to attract attention to your independent film was to exhibit it on the festival circuit.
The idea was that appreciative audiences would prove your film’s worth to distributors who would then pay you to buy your film.
Fast forward to today. There are thousands of films being made each year. Sundance receives over 12,000 submissions and can show only 185.
Okay. So let’s make a web series instead.
We still face the same problems: how to attract an audience and how to get paid.
Enter festivals exclusively for web series.
The excellent CMF Trends has just published a listing of 45 festivals for web series.
“Given the perpetually increasing offer of quality productions, ‘discoverability’ remains one of the main challenges that webseries creators face. What can creators do to make sure their projects stand out from the competition? Among the options that are available to them, they may enter their work in national and international competitions.”
This list includes:
- 12 in Canada
- 14 in the United States
- 13 in Europe
- 3 in Asia and Oceania
- 3 in Latin America
The big winner seems to be Montreal with six!
My take: how do you show a web series at a festival? Binge watch all ten webisodes?