Stephen Follows has determined How much is the average film festival submission fee?
He checked out 4,631 film festivals and discovered that over half of them have more than 15 categories and hence fee levels. Reducing his scope to just Length (Shorts and Features) and Submission Deadline (Early, Regular, Late and Final,) he calculated that:
“The average submission fees for short films are between $30 and $55.“
“For features it’s between $47 and $87.“
Why do festivals charge filmmakers submission fees? Stephen believes:
- Because running a festival is expensive. The majority are non-profits, both in the sense that they are registered charities and that they typically lose money each year.
- Because they know filmmakers will pay. A more cynical view of submission fees is that festivals are charging money based on the hopes and dreams of filmmakers.
Stephen concludes, “there’s no doubt that there are more than a handful of festivals outright exploiting filmmakers’ hopes and dreams via exorbitant submission fees.”
Figures are USD, btw.
My take: yes, these estimates feel correct. My conclusion is that, if only because shorts are on average one quarter (or less) the length of features, feature filmmakers are getting a break. Another way of looking at that is that short-filmmakers are subsidizing feature-filmmakers. (And no, I’m not taking about how tall filmmakers are — but it might be interesting to graph filmmaking success to height to confirm or deny a height premium. lol.)
