Category Archives: Festivals and Awards

A film festival for every film

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With something like over 3,000 active film festivals around the world, there’s a film festival for every type of film.

And now, there’s even one dedicated to drone filming: FRiFF.

Filmmakers looking for validation from juries can search for suitable festivals on Withoutabox or FilmFreeway.

Just be sure festival exposure is a component of your overall distribution and marketing strategy.

My take: that’s it — I’m going to start my own film festival. Coming to cyberspace soon! Even if Robert Redford once said there are too many film festivals….

How does your film festival stack up?

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Stephen Elliott recently posted The Great Film Festival Swindle on The Rumpus.

It’s a fascinating read for filmmakers about to devise a film festival strategy.

The issue is that you need people to see your film — you need to find your audience.

It seems obvious that film festivals can deliver that audience to you.

But it turns out that not all film festivals are created equal. In fact, some are much better than others. And some are downright greedy.

Elliott started with the question, “Why are film festival submission fees so high?” and then started digging and ended up unearthing some invaluable data he now shares with us all.

In essence, he cross-referenced the stories film festivals and filmmakers told him. He was particularly concerned with a film paying the submission fee and its chances of actually being selected. It turns out that over twenty well-known film festivals in the last couple of years collected feature film submission fees but only programmed invited films or ones that had a waiver — none of the films that paid the fees got in.

Elliott asks:

“Is it okay to fund a festival based on exorbitant submission fees and not program the movies that are paying the fees? It’s as if the losers were throwing a party for the winners.”

According to Elliott’s research, the top seven “level-playing field” film festivals are:

  1. Slamdance Film Festival
  2. Dances With Films
  3. Cinequest Film Festival
  4. Blow-up Arthouse Film Festival
  5. Woods Hole Film Festival
  6. NAPA Valley Film Festival
  7. SXSW Film Festival

For a balanced view, see The Other Side’s Truths about Film Festival Submission Fees.

My take: I’ve had a feature and a few shorts screen at film festivals. It’s nice! It strokes your ego. But the brutal truth is that the explosion of content today means you now have to pay (and pay big) to get into film festivals. It’s almost a full-time job researching, submitting, paying, following up, delivering media, promoting and, potentially, attending film festivals. Be sure the exposure plays into your overall marketing plan. Added thought: I challenge all film festivals to publish their ratio of fee-paying selections to invited or fee-waived selections.

The richest film prize in Canada goes to an experimental feature

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The Toronto Film Critics Association awarded the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award to Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson at the annual ceremony on January 5, 2016, for their film “The Forbidden Room”.

The pair scooped the $100,000 cash prize, the richest film award in Canada.

At the presentation, Don McKellar quipped:

“I’m telling you right now that’s too much money for Guy. I’m serious. That’s more than his last 45 films combined, their total budgets. If I were you, critics — and this is just a suggestion — I would give an annual stipend, like a fund of maybe $10,000 to Guy every year for life. And he would make a film for you. And you could show it in your clubhouse or whatever and say, ‘That’s our film. Guy Maddin made that for us.'”

In his acceptance speech, Guy said:

“$100,000 is enormously generous, thank you. With it, we hope to bring an NFL franchise to Winnipeg.”

Evan offered up:

“I just want to take back every negative thing I’ve ever said about film critics and — corporations.”

See video in the Globe and Mail’s report.

This is the second time Guy has won — in 2008 his “My Winnipeg” took top honours.

My take: I’m going to win this one day.

Rooster Teeth set to deliver Lazer Team

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Rooster Teeth has announced that the world premiere for Lazer Team will be on September 24, 2015, at the Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas.

From the Fantastic Fest media release:

“Fantastic Fest will host the World Premiere of LAZER TEAM, the first feature film from web series gods Rooster Teeth. LAZER TEAM director Matt Hullum and cast members Burnie Burns, Alan Ritchson, Colton Dunn, Michael Jones, and Gavin Free will be in attendance to celebrate the highly anticipated sci-fi comedy and join Fantastic Fest’s official opening night party, presented by Rooster Teeth.”

Recall that in July 2014 this project became the third most crowd-funded film and video project on Indiegogo.com.

My take: kudos to Rooster Teeth for pulling this off. Their 37,000+ fan-funders must be giddy!

Deadlines for writers and filmmakers at a glance

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Time is linear, right?

Or is it more cyclical?

Taking a page from the Mayans, Jonathan Krimer of writersandfilmmakers.com has compiled three very interesting calendars.

One each for filmmakers, writers and documentary and television markets.

What sets these calendars apart from all others is that they are round. Think discs spinning, not stacks of paper blowing in the wind.

I asked Jonathan what software he uses, what conclusions we can draw, where he got his data and how often he updates:

“It’s Excel! I’m an MS Excel expert and use pretty complex charts in my day job (HR Analyst). So I just thought there might be some information gained from mapping it out visually. I did a basic Google search and found some existing templates that I then had to tweak. They were a bit of a hassle to do actually.

If you look at the writing competition chart, there is definitely a visual message there. There are definite slow months when you should be writing and writing! There are other times when everything must be submitted, so if you space out your writing year accordingly, you won’t miss the bulk of the deadlines.

To make the Film Festival Chart, I used some information from Sydney Levine whom I’ve met twice at TIFF. She also writes and does interviews for Indiewire @sydneysbuzz. She has festival circuit recommendations that I used as a guide.

I have not updated the calendars recently. I think I will update them later in the year.”

See his blog for more details. Scroll down to December 2014.

My take: I love the circular design. It makes it very easy to get the big picture and see events in relation to others. If you miss a deadline, chill, it’ll probably come around again.

Funding for female filmmakers

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As reported at On Screen Manitoba, BravoFACT and BravoFACTUAL will now ensure that 50% of their awards will go to female filmmakers:

“The change is meant to help foster up-and-coming female filmmakers in Canada. In order to qualify as female-lead, a submission must have a director or producer attached who is a woman. In addition, every BravoFACT and BravoFACTUAL jury in 2015 will include a female filmmaker as a guest juror.”

The next deadlines are April 1, 2015 for BravoFACTUAL and June 12, 2015 for BravoFACT.

My take: this is long overdue. Go grab a piece of the pie, sisters! We need to hear your stories more than ever.

Telefilm Canada searches for shorts for France

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Telefilm Canada is looking for short films to compile into an 80-minute programme to screen at the Short Film Market at next year’s Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival.

Once again, the incomparable Danny Lennon will curate the films.

The deadline is November 19, 2014.

My take: if you have a short film that qualifies, go for it! Sure, you’ll be one of 5,000 films there, but the credibility selection to Not Short on Talent brings is fantastic.

$60K up for a web series in BC or Alberta

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Storyhive is changing things up and looking for web series for its next round.

Season two is open to creators in Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton. Fifteen teams in each province will receive $10,000 to produce the pilot episode of their web series. One winner will be chosen and receive $50,000 funding for the remaining episodes. Everything gets streamed on TELUS Optik TV On Demand.

The deadline to submit is November 3, 2014. See the FAQ.

My take: this is a derivative of CineCoup, without the on-going missions. I think one of the most interesting aspects of Storyhive is the Creator Directory. This has a great potential to build collaborations between artists.

$10K to show ‘Movies Matter’

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The CFC‘s Reel Challenge is back.

This year they want you to show how movies matter to Canada.

“In 2011, the film and television sector supported 262,700 full time equivalent jobs, while contributing over $5 billion to the Canadian economy through production and distribution alone. From special effects studios and soundstages that create jobs, to film festivals that bring in tourists and all of the jobs and people that are supported by the film industry, movies are more than just entertainment.”

The rules: keep it clean and under 60 seconds. There are no categories this time.

The prize: $10K to the winner, $5K to the runner up.

The deadline: Sunday, January 26 at 11:59 PM EST.

The details: here.

My take: Always fun! Nice that they’ve limited them to one minute. Enter if you’ve got the chops. Disclosure: I am not bitter for not winning with my animation: Right to Copy.

Sundance by the numbers: not pretty

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Cultural Weekly has released a sobering infographic asking ‘Are Indies the 8th Studio?’

Analyzing Sundance data from 2014, they conclude that the 4,000 plus feature films submitted had combined budgets of over $3 billion, making Independent Film the ‘Eighth Studio’.

“There are seven major movie studios: Warner Bros., Disney, Universal, Sony/Columbia, Lionsgate, 20th Century Fox, and Paramount. Can we now reasonably call independent filmmakers the Eighth Studio, because their aggregate production expenses clearly put them in the major studio league?”

The sobering news? Sadly, less than 2% of that money is ever recouped.

In other words, more than 98% of that money is, I won’t say ‘lost’ but rather, locked up in the produced films. I believe the goal of the new mediascape is to find a way to unlock this value.

Other insights: the odds are four times better on getting a feature into Sundance than a short. And the supply of new films continues to rise in spite of flat demand from Sundance.

Check out a hi-res version of the infographic.

My take: if you’re going to spend real money making a film, you need a serious business plan outlining how you’ll recoup it. Something radical that goes straight to your viewers, perhaps skipping festivals and traditional distribution channels. Or, don’t spend real money.