Festival Circuit: Dark Side, Rejections and Lessons Learned

My very good buddy Director / Filmmaker Owen Mulligan gave me a warning when I told him I was about to send my movie to film festivals. He recommended me these 2 wonderful and very insightful articles:

The Dark Side of Film Festivals

What I learned from the festival circuit

Which I highly recommend you guys to read. In his article, Todd Miro recommends some resources that worked for him. Owen also recommends a few interesting ones as well. I summed up my favorites from their articles, but please read them both to have a better understanding on why those resources can make a big difference for yourself and your movie:

Short Film Central: http://www.shortfilmcentral.com/

Maverick Movie Awards: http://www.maverickmovieawards.com/

Tromdance: http://www.tromadance.com/

Dragon Con Independent Film Festival: http://filmfest.dragoncon.org/

Official Rejection (Documentary): http://www.officialrejectiondocumentary.com/
Official Rejection - Full Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuPO5xm_Iws
Official Rejection at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Official-Rejection-Collection-Edition/dp/B002Q0WYPG/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1333432308&sr=1-2

That is all for now folks, and I will keep moving forward discovering this new (to me) world of 'Festival Circuit'.

Cheers!!

Festival Circuit: Secrets and Tips

My very first short movie called 'Patients' is fully edited and festival ready. After my first attempt to get into the festival circuit, I've got a very expected 'rejection' from Paris (Cannes). Now, I am ready to ship it out again and researching to doing so, here's what my workflow has been.

I opened an account at withoutabox (owned by IMdb), and did a search on festivals that are currently open. Unable to determine which festivals are best for my film, I googled around and found this very cool site called www.filmfestivalsecrets.com where they offer the first 2 chapters of their book (Film Festival Secrets) downloadable for free. Super cool and extremely informative information. That book lead me to Indiewire where they have a nice list of the most 'relevant' film festivals at www.indiewire.com/festivals

If you also open a free account with IMdb, you can upload your movie to make it submittable for (some) festivals through withoutabox. There is a fee for most festivals, but if you want to know more about the whole process; please visit withoutabox a read their guidelines and rules.

www.withoutabox.com

That's my update on the Film Festival Circuit, which is what I am learning about at the moment.

Have a great week guys!!