Fun, communication, AND feedback: What filmmakers really need from festivals

The second of our Filmmaker / Festival Town Halls took place at the Women X Film Festival in 2024. It was an enjoyable and lively discussion - as you can see in the transcript below. 

The aim of this session was to promote a safe and open dialogue between festivals and filmmakers, to find out what excites or annoys them, their expectations, and to hear suggested improvements to help the relationship between these two groups. 

Due to our use of Chatham House rules , all of the commenters in the discussion are anonymous. Most of the attendees were filmmakers.

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MODERATOR: I thought I'd kick off with any filmmakers that want to talk about a good experience that they’ve had at a festival.

1. What has a festival done that you - as a filmmaker - have appreciated? 

FILMMAKER: I feel like it was maybe 20 years ago at a little French short film festival: What was amazing was they flew me out, even if you weren't based in France. And their focus was on meetings, so they had all these things like group meals, which was so nice because sometimes I find that even just coming here (to a festival), you can feel a bit out of your comfort zone and have no idea about where is a decent place to eat and stuff like that. 

It was just so nice that in the central space where the films were happening they were laying on very relaxed, low key food as well, like, sit down food like a bowl of soup or stew.

Right from the start there was this sort of equality between the filmmakers, the hosts, people who were just coming to watch films as well, and it was super nice. There was no boundary in terms of you filmmakers are here, you audience are there.

MODERATOR: We know a few festivals that think about eating, because obviously when you're at the film festival, any film festival, you just don't have time to eat as much as you should. But having a list of where to eat, this is a sit down restaurant, this is a coffee shop, is actually really beneficial.

If anyone screened at ______ (UK based festival) earlier this year, they sent a massive PDF that told you things to do, places to eat and it would break it down into this vegan, this is coeliac, this is for meat eaters, this is expensive, if you want a bougie meal, or this is cheap and quick, if you want to get something on the run. Also places to drink and places that are safe, because obviously being a queer located festival and have a queer program too.But also the price point, you know, not everyone's always got a lot of money. 

_____________ (regional festival) in the US puts all selected filmmakers up for four nights for free, so you do have to pay for your flight but the accommodation is sorted for you. They also feed you lunch and dinner every day for free from local restaurants.

Having like a little break inside the programme for filmmakers can be really helpful, but every festival is different and of course they want to screen as many films as they can. Some festivals are chock-a-block with screenings.

FILMMAKER: I had a great experience at ___________ (German festival).

They flew both of us directors out and they gave us passes too, but they had cars pick us up from the airport, which was really cool. The airport was three hours from there so it was a big help. 

They put us up in accommodation in two locations: one on an island for the group trip, and one in the main city. They were really friendly and involved and they had meals for all the filmmakers and they kind of grouped us into our huddles, so the short film (there was like 10 short films) were all banded together and they did it for each group. Then their awards ceremony was pretty high-end. 

MODERATOR: They’ve got two very well known regional presenters. One of them is like a very young comedian and the other one a very established news presenter. They would literally stay throughout the festival, so they would do an end of day recap. So somebody's already gone around and shot all the footage and at the end of the night when we were all at the venue, they would play a video of the crowds, screenings and Q&As. Then they would still have those two presenters to do a Q&A with the feature film that just played in the evening slot.

I want to say that a recurring theme from both of the festivals just mentioned is they are mainland Europe, so they do get lots more funding. Which is why it's quite common for a European festival to be able to pay at least travel or give you a few nights somewhere. 

FILMMAKER: I had a great experience this year. It speaks to what has already been mentioned, but the sort of camaraderie that was created by the festival director was because they were personable and accessible. 

Obviously that's very hard when you're scaling up and there’s a huge number of films and equally a huge number of people. At the same time I feel like a festival director sets the tone. And even if they're not able to be readily available to everyone there, they are spreading that energy and approachability to the rest of their team.

And also that, and this wasn't particularly necessarily for the festival itself, but the filmmakers, the organizers, the audience all felt very unified and on the same level in the spaces that we were sharing. So none of that exclusivity bullshit.

It speaks slightly to what I'd like to see more in film festivals, it meant I connected with a lot of people that were from __________ (location of festival) themselves, not necessarily filmmakers.

But there was a very specific reason why my film was selected for ______ and why it spoke to those present in the community.

Ultimately that’s why we're making films, we're willing to connect with people that watch them. For me I want to connect with people that are not always necessarily filmmakers. We wanted to go see the area the festival was in too.

MODERATOR: If you’re a filmmaker looking for those festivals to submit to, is this something you're looking for? Because we do find, especially in pockets of America and Europe, they're very enthusiastic about their location. They sometimes will include excursions to local beauty spots or historical places. 

It’s fun but also doubles as a networking situation.

It's really important to share these experiences because of course, you can talk about film, but your journey on the circuit is really important with your network. 

We were at a US short film festival this year and we were fortunate enough to sit in their debrief. One of the teams said something that I thought was really interesting… that If someone has had a bad experience they will tell 10 people, and If they've had a good experience, they'll tell 2. I think we need to get out of that because we need to flip it or we least need to make it fair.

As a filmmaker, you should also be telling other filmmakers too, because that's how people find out about the good festivals. 

So it's incredibly important as a filmmaker to share the more positive stories just as much as the negative about everything. A lot of these festivals survive off of good word of mouth.

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Townhall at Women X Film Festival, 2024

2. Are there any negative experiences or situations where you thought a festival could have done better? 

FILMMAKER: I think it's a relatively new festival, it's been around for a few years and they were across two days: I hadn’t had any communication about what day my film was screening on. I tried to send them messages on Instagram and I didn't get anything back so I emailed them, and while they did eventually tell me which day it was on, that was all. 

The way that they’d arranged it was all films screened on this day: you go into the screening room at 9:30 and they can't admit any people after that point. That was how it was set up with no flexibility. 

I didn't understand how late that went, or when there would be a break, but not knowing when my film was screening in that massive block was odd. 

I didn’t actually end up attending the festival as there wasn't really any information on the website for me to understand the schedule and be able to figure out how to attend.

MODERATOR: When you are selected for a festival, you should be told when you are screening so you can arrange attendance. 

There’s a very well known U.S. festival that has come under fire recently for not being transparent with filmmakers when they were screening, and this included a lot of international filmmakers attending from around the world. 

Also sending out notifications the week before. It goes against what is expected which is why it was extremely disappointing.

I will say that sometimes it is quite common for generally a bigger festival where they'll say, “we’ve made the selections, we haven't pinned down the program yet, but these are the dates that the festival's taking place.” But they generally should let you know so that you have time to schedule attending the festival. 

What was the turnaround time from selection to the actual event? 

FILMMAKER: It was a good couple of months I think and I kept expecting to get something telling me which day it was gonna be on. I was looking at their socials thinking I might see something there.

MODERATOR: They should be telling you first, not socials. The norm for the majority of festivals is they send out notifications, which might have an embargo where they say please do not announce this after until after this date, which means that they then have time to check everyone does want to be playing in the festival still, because if people don't, it means that they can then go to somebody else that was on the reserve list before they send out the non-selections. 

I think the problem is with Reddit being an anonymous space, there'll be someone that's on there asking if anyone has heard back from X Festival? And then someone writes: “Yeah, I got a selection two months ago”. And then everyone piles on saying: “I’ve not heard so I'm not selected then” and it becomes about how festivals are not great at communication.

______ (UK regional festival) do you mind if I bring you in here as your process?

FESTIVAL: Last year we got in touch with some filmmakers to see if they still wanted to be ahead of us announcing, mainly for our marketing at the time. We had some billboard adverts and social ads in the works on the data projectors around town before we announced. So it was down to timing and us capitalising on an opportunity to promote the festival even earlier than we usually would.

We also got in touch with those who we wanted to include in the trailer too.

But we did get some backlash from people who hadn't been told yet because they saw the advert and presumed because they hadn't heard back yet. 

We then sent out our notifications on the announcement day, so in effect those who already knew and those who had been selected but hadn’t found out early, got the official selection. 

MODERATOR: I think if we took Reddit out of the situation it would be a lot easier, because then what would happen is that a festival would make their selections, they would then send it out to the filmmakers, saying: ‘there’s an embargo, please don't announce until after this date’. Which means that the festival has time to hear back from all those filmmakers for them to say yes. Therefore you've got your program locked and you can then send out the non-selection emails before announcing the programme. 

Which is how I wish every festival did it, but everyone is different.

There are festivals that send out selections and rejections at the same time, _____ (midlands based festival) do it every year. Which is a fair way to do it because it’s that idea of everyone hearing at the same time.

I wish that more festivals realised that this is an area of complete anxiety for filmmakers. It’s an area of filmmaking that's exacerbated because they are often friends with lots of other filmmakers and then they see them announce on Instagram: “I’ve got it in here” and then they think: ‘I haven't heard from there, so therefore it's a no.’ 

You're never going to get round a festival that may, what we call pre-select, which is where they are saying they definitely want this film and they'll reach out way before the selection notification takes place (mostly because they have it in mind for a spotlight program, or they are curating around it thematically and they just want to know it is locked in). And we get that, but we're in a unique situation where that festival might do it for two films that we look after, but we've submitted 40. It doesn't mean that those other 38 are not selected, because they have a notification date and that day is superfluid at the best of times. 

I was speaking to some festivals about this recently that if Film Freeway did a message wall on their festival’s listing it would be welcome. Like a posting section, which only they have access to, which could be time stamps and they can just give little updates about the part of the process they’re in. So you can see if there’s a delay for whatever reason, the festival can go, “bear with us, we are supposed to be announcing but actually we need another week to lock our program down”.

Realistically, a submission platform is purely a functional process to receive the films. We find a lot of festivals won't necessarily use the notification part of them, they will email directly because it means it doesn't go to spam. It means that they have control about when that email goes out and how it's read and what's in it. Less opportunity for human error.

So the common denominator between all of this, even good experiences and negative ones, is communication. And that's what we are so wanting to ramp up and say, from a festival’s perspective you could have fewer headaches from griping filmmakers if you just communicated better. 

Filmmakers would have a better festival experience if they also had good communication too. So it's a two-way street. And I think what is highlighted here is that every festival does it differently, there is no set right way of doing it, but there are always areas you can improve on. 

FILMMAKER: I've had experiences, years ago now, with several where there is an old dynamic where all festivals and filmmakers were treated as having a mutually beneficial relationship. Now I find that it’s the constant idea of leveraging something, and some communication is incredibly insensitive.

One festival was sort of capitalising off a certain identity that I had, and a friend of mine also experienced it too: They were very clear in the subtext that they were capitalizing on an identity and we weren’t aware of these things until we were in the spotlight at the festival’s invitation, onstage. You feel a part of the machine and also complicit because we’re eager to have these moments where we feel seen and also share our insights as filmmakers.

MODERATOR: You've hit it on the head: it's a two way street. Without the films, the festival doesn't have the program, without the festival, the filmmaker doesn't have that platform to reach a wider audience. And we've seen some very shitty responses for festivals when simple questions have been asked. They’ve been simple questions because they should have been in the initial communication, a bit like earlier, “when does my film screen?” It's a standard of what we want, and we've had it before where we've had to pull festivals up because of their communication. It's not nice because you have to point these areas out, but at the same time, you do want to be respected. 

We're very protective of our clients' work and only ever want them to have a good festival experience. Because we're the conduit for passing that information on in our company, a festival sends a very terse reply, and generally it's like “I've already answered this in a previous email”, and we have to go, you haven't sent an email with that info… It has to be a respectful exchange.

FILMMAKER: Yes. I feel like nowadays what makes it so much worse is the amount of films that are submitted. So you’re just a common number and I guess one thing that would be really simple is to treat filmmakers like human beings and not just content.

FILMMAKER: I feel like unless I have the budget to put a known actor in my short film, those films that have an actor that's a little more established will get the front running in festivals more than mine.

MODERATOR: It’s a myth. I can say we've had films with very big names in them, but it doesn't doesn't change that the film has still got to be good. There will be festivals who will have their interest piqued because they’re thinking of if that talent can attend, but more than likely they won’t. Our experience of looking after films with large names attached is that it still doesn’t guarantee anything, except for people wanting to take a look.

FILMMAKER: For a short it has a training feel to progress to the next level in either TV or film. At first you’re making what you love and resonates with you as an artist, and then you start to feel like you need to get more strategic because maybe that will give me the platform to take the next step in money.

MODERATOR: I definitely think you could be strategic (but) it doesn't necessarily always mean a famous face. I think it means perhaps you find the style of story that you're telling, and what those stories are. It is one of those myths that circulates about needing to have someone famous in my film. 

It doesn't help when you take an award body like the Oscars, where a lot of the short films that are nominated for the shorts suddenly get a known Executive Producer involved: This is a marketing angle to increase eyes on the film for voting purposes. But you have to have deep pockets to head into the For Your Consideration campaigns.

FILMMAKER: I just wanted to go back to what you were saying about lots of things trying to fit a small hole. I think that that ties into what we're talking about because of the influx of content there is. There’s this overarching feeling that it's becoming more of a popularity contest than it is about appreciating the films. And I think - especially in the shorts space - for so long it was a place to experiment and a place to try stuff and meet people and do it that way. And now because of the things that have been coming from Twitch and TikTok, it's becoming so much more commercial.

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Ian & Katie Bignell at Women X Film Festival

3. Feedback from the circuit: 

MODERATOR: You don't get much feedback from the circuit, so you don't necessarily know what's bad or good and what's hitting and landing or not. I think you have to know the difference between your film and what’s out there too. For example, any conflict or issue that is in the zeitgeist means there's always going to be a large swathe of them appearing as short films at festivals. So it can feel kind of saturated. Your story obviously has to mean something to you, but looking at it as an outsider and as a programmer, what is making your film stand out as different. 

I had a young filmmaker send me a film four or five years ago, and it was about period education in ______ (country) and it was really well made. She was a first time filmmaker and talking about the lack of education of men understanding menstruation. I had to say no because literally two years previous “Period. End of Sentence” covered the same topic, albeit in a different country, but it won the Oscar and played every festival going. So a programmer is going to love it but think twice because they’ve covered it in a previous programme. 

That’s obviously not the important element of the film as it’s an ongoing issue, but when you’re stepping into an extremely competitive circuit you have to be aware of what else exists for those reasons.

FILMMAKER: I wonder if this is just because, thinking about it in a post-COVID world, so much was virtual and that for people that are coming up, sometimes it's just knowing that you did get the name of of the festival and did get that recognition from them, whether or not you're being programmed. It gives you a piece of confidence that: “okay I'm making work that is of a quality and of an interest to these festivals that I have a light bond with these programmers that I want to notice me”. 

Obviously there is a prestige to being programmed and being in the room and getting to see it with an audience, but sometimes just being shortlisted or being longlisted or finalist, whether or not you're actually having your film screened is still really valuable.

MODERATOR: My issue at the moment is festivals that are using terms like finalists, semi-finalists, shortlisted, longlisted, and they all mean something different. And when you ask the festival: what do you mean? Sometimes they mean: “it got really close.” But how can the filmmaker utilise that? Because if you use a laurel to say I was nearly picked, it’s still a non-selection from an industry perspective. 

Not to pick on them, but we get frustrated with _________ (US festival), because they send a lot of semi finalist notifications. Now, I will validate one thing; you only get sent that semi-finalist laurel if you were close, so we know that not every filmmaker gets that. The problem is it means jack shit at the end of the day, because you’re not screening in the festival edition.

In our eyes you should never pay for feedback when you submit because it's not worth it and will be on your finished film. We've actually received feedback from festivals before and the feedback's not helpful. It's often scrappy notes the screeners will have for their own use: “Acting is good, seen this story before…” There're two types of feedback: feedback on the film, which is what we do as a company to get a sense of where the film can travel, and feedback on why they said no. We’ve also received feedback from festivals which is glowing, which confuses a filmmaker. So, it's difficult, it's very faceless and it feels like your baby's being kicked all over the place. 

For all the filmmakers in the room; if you received feedback and it was brief notes, or even a scoring system, and it was not very pleasant - would you still want it?

FILMMAKERS: Yes.

MODERATOR: If it was very positive and the film didn't get selected, would you still want it? 

FILMMAKERS: Yes.

MODERATOR: Okay, perfect. I wish festivals could do this. What can often happen is if I ask that question and somebody said, I would still take it up with the festival afterwards, that's why festivals don't do it. Because if they do they're opening themselves up for a conversation that doesn't need to be had from their perspective, as they haven't selected your film.

FILMMAKER: In the writing competition world, it's completely standard coverage. The coverage is often surprisingly good, which is my experience anyway. Personally it has been really useful to me, the near misses have been useful. 

I'm sure, sometimes you get totally shitty coverage, you know, fine they just didn't get it, that's okay. But I've been pleasantly surprised at how useful and how positive a process it's been, it's worth the entry fee. It’s just funny in a way that can't be the same for submitting films. 

MODERATOR: I can see from both sides why they don't want to open that door to feedback, but I can also see what filmmakers can obtain from it. If a festival receives 16,000 submissions it’s a large task that detracts away from focusing on the films they actually want to engage with. 

FILMMAKER: (US festival) capped submissions this year, which is interesting, because they just don't have capacity for viewing more than 5,000 films. That's an interesting path to go down as well, isn't it? In terms of being able to give their attention to that many submissions equally.

FILMMAKER: I guess that festivals don’t want feedback on their feedback they’ve given us. I can imagine that there will be people who don’t agree with everything.

MODERATOR: For this particular festival it’s quite niche as an experimental festival. So for them, they basically said, “we want to cap this because we want to give as much attention as we can to the submissions we've received”. At first, I think everyone’s natural response is like, hang on a minute, that makes it first come first served in the submission pile”. But it actually opened up again so I think what they did do is they capped it shut so they could go through everything and then reopened. So it was more to kind of stop a deluge of submissions that would make it overwhelming. I don't think it's practical for every festival. I mean, if you imagine someone like (large US festival) or (large European festival) doing that, there would be hell.

FILMMAKER: A festival has to be really careful about the communications, go “right only a hundred” and then reopen it. It’s sort of implied that the first tranche would stand a greater chance.

Moderator: As they are an Academy-qualifying festival they receive a hefty amount. So I’m not sure what they capped it at, but I just know that there was communication saying we have closed for the foreseeable future to go through what we already have, which again, I admire. But again it's a niche festival. There are some festivals who shut early because they want to lock their programme, they got what they wanted.

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Foyer of venue at Women X Film Festival

4. Festival Submissions and timing: 

FILMMAKER: Is it worth submitting to the late deadline of a festival?

MODERATOR: Yes, as long as it's a decent festival. The only reason we may hesitate is if their final deadline is so close to their notification date, which is very close to their edition date - that’s a red flag to us. 

If you’re about to spend upwards of $50 on a submission then stop and ask why. It might be fine because it can be an awards qualifier festival in the U.S., or a festival on a later deadline. But if it’s a new festival and you’re about to blow $80 on a festival then really question why you are submitting.

I mean one thing off the back of that I really urge people to not rush a working progress for an early deadline because you're just shooting yourself in the foot. You have to be realistic, you only get one opportunity to make a good impression and your film will only be considered once in the screening process. This is also why you do have to check if a festival allows for work-in-progress versions as sometimes they don't. 

There was one instance, it wasn't a filmmaker of ours, but I met them at a festival. They had sent a work-in-progress to an Academy qualifying festival and it had been picked. But then they were panicking saying that their film wasn’t going to be finished before the festival dates. He hadn’t told them it was a WIP, he had told them it was finished but he was still making tweaks to the edit and re-doing sound mixes. The film they selected was not going to be the film he wanted it to be. So we told him to be honest with the festival and say it’s not going to be ready. It was a tough lesson for them. It can leave a bad taste in the festival’s mouth because you haven't been completely honest, and they selected your film out of hundreds and thousands. 

The truth is you're always going to be missing a deadline. When you go on the circuit there will be festivals happening throughout the year. You're only putting that unnecessary pressure on yourself. If you have a fresh film (ie. Made within the year you’re in) then your film is going to be eligible for at least 90% of the circuit - if a festival has closed there’s a good chance that you’re still going to be eligible once they re-open for their next edition. This of course doesn’t include the bigger players that are year and premiere specific like Venice, Cannes, Berlinale etc.

FILMMAKER: Is there a sweet spot of the year to start submissions so you know how long you have left to submit?

MODERATOR: When your film is finished. It really depends on where you are wanting to submit to level wise. If you honestly think you have a film that’s strong enough for Cannes then it will require a specific premiere. That’s going to be your anchor that you navigate around. You have to take into consideration the festivals that you won’t be able to screen in that take place before then to retain your premiere.

If you're not aiming for a festival that needs a large premiere then you can be more nimble. You can actually kind of go, well, as long as all the festivals that I put in order make sense. For example I'm not aiming too small too soon, but I'm aiming for a decent festival, then it doesn't really matter. 

We always say, only submit to a festival that you would be thrilled to be selected in. It sounds obvious, but it will stop you spending money on subpar festivals. The urge to go, “I'm not getting selections, I'm just gonna submit to loads of these tiny festivals” is strong, we understand. And then when you get selected, you're like “I don't really want to advertise my film screening there.” 

FILMMAKER: I would love to know what programmers are looking for, because I think every filmmaker has like 30 projects in their brain, right? And to get a little bit of guidance about what people are hungry for is really helpful. 

Often at festivals they don't know what they're going to program until the films come in, if certain themes are presenting themselves. Some festivals may have a specific remit which can help when researching as it does narrow it down. If it’s a traditional (ie. no specific remit) then you can look at previous programmes to get their initial flavour to help be more selective.

MODERATOR: Let us ask a question, would it be beneficial for filmmakers here that whilst the festivals open for submissions, the festival were to make an announcement going, hey, we don't have many documentaries this year, or we don't have many family friendly films at the moment? Would you admire the honesty?

FILMMAKERS: Yes.

FESTIVAL: We’ve started to do that actually. It's always short docs and short comedies. That does mean that we’re reaching out as well because it can seem odd for us to advertise publicly that we’re not getting enough submissions.

MODERATOR: I agree that it could possibly be a festival might feel a bit vulnerable as if like they're admitting, oh, we haven't got enough strong submissions in. But if it's tailored as “we don't have enough documentaries or we are looking for, films from regional filmmakers,” there's a little bit more of a targeted point.

FILMMAKER: I was just thinking about the conversation earlier about pre-selections and you could combine those two things - if you’ve picked out a film that you’re keen to screen and have secured you could do a callout asking for films thematically the same. It’s showing to filmmakers that you have a particular focus. I think that could be good.

MODERATOR: Potentially announcing one of the early selections?

FILMMAKER: Yes, I think for me it would make me more tailored in where I’m submitting my film as I would know what they’re looking for and what’s already been selected. It might push me to apply to somewhere that I hadn’t considered. 

Moderator: We love it when they program festivals thematically because I know from a filmmaker perspective, they feel so much more thought of because their films have been combined with other films that are similar (theme or tone).

FILMMAKER: I find it really hard when you're looking because a lot of the festivals write very generic statements and there’s always the phrase “cutting edge” - but who decides that? I feel intimidated when browsing the festivals.

FILMMAKER: I'm curious as to how you find that information about festivals. Obviously you mentioned categories, but if a festival is halfway through the previewing stage and then do a call out for specific genres or themes, where do you look for that?

MODERATOR: It's a combination. Social media makes sense because if a festival wants to put a message out that’s the most defined area to broadcast it. 

We're part of a festival social group which is all across the world. So there'll be a programmer there saying: “I'm looking for a ten minute non-dialogue children's film that's not an animation.” And then suddenly it’s a conversation about recommendations, or a film that a festival couldn’t find a space for and exchanging contact details. 

Some festivals will do flash discounts if they’re looking for more content in a certain area which is often either listed on their Film Freeway page or on their website/socials.

FILMMAKER: I just want to say that I feel more clued up about how to position myself and my work after hearing everyone speak. It’s definitely made me feel a bit more prepared so I’m not randomly submitting.

MODERATOR: Thank you for all your great insights, I know this will make for interesting reading for a lot of the festivals that we know, as well as other filmmakers.