Film Festivals: Positive Reviews & Deserved Boos: Pt. 8

AN ONGOING SERIES ABOUT ONE SILLY LITTLE MAN’S FILM FESTIVAL SUBMISSION EXPERIENCE

Film Festivals: Positive Reviews & Deserved Boos: Pt. 8 – Julien Dubuque, Int’l Horror & Sci-Fi, Austin Revolution & Media Film Fests & Atlanta Shortsfest

Article by Justin Bowler

We are at WEEK 8! (That declaration is there for those of you who don’t read headers (like the one an inch above this sentence).) For those of you who don’t know, this is an ongoing review series about my film festival submission experience. These festival reviews are not based on whether or not I was accepted to their festival, it is based merely on my interaction with them as a filmmaker inquiring about their festival and if my genre film is the right fit. I send them three questions, and they are “Yes or No”. It’s pretty easy. Yet, for some reason, some fests, can’t/don’t/won’t respond.

Filmmakers submit their films online to festivals. They can pay upwards of $100 just to be considered. Yet, they never get confirmation that their film was actually watched. They never speak with anyone from the fest. They don’t know who is judging the film. They just have to “trust the system”. It can be very sketchy. Some festivals take the time to make sure it isn’t, whereas others just don’t want and/or care to make it otherwise.

Check out my friend Paul Osborne’s documentary Official Rejection. It will give you some real insight into how unfriendly some fests are to filmmakers. Sadly, it will blow your mind.

Let me set the scene. I have a short film called OH, THE EFFING HORROR. (That’s right, the title is meant to be shouted.)

(Check out the teaser at HERE)

Clearly, it is a genre picture. It’s a horror/comedy, or “Horr-omedy”. In addition to the gore and general subject matter, it contains nudity. Finally, with a run time of almost seventeen minutes, it may be too long for some festivals to program. All three of these points give rise to questions I have for festivals.

– First, do they program horror films? (The majority of the fests out there are NOT horror fests, so I would like to know if they even consider the genre in their short film competition.)
– Second, do they accept films with nudity? (Plenty of festivals have to keep it family friendly. I don’t have a problem with that, but, I would like to know that before I shell out my $45.)
– Third, is a seventeen minute run time too long? (Many fests have time limits for their shorts, but don’t always post that info on WithoutaBox.com or FilmFreeway.com.) (For you newcomers, these are the two websites used for the majority of festival submissions.)

My journey began by contacting festivals through the informational email they listed on WithoutaBox.com or FilmFreeway.com. In my email, I stated who I was, the answers I was seeking and inquired who could answer. Typically, I was referred to the Artistic Director or Programming Director.

Julien Dubuque International Film Festival
Submission Price – Up to $125

As always, I emailed the informational email listed on WithoutABox. I immediately got a response back from the Executive Director, Susan Gorrell. Her response is below.

Hi Justin. Great to hear from you and thanks for reaching out.

Last year we had over 625 film submissions. I’m expecting about 10% more this year. We are a newer festival, but growing each year in submissions.

I like to keep my screenings around 100 (mix of features/docs/shorts). Last year we screened 110.

I’d actually like to screen more (horror films) than we have in the past, but we typically do not get many horror films submitted. Or at least, not many that are good enough to screen at the festival. However, I have a great audience (Dubuque is a big college town) for horror films, so I’m very open to them.

Nope, not against yet. We show films in the past that have a “mature” rating (which in the MPAA world, would be considered Rated R).

Coming from a filmmaker family myself, I make a point for our festival to be about the filmmakers. Without the filmmaker and films, we don’t have a festival. I’ll be honest, we are newer, so the crowds wouldn’t be as big as Sundance, Napa Valley, Telluride, etc.. however we do have a great crowd (over 4,000) and most screenings are full. Here are the things I do to make this the best festival for our filmmakers: We award over $60,000 in cash and prizes per category (which includes the travel and accommodations for the top 3 nominees in each category), we host panels (usually 2-3) for the independent filmmaker, arrange mingles with our special guests and panelists, Q&A after each film that is screened (if the filmmaker is here), films are screened a minimum of 2x and a max of 4x throughout the 4 days for maximum exposure, our filmmaker lounge offers free continental breakfast, light lunch and dinner all four days of the festival. I connect all filmmakers with our media to help promote your films (Telegraph Herald (Dubuque and surrounding region), Radio interviews in Dubuque and Wisconsin), I print posters of your film that we hang throughout the town for promotion. I do a skype interview with any filmmaker that has been accepted into our festival that we post on our FB page, website and on the websites of our media sponsors. And I can promise that you will always have your emails answered by myself or my assistant. Whomever gets to it the fastest..LOL. We do a lot of other things as well, including evening events throughout the four days.

Thank you very much, Please do not hesitate to contact me with any other questions you might have.

Take care and I wish you the best
– Susan Gorrell,
Executive Director

Susan could not have been nicer. She was thorough in her responses and conveyed a genuine interest in me as a filmmaker. I immediately submitted.

REVIEW:
Julien Dubuque International Film Festival gets a POSITIVE REVIEW for their filmmaker friendliness. I absolutely believe that they consider every submitted film.

Media Film Festival
Submission Price – Up to $50

As always, I emailed the informational email listed on WithoutABox. I immediately got a response back from the Program Director Tamme McClelland. Her response is below.

Hi Justin,

Yes, we accept horror.

We don’t have a code against it (nudity) and we have a disclaimer that audiences should she be over 18.

How filmmaker friendly is our festival? Very friendly! Last year one of our committee members hosted a filmmaker who flew in from France. 🙂

cheers,
Tamme

Simple and to the point. I submitted.

REVIEW:
Media Film Festival gets a POSITIVE REVIEW for their filmmaker friendliness.

International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival
Submission Price – Up to $70

As always, I emailed the informational email listed on WithoutABox. I got a response a few days later from the IHSFF Festival Director Monte Yazzie. His response is below.

Hello Justin,

I apologize for the delay. Thank you for reaching out.

Our festival runs at the same time as The Phoenix Film Festival. We have competition programming throughout the day and Showcase Spotlights in the evening.

With our festival we accept all forms of horror. Sometimes we aim for a variety of different horror themes and sometimes we get really strong submissions that all fall into one specific category, we program based on the content that we receive. We aim to select films that are unique, creative, and inventive from passionate filmmakers with a love for the genre. We do except films with nudity in them.

When it comes to the length of your film, we program two short competition programs that run a total of 90 minutes each. This takes up a large portion of the programming time but we have programmed strong competition short films that have run this length, we like to program as many strong options into each program section as we can.

Thanks for your inquiries.

Monte Yazzie
IHSFF Festival Director

See how easy it is? Why can’t all festivals do this? I didn’t need a lot. I just needed a response to my questions. He gave me exactly what I was asking for. In addition, this festival is one of the premiere horror fests in the US. It shows how much class they have, since I was contacted directly by the Festival Director. I immediately submitted. Even if I don’t get in, I know I got a fair opportunity.

REVIEW:
International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival gets a POSITIVE REVIEW for their filmmaker friendliness. They are one of the most important fests around and they still had time for a little fellow like me.

Atlanta Shortsfest
Submission Price – Up to $60

As always, I emailed the informational email listed on WithoutABox. I got a response back a few weeks later from the Festival Director BJ Ogden.

Justin,
Sorry for the delay in this. We are right in the middle of Atlanta Horror Film Festival, so we’ve got our hands full! Here’s the answers, and thanks for reaching out!

Will I be ineligible based on the genre? If not, which category should I submit? We love all genres. Narrative shorts.

Is your festival against nudity?
Love nudity.

How filmmaker friendly is your festival? Can you give me an example?
Atlanta Shortsfest was started by a group of indie filmmakers!

BJ’s response took less than one minute to write. Simple and direct. I submitted.

REVIEW:
Atlanta Shortsfest gets a POSITIVE REVIEW for their filmmaker friendliness.

Austin Revolution Film Festival
Submission Price – Up to $65

As always, I emailed the informational email listed on WithoutABox. I got an immediate response from the “Artistic Director or Programming Director” (they never identified themselves) (that is usually a red flag, btw. But, I can be wrong) 🙂

We LOVE horror comedy. Austin is an audience that prefers that genre to other sub genres of horror. We have some great venues set aside for that type of film.

We will not rule you ineligible for nudity.

Is 17 minutes too long?

Our sweet spot is 14 – 19 minutes. That’s where the majority if our shorts fall in.

Our whole fest is based on the filmmaker experience. if you look our film freeway space, you’ll see we’re #1 in filmmaker reviews with 78 “5 Star” reviews.

I still don’t know who I was conversing with, but, if we take him/her at their word, then they were very filmmaker friendly. 🙂

REVIEW:
Austin Revolution Film Festival gets a POSITIVE REVIEW for their filmmaker friendliness.

Nothing but positive reviews this week. It’s nice.

Once again, I’d like to hear your stories about festival submitting. If you think there is more to be said about any of the festivals I have reviewed, then I would love to hear it.