Today we are prepping “Mr. Joe lives alone” for submission to festivals. I thought I was done with submitting ElekTrik films to festivals. It has become an expensive, time-consuming and soul-destroying process. I hear the cry of independents everywhere: “I just want to make films!” Those days are over (if they ever existed). If you are a director, you are your own promoter, distributor, intern, muscle, everything. And, then, you have to find space in your brain to develop new story ideas. It’s a hard knock life but better than holding up a golf sign in Oxford Circus.
Even though at festivals our films find an audience who appreciate our subtle and nuanced form of storytelling, our penchant for blending documentary and fiction, and our obsession with real, everyday people, getting a film to festival is a whole job unto itself with a skill set that I don’t really understand. Sometimes it feels like luck more than anything else.
Short Film Depot has helped a little with a streamlined process that allows you to upload a copy of your film for perusal by festivals. These are mostly the European festivals and mostly free to submit. I remember when it was all about burning DVD copies and sending expensive packages to festivals. I kept the post office in business. How many of these DVDs got watched is anyone’s guess. There is a glut of films going to festivals. An explosion has happened since I left film school. Thousands and thousands of films vying for acceptance.
I wonder how the programmers deal with it. Is the process democratic? Do they watch everything then decide what’s best for their program? Are their opinions swayed by films that show up with a famous Exec on board?
A programmer once told me that it’s rare to see a film at a festival from a director that “comes out of nowhere.” He was talking about us. “Coming from nowhere” means you are independent. That you are not a big commercials director, or that your film does not have a champion famous Exec., or that you are not already a famous director. In my case, “coming out of nowhere” means busting my ass to make films on no budget with no support from anyone other than who I can muscle, cajole, and sweet talk.
In the end, when we do get programmers to look at our films, they like them. Our films have screened along side of those with budgets in the tens of thousands. For a short film. I could do a feature on tens of thousands.
So, here we go again with “Mr. Joe lives alone.” Wish us luck.
