How To Get Your Short Film into a Film Festival
Over the years, one of my favorite jobs in film has been programming. I used to program our first-run, one screen cinema, and I’ve programmed various festivals and special film events. So one way to help you think about making a film that will get into a film festival is to think like a programmer.
90 Minute Time Slots
So, when programming a film festival, it’s most likely the programmer has to fill a 90 minute slot. In a short film program, it’s nice to have a variety. So let’s say it’s a program of comedy, or a program of documentaries, it’s great to give the audience a lot of different voices and flavors. So many times, I see filmmakers making their first – or even their second, third or fourth – short, and it looks very much like everybody else’s short. It’s unusual to find a short film that has its own unique flavor, especially in the genres of comedy and drama.
The 90 minute-time slot explains why when a short film is too long, it throws off the program. With 3 x 10 minute, 1 x 3 minute, 2 x 15 minute, 1 x 20 minute films, and some time to switch between films, the 90 minutes is full. If you just look at it mathematically speaking, the shorter the film, the more likely it is to get programmed. One of my favorite films I ever saw was at Sundance many years ago, and it lasted for one whole, excellent minute!
Here is one of my favorite articles about short films at Sundance, by programmer Mike Plante: “Shorter is Better”: Sundance Programmer Mike Plante Offers Advice on Short Film Strategy at the Sundance NEXT Festival
Being Unique
It’s great if you can offer something special. But how? I have a client, Colin Bishopp, whose short film made it into the Tribeca Film Festival, and it may have been one of the only short films I’ve seen whose lead was a young teenager. It’s rare for filmmakers to think about children in their storytelling – even though so many of them are parents – and this leads to a shortage of family-oriented films in the short or the feature lengths. See the trailer to Snaggletooth here.
Another way is to show something hyper-local. Even more unusual are films set in rural locations. Most short films tend to be shot indoors inside houses. So if you can tell a story outdoors and in an environment we haven’t seen thousands of times before, that’s always welcome. Where I am staying here in Montana, it feels as though there are untold stories around every corner. Even with two major tv series being shot here – Big Sky and Yellowstone – the writing on these shows doesn’t fully capture the local flavor. (Check out the trailer for my client Kevin Pontuti’s film Onere, which has been screened at many film festivals.)
And finally, let’s hear voices we haven’t heard before. This year, I worked as a founder of the new Disability Film Festival at Slamdance: Unstoppable. It was amazing to see stories including people with all types of disabilities, visible and invisible, physical and mental. So much variety. So many stories by and about characters we have barely begun to explore.