AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

The New Filmmaker/Festival Partnership - CinemaTech

Just got through moderating a really interesting panel on how film festivals can get more involved in distribution…interesting in that it exposed some truths and opportunities that I think are important for filmmakers and festivals.

Here at the International Film Festival Summit, the oft-repeated wisdom is that acquisitions executives only attend a few select festivals (Berlin, Cannes, Sundance, etc.) And the majority of films that play at second- and third-tier festivals will never get theatrical or home video distribution deals.

So what of the worthy movies that play at these festivals, but don’t get picked up?

Some entrepreneurial filmmakers will self-distribute, pressing their own DVDs, or working with services like Amazon’s CreateSpace to make DVDs or digital downloads available. (Here’s a starting point for filmmakers that choose to go that route.) They’ll book their own limited theatrical engagements. Two people I spoke to here (Gary Meyer and Adrian Belic) used the same word in describing this process: hustle…as in, “you’ve got to get out there and hustle the movie.”

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