A festival plan for a short film

Before you enter anything

Decide what the run is for. A run can get the film seen by programmers and buyers, get you into rooms with other filmmakers, qualify the film for an award, or put a laurel on the poster. Each wants a different list, and the list for all four at once costs more than most shorts are worth.

Keep the film off the open internet until the run has started. Most first-tier festivals want a premiere of some kind (world, international, national or regional); a film already on YouTube has none to give, which rules it out of some lists and matters to none of the rest. If the film is here in the Screening Room, it is public: that is fine for the wide-open festivals and the ones with no premiere rule, and the page for each says which.

• Have a finished film: a locked cut, a mix, a grade, clean titles, and subtitles in English if any line is not in English.
• Have the paperwork: a signed release from everyone on screen, a location agreement for each place you shot, and the rights to every piece of music. Festivals ask on selection, and some ask at entry.
• Have the kit for entering: a screener link with a password, a one-line logline, a 50-word synopsis, a 100-word synopsis, a director's statement, a bio, three stills, a poster, and the credits list with names spelt as the people want them.
• Know the runtime to the second. Most short programmes cap at 15, 20, 30 or 40 minutes and the film's page here filters the list by its own length.

The tiers, and what they are for

The top tier is the Academy-qualifying and BAFTA-qualifying festivals plus the big general ones: winning the right prize at one of them qualifies the film for that award. They are the hardest to get into, the most expensive to enter, and the ones where a selection changes what happens next. Enter a few, early, and not because the name is famous.

The middle tier is the good regional and specialist festivals: strong programmes, real audiences, filmmakers in the bar afterwards. This is where most of a good run happens and where you meet the people you will work with. The specialist ones (horror, documentary, animation, LGBTQ+, a country, a language) programme a film like yours on purpose, and so accept more of them.

The bottom tier is the festivals that exist to collect fees: hundreds of 'official selections', an online screening, no audience, laurels for everyone. A laurel from one of these tells a programmer what you did not know. Skip them.

A festival that asks for money after selection (a 'screening fee', a mandatory ticket, a payment for the laurel) is not a festival.

The money

Entry fees are the run's main cost. UK festivals charge from nothing to about £40 for a short; the American ones from about $20 to $80 or more, and the entry platforms add their own cut. Early deadlines are cheaper than late ones: the same festival often costs half as much three months earlier, which is the only reason to plan the year in advance.

Set a budget for the whole run before the first entry, and spend it on the tiers in the proportion you want the results: one or two shots at the top, most of it on the middle, none on the bottom. A run of twenty entries at the middle tier is a better year than sixty at random.

Ask for fee waivers. Most festivals have them for students, for filmmakers from the region, or for films that came through a scheme; BFI NETWORK and the regional screen agencies hold waiver codes for their films; a polite email with a screener gets more of them than people expect.

The year, in order

A short film's festival life is about eighteen months from the first entry, front-loaded.

• Months one to three: enter the top-tier festivals whose next edition is at least six months away, at their early deadlines, and nothing else. Selections come two to three months before each festival.
• Months three to nine: as the top-tier answers come in, enter the middle tier on the same rhythm. Say yes to every selection you can afford to attend and go to the ones you can: the point is the room, not the screening.
• Months nine to fifteen: the specialist festivals and the ones abroad, then the online festivals with a real audience. Keep the list of every selection and prize up to date on the film's page here and on your own.
• Month fifteen on: put it online. Vimeo Staff Picks, a short film channel, a distributor for shorts if one asked, or the Screening Room here for good. A film that had a run has a story to tell when it lands.

What a selection is worth, and what it is not

A selection at a good festival is worth: the credit on your page, the screening in front of people who make things, a Q&A that teaches you what the film does in a room, and the people you meet. Record every one of them: the festival, the date, the prize if any, with a link, on the film's page here, because the record is what the next application reads.

It is not worth: a laurel for its own sake, a fee to attend, or a reason to hold the film off the internet for another year. When the run has stopped moving, release the film. The next one is the point.