11 Things Film Festivals Should Do To Support Emerging Filmmakers

Networking, networking, networking!

You need to not only cultivate experiences for filmmakers to connect with audiences, but with industry folx, and even more importantly — each other! What we’ve found by making this a focal point and benefit of screening with us, is the cross pollination of passionate, driven filmmakers creates new and exciting collaborations — employing each other in both above and below the line positions on each other’s projects. For emerging filmmakers who often are working on passion projects for little-to-no money, networking with other young filmmakers and building a community of support is an extremely valuable resource.

If you don’t have the internal capacity to create a youth competition, outsource it.

Chances are wherever your festival is located there are local schools and nonprofit organizations with film programs that would love the opportunity to enjoy a closer relationship with your festival. You could pilot the youth competition as a class project; students can be in charge of screening submissions and act as jury picking the winner(s). Consider offering a stipend to help support the organization’s administration (and maybe throw in a free festival sponsorship), and juicy perks to the youth who participate. There are a lot of great film festivals out there with similar programs, such as MSPIFF’s NextWave and TIFF’s Next Wave.

Give emerging filmmakers the spotlight.

As tempting as it may be to spotlight the big industry guest that you’re giving a lifetime achievement award to, they’re going to be just fine if you don’t eat up all your marketing and PR energy on them. The wider film industry (and festival audiences) have limited attention spans and bandwidth to absorb all of your great programming work — use your platform to amplify some filmmakers just starting out. It will be much more meaningful and impactful. Invite them to be on a panel or roundtable! It will be a great experience for them and will create warm feelings for your festival, and they may even help spread word of mouth to other up-and-coming filmmakers that your festival is a great place to screen. And hey, festivals that are having DEI issues in your lineup — there are a ton of female/non-binary, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and other underrepresented filmmakers out there, they just may not have made a splashy feature film debut yet. 

Guarantee feedback on rejected films/screenplays.

I know this is going to annoy some people — but if you are accepting more submissions than you can actually respond to, you’re basically stealing money, especially if you take submission fees from emerging filmmakers who aren’t good fits for your festival. Realistically, most filmmakers under the age of 30 do not have a strong chance to make it into regular competition categories at most festivals — but they don’t know that! They may spend their entire festival submission fee budget on the majors, leaving no money for the regional, specialty, genre, and other festivals much more likely to be interested in their work. Collecting submission fees without offering feedback to rejected filmmakers perpetuates income inequality — it directly subsidizes wealthier and more privileged filmmakers who are more likely to be submitting higher production value projects. Break the cycle!

Have a transparent waiver request policy.

Speaking of norms that perpetuate wealth inequities in the film industry, I have found that it is often filmmakers from more privileged backgrounds, be it racial, socioeconomic, or education level, that even know that asking a festival for assistance is an option. To level the playing field for all potential submitters to your festival, post your policy, and if you can, put it directly on your FilmFreeway profile or other call for entry platform. If you can’t make your policy public — you shouldn’t be giving out waivers! I understand that under the current film festival business model most of us need submission fees, but if you are unable to express clearly the circumstances under which you will consider waivers, don’t reserve them for the privileged few. Note: I consider offering waivers different from a waiver request policy. You can invite filmmakers to submit to your festival guilt free!

If you want BIPOC and other underrepresented filmmakers at your festival, offer travel assistance.

There are thousands of great young BIPOC filmmakers given access to training by hundreds of great nonprofits and schools across the country…and gaps still exist in many communities between local resources and the larger film industry. Put your festival on the map as “must-attend” by not only offering waivers or discounts to emerging BIPOC filmmakers, but by making sure they have the opportunity to attend their screening and Q&A, and network with all the other industry folx and resources you’ve worked so hard to assemble for your festival.

Author Bio: Dan Hudson, Executive Director, NFFTY 

Dan first started with NFFTY in 2015 and has programmed the animation and music video categories since NFFTY 2017. He joined NFFTY full-time in 2018, first as Festival Manager for NFFTY 2018, and has been NFFTY’s Executive Director since January 2019. A graduate of Seattle University’s MFA in Arts Leadership program, he has over ten years of professional experience working with arts nonprofits.