Updated Film Festival Lists + Submission Tips for Indie Filmmakers

Hi, everyone, the last couple of weeks I've worked on major updates on my film festival lists, emphasising discovery festivals by also considering the number of feature world premieres they screen. For the world premiere of their movies, indie filmmakers have a higher chance of selection when submitting to festivals which usually screen world premieres, compared to festivals which mostly screen regional premieres of movies coming from other festivals.

General list: https://adriantofei.com/top-100-international-film-festivals/

Genre list: https://adriantofei.com/top-100-international-horror-film-festivals/

I think this major update will provide an extra level of support to indie filmmakers, including to myself, since I'll be using my own lists to build the festival strategy for We Put the World to Sleep.

And since the lists became quite popular and respected in the industry, this might also push festivals to be more discovery oriented and select more premieres instead of taking only movies which have been vetted by other festivals. 

I've also updated my submission tips, there's lots of new info, especially about how to protect yourself from fake and scam festivals. 

Don’t waste your money on submitting to award events or online festivals listed on submission platforms. They won’t help your career or your film in any way (unless they are big festivals that went online temporarily during the pandemic).

There are also thousands of festivals which appear valuable, but are just cash-cows for the owners. Some are outright fake (the event doesn’t happen), while most are pseudo-festivals or scams organised to get as much money as possible from filmmakers while offering them as little value as possible. Warning signs: multiple festivals around the world run by the same company or person(s), huge number of submission categories with high fees, big sounding titles that have no recognition in the industry and just sound similar to established festivals, the event happens far away (different country or city) from the administrative headquarters, the festival mass-sends discount codes to filmmakers to attract more submissions, they take advantage of selected filmmakers by making them pay for the trophy or award gala, the festival happens in a hotel, there’s no industry or press or even audience present besides the attending filmmakers, the films selected in previous editions have little to no online presence, the event generally looks more like a business than a film event.

There are also big established festivals that could offer you a lot of value if selected, but they're still scams for indie filmmakers from a different point of view: they take most of their movies from big distributors or sales agents instead of selecting them from all the submissions they get. Therefore you pay big money submitting thinking you have a chance, when you actually don't. Sometimes they don't even watch the movie you submit.

Indie filmmakers are extremely vulnerable, we get scammed by both big and small festivals, by distributors, by fake producers etc. That on top of finding so hard to make a living and raise budgets for our projects. It's a jungle out there. Kinda reflecting the society we live in.