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Film festivals
The story on film festivals
For most filmmakers a film festival showing is the closest they will ever come to having an audience for their
films. For most serious independent filmmakers it is where they hope to find a buyer for their film.
The world's first major film festival was held in Venice in 1932; the other major international film festivals
(Berlin,Cannes, Moscow and Karlovy Vary) date back to the 1940s and 1950s.
The first North American film festival was the San Francisco International Film Festival held in March 1957 in San
Francisco. It played a major role in introducing foreign films to American audiences. Among those films were Akira
Kurosawa's Rashomon and Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali.
The Toronto festival (which began in 1976) has now become a major North American festival, and the most widely
attended worldwide.
The important ones
Although the list of the most prestigious is subject to constant change, here are the international "A" list festivals.
They generally all have exclusivity requirements so that new films must be premiered at one of them, and only
one of them, before they are shown at any other festivals.
Sundance Film Festival (mid-January)
Toronto International Film Festival (early September)
Cannes Film Festival (late May)
American Film Institute (early November)
Berlin Film Festival (early February)
South by Southwest Film Festival (SXSW) (mid-March)
Telluride Film Festival (early September)
Los Angeles Film Festival (mid-June)
Seattle International Film Festival (late May)
Tribeca Film Festival (early May)
Of these festivals Sundance, Toronto and Cannes (pronounced "Can") offer the best chance of getting distribution.
By far the majority of the independent films shown at these major festivals still don't get distribution but stand a
much better chance than at any of the other festivals. These are the main festivals attended by the acquisition
agents from the major distributors.
If you are convinced your movie is good enough for Sundance you will
probably want to get a producer's representative to help you get into the
festival and make sure the acquisition agents see it.
The rest of the festivals
In addition to the top ten festivals there are a handful of other domestic
and international film festivals that nearly make the list and are also
frequented by acquisition agents offering the possibility of a sale.
IFP Los Angeles
New York New Directors
Denver International
Cinequest San Jose
Rotterdam
Oldenburg
Durban
Tokyo
London
Melbourne
Vancouver
Even if you don't get into one of the "A" festivals you should still exhibit at as many festivals as you can. There