GO DIRECTLY TO THE SOURCE

The best place to go for information about a film festival is to go directly to the source and speak with the festival organizers. The way you communicate with festivals is incredibly important because this will set the tone for your relationship with this festival or any festivals you contact.

These are helpful tips with how to interact and communicate with festivals:

Make sure the email you provide in FilmFreeway in your submitter profile is an active email that you check regularly! 
This is very important because if the festival needs to contact you for more information regarding your submission and the email you gave is your old film school email that you haven’t checked in 6 years, you could miss very important information or requests from the festival.

ALWAYS be incredibly polite
Festival organizers can either be your best friend or they can knock you out of the festival, so make sure any written or verbal communication is polite and professional.

Get to the point
Yes, we know that your project is the most special thing on the planet, but to festival organizers, they deal with hundreds of projects and filmmakers.

DO NOT unsubscribe from festival emails
This is very important. We know that spam emails are the worst but unsubscribing from festival emails or emails from FilmFreeway could result in very important emails like official selection notices being sent to your spam folder.

If a festival is taking the time to reach out to you it isn’t for fun, it’s because they need action on your part and failure to do so could result in your project not being selected

These are just some tips to get you ready before submitting your finished project. You can read more about this and other topics on how to improve your festival submissions in our E-Book, the Film Festival Submitter’s Guide.