Playing the festival game

A Journey to the Film Festival Abyss, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Being A BombI was invited by the Palm Springs Native American Film Festival to submit, but then never heard anything back, not even a rejection letter. And then the rejections really started pouring in. Sundance again passed, of course, though I did get a nice personal response from new Native Forum programmer Bird Runningwater, who said he really liked the sophistication of the story.

And since I thought I was savvier now about the whole festival process, I was trying to tailor my festival submissions accordingly, since it really is a daunting task. There are so many festivals out there now. And since there are more festivals, you’d hope at least some would bite.

But no.

Save for just missing the cut to get into the Method Fest Film Festival in Cali (it focuses on acting and the fest director said he really liked my performance), by October 2006 I had received about 18 rejections and spent almost $600 on submission fees. Ouch.