After attending the film festival lecture at the end of the last term, I’ve begun submitting both my LIAF trailer and my 1-minute film to various film festivals. I’ve been researching a list of festivals that I’d like to submit to, through browsing on Film Freeway, looking at collated festival event lists on websites such as Zippy Frames, as well as going through the lists of festivals that short films I’ve really enjoyed have been screened at.

To keep track of all the submissions, I’ve made a spreadsheet with all the important details, including deadlines, fees, notification dates, and if they require a premiere status. This is also helpful as a record of how much I’ve spent on festival submissions, because although I’ve mostly been looking at festivals that are free to apply or have a low submission fee, I’ve realised the costs can add up quickly. Each film has its own tab with the list of festivals to submit to, taking into consideration the type of film and the themes, as well as an overall submissions tab with a master-list of all the festivals I’m waiting to hear back from, ordered by date. I hope that the spreadsheet will be beneficial in the future as well, as a good reference for future film submissions and festival details.  

While I can gather some information on each festival through their website and social media, it’s a lot harder to get a sense of what attending the festival will actually be like without going in person. This isn’t something that can be easily changed, but I did get the chance to attend Brighton International Animation Festival this past April with a few coursemates and friends. I was particularly interested because I saw that there were several films from MACA alumni that had been selected, and specifically a few LIAF films, and it would be helpful to experience the festival first before making a decision to submit BIAF, especially as there is a submission fee.

We ended up attending two screenings: East Asian Panorama and Queer as Fuck. I really enjoyed both the screenings, and it was great being able to chat with the selected filmmakers (along with other MACA students and alumni). I think that it’s always valuable to be watching new films on a variety of topics and learn about animation and story-telling, and I ended up submitting my LIAF film to BIAF for the early bird deadline. I’m looking forward to attending more film festivals in the future, both as a filmmaker and a viewer, and being able to network and meet more creators!