{"id":1255,"date":"2025-02-26T15:31:43","date_gmt":"2025-02-26T15:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/filmfreeway.com\/articles\/?p=1255"},"modified":"2025-02-26T15:31:44","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T15:31:44","slug":"how-to-navigate-festival-rejections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmfreeway.com\/articles\/how-to-navigate-festival-rejections\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Navigate Festival Rejections"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Before any filmmaker starts submitting their project into festivals, they have to prepare for one very possible outcome. \u201cYou need to get really good at being rejected,\u201d says Rudi Womack, the executive director of the Wyoming International Film Festival. \u201cYou are going to be rejected 10 times as much as you are accepted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On average, the acceptance rate<\/a> for film festivals is just 13%, according to the Short Movie Club. If you\u2019re submitting to the most popular festivals in the world, that number dips to below 1%, as those events are picking from thousands upon thousands of submissions. But what strategies can filmmakers deploy to handle such rejection? And what lessons can they learn from being spurned in order to take their careers to the next level?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting comfortable with rejection<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Tempering expectations ahead of submitting is helpful for filmmakers, says Drea Clark, an independent producer and festival programmer. \u201cIt\u2019s OK aiming for major festivals if you know they\u2019re a long shot. Having a good idea of what is achievable for your film is very important,\u201d she says. \u201cOtherwise, you will think that you\u2019ve failed and that the industry has failed you. It\u2019s hard to move forward and keep creating if you think that\u2019s true.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When face-to-face with a rejection letter, filmmaker Noam Kroll allows himself to sit with the disappointment. \u201cBut eventually it passes. You move on to the next festival. You adjust your tactics. It\u2019s a learning process,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s of the utmost importance is that you don\u2019t completely lose faith in your project. \u201cIt\u2019s easy to be dependent on external validation from festivals, as there\u2019s this impression that they\u2019re the tastemakers in the industry,\u201d says documentarian Nick August-Perna. After his 2023 documentary \u201cTell Them You Love Me\u201d was turned down by several festivals, August-Perna turned to meditation to help him deal with the disappointment. \u201cI thought I had made my magnum opus. But it was getting rejected, and I just had to deal with that. You have to do whatever it takes psychologically and spiritually to become comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When writer-director Adam Salky\u2019s short films were repeatedly declined from festivals, he decided to embrace the topsy-turvy nature of the filmmaking profession. \u201cRejection from one festival just means that your work is going to take a different avenue. You\u2019d be surprised, too. Six months down the road, your film might have got into the festival that was right for it,\u201d he says. And, as he points out, many programmers work for multiple festivals throughout the year and regularly remember projects that they originally couldn\u2019t find space for.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Kroll offers the reminder that getting into a festival isn\u2019t the only metric of success for a film. \u201c[Not getting in] doesn\u2019t mean that your film is going to be any less successful than films that did get in,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s often a huge disconnect between success on the festival circuit and success commercially. There should be no correlation in your mind between getting into a festival and whether or not your film is good.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RELATED: <\/strong>Marketing Materials That Film Festivals Will Love<\/mark><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why you didn\u2019t make the cut<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

There are numerous factors, beyond the quality of the final product, that determine why films get turned down by festivals. \u201cI have to reject some of my favorite films that get submitted because we can\u2019t find a spot for them; [or] sometimes there\u2019s politics involved and they might offend sponsors of the festival or even the state,\u201d says Womack. August-Perna reveals that he was told \u201cTell Them You Love Me\u201d was rejected from a major film festival because of the controversy<\/a> surrounding a documentary from the year prior.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Salky, when it came to submitting short films, he made sure his final edits were as condensed as possible, as he noticed that it was hard for festivals to find space for anything over 12 minutes. \u201cA festival programmer could program three shorter films during that time,\u201d he explains. \u201cSo your film has to be better than theirs.\u201d August-Perna adds that festivals are always looking for a diverse program of films: \u201cNot just in the sense of identity, but also different types of films. They might already have three depressing films, and want something lighter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Kroll calls playing the festival game a lottery, he acknowledges that there are ways for filmmakers to optimize their chances of success. \u201cIf there are no-name actors in your movie, most of the big festivals aren\u2019t really going to consider your film,\u201d he says. \u201cProgramming decisions get very political and genuinely have nothing to do with the quality of the film. If it has a well-known director, director of photography, producer, actor, or agency involved, it\u2019s a no-brainer for the festival to include it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Implementing feedback\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, most of the time that a film is rejected, the festival provides only a brief letter that doesn\u2019t go into specifics about why<\/em> it wasn\u2019t chosen. If a film was particularly close to being accepted, but was just pipped by another entry, sometimes a festival will contact the filmmaker to insist their movie was liked, explain just how close they were to making the cut, and expound upon why it was rejected.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One festival that has garnered a strong reputation for providing feedback is the Cleveland International Film Festival, which Womack describes as the \u201cgold standard [for] giving feedback to rejected filmmakers.\u201d She advises reaching out directly to festivals and asking for information; that way, directors can see if there are any \u201ccommonalities between the festivals\u201d that turned them down.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Womack also recommends taking another look at your film if it hasn\u2019t had the expected reception. A lot of festivals take months to respond to submissions, and during this time, filmmakers have usually learned or honed new skills behind the camera. While you won\u2019t be able to resubmit your project to a festival that has rejected it, taking a more objective look at your film will help with future submissions to different festivals. \u201cYou might go back, look at the film, and see where you can tighten it up. That happens a lot,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Salky says that completing a film and entering into a festival is a milestone for any filmmaker, regardless of where it is accepted: \u201cEvery filmmaker wants their film to play great at festivals, win awards, and open up the door to a career. But the reality is much more complex. Short films are a way to grow as a filmmaker and are still a step along the way to becoming the artist you\u2019re meant to be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learning and growing from rejection<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

There are many different ways to confront being rejected by a film festival. As Salky\u2019s rejections piled up, he took inspiration from Stephen King. In his memoir \u201cOn Writing,\u201d the iconic novelist behind \u201cThe Shining\u201d and \u201cCarrie\u201d revealed that he pinned up each of his rejection letters as a reminder of the persistence required to succeed as a writer. \u201cI try hard not to take it personally,\u201d Salky says. \u201cI keep all my rejection letters in a folder and use them as fuel to keep going. Every filmmaker has had to deal with rejection at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kroll insists that being rejected from festivals helped him to learn \u201cgratitude and patience.\u201d He credits it with humbling him, which proved to be \u201cvery valuable going forward.\u201d Now, he\u2019s taking control of his own destiny. Kroll had initially dreamt of impressing the powers that be at film festivals with his work and immediately scoring a distribution or studio deal. But when he spoke to filmmakers who actually did<\/em> become the toast of the town after a fest, he learned that the reality was much different.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He explains, \u201cThey\u2019d get an agent, then go on a water bottle tour,\u201d which is essentially when new filmmakers go around Hollywood meeting producers and executives to discuss potentially working together in the future. This process can sometimes kick-start careers, but most of the time, filmmakers just end up having a cordial chat about projects that never see the light of day. \u201cAfter a few years they still wouldn\u2019t have made anything,\u201d Kroll says. \u201cIt didn\u2019t actually help them further their goals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, Kroll has instead focused his attention on making self-funded DIY films, which have increasingly gotten larger in scope. \u201cA lot of the success I\u2019ve had has had nothing to do with film festivals,\u201d he shares. Instead, he\u2019s used whatever methods he has to self-release and distribute his films. When he puts them online, he reads through all of the honest feedback, most of which is from strangers, to improve his work. \u201cThe question of how you learn and grow from festivals is really: How do you learn and grow as a filmmaker?\u201d he says. \u201cYou need to make your film, find your audience, then listen and learn from them. There is no one path to becoming a director.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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