“Filmmakers can benefit from the experience of submitting a film to a festival, even if they don’t make the cut. I’m talking specifically now about the New York Film Festival. There’s only so many slots. Only 25 to 30 films are chosen for the main section of NYFF,” explains Eugene Hernandez.
“Imagine watching hundreds of films and having to choose only 25 or 30. Well, I can guarantee you, as someone who watches a lot of movies, there’s another 10, 20, 30 films that you really like, but there just isn’t room for them in that festival that year.”
So, you may get a note from a film fest programmer saying, ‘We liked your movie a lot. Unfortunately, there isn’t room for it in our limited program this year. We really hope you’ll stay in touch with us. Maybe there’s room for it in another festival we organize or another way we can show it.’
Feel free to stay in touch with these people, these fests.
Festival programmers and organizers talk to each other, share information. Maybe someone will have three or four film entries, all on the same subject matter. They’ll say, ‘It’s a documentary about a topic we have another film on already, but I’m going to recommend it to my friend at a different festival. I think they might like it.’
Film fest organizers are people, too
People are busy.
A curator won’t give extensive notes to every single filmmaker -for every film they view. But if they care deeply about a film, if they feel a connection to a specific film or subject, they might. It doesn’t hurt to ask, to say, ‘Hey, can you share with me any feedback? What did you like? What didn’t you like? Your notes would be really important to me to help me understand how people are responding to my film.’
“Then as an artist, as a filmmaker, be open to what they have to say. Be open to the fact that just as we individually have our own tastes, what we like, what we don’t like, the programmer you’re sending it to may also.”
“It’s not personal if they don’t like your movie, but their response can be informative. It can help you think about how you can adjust a film or just how you talk about it. Maybe your film is being read differently by audiences than how you intended. You can go back and kind of tweak some of your messaging to account for that response,” ends Hernandez.
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So you’ve made your film. Now, what do you do? Do you have this burning fire to share it with others and an audience? Then your first step is to start thinking about which film festivals you want to send it to.

Hopefully, your film isn’t too long. That’s the first piece of advice Caran Hartsfield would give: “I think there is this misconception that I am more of a filmmaker, the longer my film is. From what I’ve seen, that is the wrong way to think about it. A film festival and being a filmmaker is quite the opposite.” The tighter your film is and the more in control your story, scenes, and directing are, the better it is. If you can do a tight 10 (minutes) as opposed to an okay 20, it’s better to have the tight 10. And depending on your skill level, the shorter, the better. Just show you’re a promising filmmaker, and that’s all you have to do. Caran adds, “I’ve seen careers launched off of five-minute films, so don’t think, the longer, the better.”

It can’t be stressed enough that a lot of film festivals also cut off minimums and maximums. Often, the maximum for many festivals is 20 minutes. It’s really hard to program longer films because then they have fewer films to put in the festival. So even if you’ve made a film under 20 minutes and you think it could be longer — know that you already have your film to share with the festival.

Also keep in mind that film festivals usually have an entrance fee. Be strategic about how and where you spend your money. However, some festivals do waive fees. Send an email, explain your situation, and see if it is possible to waive the fee. If you already have a track record and you’ve established some sort of momentum with your film, this can especially be a door opener for you.

Film festivals are really great practice for you as a filmmaker to talk about your work too. Usually, there’s a Q&A after screenings for filmmakers to talk about what inspired them or their filmmaking process. This is helpful in getting you comfortable to have a dialogue with your audience and thinking about your work. And as you move forward to your next project, you will be much more aware of what you’re interested in thematically and why you’re telling this story. Because you already know that Q&A is coming. You definitely want to be clear on how your story is connected to what you’re thematically interested in.

Caran highly recommends submitting your work to film festivals. She explains, “It’s a great opportunity for an audience to see your work and share in the thing that you were most interested in and passionate about for so long.” So send out those films. Have a strategy. And put on your calendar when the film festival deadline is, and submit on time because those deadlines can come and go quickly.

An international film festival: early beginnings
“I was living in New York in the 1950s where there was this guy named Amos Vogel. He showed independent films in downtown New York in alternative spaces to various audiences,” Eugene Hernandez recounts. “Later Richard Roud, a Londoner, came to New York and to the Lincoln Center, where the New York Film Festival (NYFF) is now held.
The Lincoln Center for Performing Arts was founded in the late ’50s, early ’60s as this kind of arts campus for different art forms: ballet, opera, the philharmonic, and various other art forms.
“This is what started the connection between Amos Vogel, a guy presenting films in downtown New York, and Richard Roud, who showed films at London film festivals before moving to New York,” explains Hernandez. (Vogel and Roud co-founded the New York Film Festival.)
The NY film fest-where being different is the norm
The New York Film Festival has shown diverse cinema styles over the years. And it continues its tradition toward distinct filmmaking—high-profile films with well-known actors and directors.
Celebrated films from all parts of the world. Films that haven’t yet played to an audience in New York.
“This is the big thing about the New York Film Festival—each fall it introduces new films to new audiences, particularly to New York audiences,” Hernandez continues.
“Hundreds and hundreds of films are submitted for consideration each year, but few are selected,” Hernandez points out. “It takes place over a few weeks at Lincoln Center, at other parts of the city, and online.”
Short films, experimental films, movies from all over the world come here to New York to be discovered by audiences.
New York Film Festival is for film lovers
There’s a lot more festivals now, but NYFF has become an annual fall gathering place. Audiences get an overview, a cross-section of which films and filmmakers stand out for the fall season.
NYFF is highly regarded because it has a relatively small program, with only 25 to 30 films.
“It’s a place where we get a measure of what’s new, what’s celebrated, and what’s so special about the art form of filmmaking,” ends Hernadez.

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There’s a movement right now in the world with streaming and online audiences, and filmmakers who self-distribute their films. These filmmakers figure out how to get their films booked and get them into theaters and do everything themselves. Taking the self-distribution route is completely possible for you, too. It takes a lot of work, but it’s definitely possible.

According to film industry expert David Ninh, “When I think about the role of distributors that we work for, and specifically our distributor and my role, it’s very curatorial.” Distributors look for unique storytelling. They look for whether or not the filmmaker has an interesting voice or an interesting story that they want to tell the world. They look at the film and if it’s going to be relevant and special down the road in their library. Or if it’s going to become a classic, because distributors sometimes compete for films. David adds, “I think that when there is a good film, there’s a lot of interest. A lot of distributors want it for themselves so that they can put their stamp on it and put it out to the world with the filmmaker.”

Those are very striking instances for the filmmaker to figure out the right home for their film, to get the film out to the world, and to figure out who can be the best partner for them to get it out in the widest way possible. Filmmakers need to outline the goals for their films. Some filmmakers just want a lot of money and to sell the film. Some filmmakers are more concerned with getting it out organically and having the theatrical experience by getting it rolled out in as many theaters as possible. The money is secondary to them because it’s more important to build the profile of their film in their career.

Let’s take a look at the role critics play in the film industry and how every year they get together to discuss the best films and reward them for their effort.

“Film gets released. Critics write about it. Critics love to champion work that they’re passionate about,” explains Eugene Hernandez. “A group of critics, at the end of the year, meets to say, Ok, what were the films that mattered to us this year?”

Critics watch the most films out of any kind of writer or journalist. They’re like programmers of festivals, the folks that choose the films. Eugene explains that they watch lots and lots of movies. At the end of the year, they sit back and make a list, and they say, well, what was my favorite? What was my favorite film of the year? What was the best performance? What was the best-what had the best costumes or the best editing or the best direction, writing, various categories?

There are several critics groups at the end of the year in December you see a lot of. If you’re aware of it and thinking about it and you do a search on Google at the end of the year and you look for sort of critic’s prizes or best films according to critics or even top 10 lists, you’ll see a lot of that. You’ll see that critics are championing, celebrating, and highlighting the films that they were the most passionate about.

Eugene says that could be a great way to bring more attention to a film as well. A film comes out maybe early in the year or it’s at festivals earlier in the year, and then suddenly at the end of the year, critics are looking at it against all the films they’ve seen, the hundreds of films they’ve watched that whole year. And they’re saying, oh, these are the ones that stick with us, that matter, that is worth giving more attention to.

The awards season -as it’s called for the industry at the end of the year and into the beginning of the new year- is the moment when a lot of these films are celebrated.

“Whether that’s at the Golden Globes in January or at the Oscars later in the winter or early spring, these are the highest-profile awards,” Eugene says. “There are different levels and layers of awards, starting at local film festivals and national, international film festivals, but also continuing to the critic’s groups in the fall and then the higher profile, well-known awards.”

David K. Irving believes that documentary is an exciting form of filmmaking. One of the most exciting things about documentary is that it’s about the truth, and he thinks that’s important. The truth can be very scary. Getting personal and close to the truth is a very rewarding experience for any filmmaker, in David’s view.
The major difference between documentary film and narrative film is that documentary films are usually built during post-production. You do a series of interviews. You come up with a script. You find all the images that you want. But ultimately, it’s based on what images, stories, and interviews you do have in the editing room. David thinks that the documentary often takes shape in the post-production phase.
He says this is very different from a narrative film. Much preproduction can be done in terms of identifying what the shape of the film will be the better. In post-production, it’s a question of realizing that vision. Documentaries are very exciting because they all happen in the moment.
David personally feels there are many different kinds of documentaries. “Cinéma verité, for instance, is a wonderful form of documentary,” says David. He thinks Ken Burns did a terrific job covering the Civil War and baseball to introduce this kind of documentary into the mainstream in American cinema. He thinks it’s become a very popular format for people to enjoy films.
And for David, the major point of documentary film is the same as narrative film. Both types of film have to tell a story.
He’s seen many documentaries that were just a series of interviews and images where there was no edification. There was no climax. The better documentaries are the ones where when you finished watching it, it feels like it’s the end of the story.
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”You have these very early experiments with drawings that move. You have these ideas of taking characters that were either in a comic, or in the newspaper and turning those into animated shorts,” Says Kimson Albert. “For example, Gertie the Dinosaur with Winsor McCay was an early version of animation.”

He had a Gorgo act where he actually interacted with an animated version of Gertie the Dinosaur. Behind him, he would throw grid an apple and all these interactive things. It was very new. It was kind of a novelty thing at that time.

You have the early Disney shorts, and you have early Fritz the Cat shorts. Everything is a mouse or some sort of animal that’s cute or mischievous or any of these things.

Steamboat Willie is a short that’s the first sound short animated short. Before then, you wouldn’t have sound synced to the action, which is a Disney film. This turns everything around. Now that the cartoon has sound to it, we’re in a whole of the universe essentially. Film goes from like a Dark Age and then after one film into this incredibly new territory of sound. Then there’s time to adjust that.

With Disney, he was able to experiment with these shorts, prove the kind of ideas, and prove the experiments that they were working on with movement and character in the shorts. They would do all these incredible things with camera. They would test out things with the facts and everything like that.

Then when it came time to do his first feature, which was Snow White, he takes all of this knowledge and his best animators and effects people and throws them on this incredible project that transforms the entire film industry period. It is the biggest thing at the time. Snow White is the definitive mother of invention when it comes to animated film. If you do your research, you will know that the DNA of all animated film features comes from Snow White and character animation.

The evolution of the animated feature is basically the evolution of the Disney studio. They were the ones who were rolling out the Cadillacs of animation. They were the highest level of quality in terms of character animation, in terms of backgrounds, and in terms of camera.

”It’s really important to pay attention to the things that are around you, to the people you know, that are happening in your community, that you’re watching on the news, or anything that’s coming into your life, and realizing that those are the kernels, the nuggets of gold for you,” says Caran Hartsfield.

You probably have that uncle, grandfather, auntie, sister, or whoever who was an incredible character. That often gets overlooked. The real people in our lives that are great characters, or those real moments that happen between two friends on a Tuesday. Write those things down. Use those little golden nuggets to create great scenes.

“It’s so much easier to use real people than to make this Frankensteinian, made-up person that you’re really basing on other films that you’ve seen. You have the luck of knowing the people that probably only you know.” Hartsfield explains. “I don’t know them; most screenwriters don’t know them. You know them. I don’t have the life experiences you have. Most screenwriters don’t have the life experience you have. That’s what’s so exciting. We all have the stories that only we can bring.”

“The world is not monolithic. The world is not homogeneous. Art has always reflected life to a certain extent. The notion that it should not be diverse is insane,” says Seith Mann. “I think that there are so many different and wonderful stories out there, and the more diverse the talent base telling those stories is, the more different, interesting stories that you will have.”

We all benefit from hearing stories from multiple voices. From gaining insight from characters and worlds that have a lived experience that is not necessarily our own. Then, at the same time, it’s important for people to see themselves and stories. If you have a marketplace that doesn’t reflect anything but a particular demographic, that makes it harder for different people to identify with those characters. It’s difficult for them to be truly invested in those stories, which is, ultimately, what is behind all the human need that we have for this illumination that comes from storytelling.

In Hollywood, there’s a profit motive. Hollywood’s going to make more money if it draws in a greater audience, and part of the way you do that is to have diverse storytellers telling different stories. It isn’t rocket science.

When it comes to developing a screenplay, film director and screenwriter David Irving points to one simple industry expression: “You cannot make a good film without a good script. You can certainly make a bad film from a good script. But to repeat, you cannot make a good film from a bad script.”

Everybody’s looking for a good script. And good scripts are few and far between.

There are different elements to a successful screenplay, as Irving notes. A good script has to be a certain length, proper format, and it has to have a beginning, middle, and an end. It’s a blueprint for the actual film.

It takes a very special person to be able to read through a script and see the movie. A director who reads through the script is putting a lot of brain effort into it — How can I make this happen? How can I realize this particular film?

At the same time, you’re reading through a script to find an emotional arc and connection. Will this be a film that I want to work on for a very long time? Will this film entertain and engage an audience? Will it be of some value to put all that effort into the screenplay? The screenplay is first and foremost the document you need in order to be able to proceed with a film.

While a screenplay may attract a lot of people to a motion picture, it goes through a lot of transitions along the way. You have a first draft, second draft, third draft, polished draft, shooting draft — there are lots of changes that scripts go through to get to the first day of principal photography.

Even during principal photography, that script will change. In post production, that script will continue to change. That’s why you must have a very solid screenplay upfront, and it takes a real professional to be able to read it and see what that movie might be.

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“You know, it’s very easy to write one script and then talk about it for three years,” says filmmaker Judd Apatow. But according to Judd, successful writers don’t stop there. They stay consistent.

“The people who succeed are the people who write a script and then start the next one the second they’re done,” Judd continues. “When I was first starting up, a friend told me that he sold the tenth script he wrote.” That knowledge helped Judd, who learned that it takes a long time to sell a script. “I’m not supposed to become some famous rich person on the first script,” he realized. “You have to hope it happens early but be willing to write those ten scripts to make it.”

Filmmaker Caran Hartsfield agrees. “It’s an incredibly daunting process, even for professionals,” she says. “And it’s hard to settle in and just go step by step. The first step is to exhale and know that it’s going to be a roller coaster ride.”

Caran also points out that not every writing session comes easily. “There are going to be days when you are so excited that it’s coming together. And there are going to be days of ‘What was I thinking yesterday?’”

On some days, filmmaking and writing can feel out of reach, and writers can doubt themselves. Still Caran offers encouragement for writers. “I’ll tell you a secret,” she says. “A writer writes. If you write, you’re a writer. So just write a little bit more every day, and make that a habit.”

Caran has a friend who commits to writing every day, even if it’s just one sentence. “I think that’s a really good practice,” Caran says, “and it’s something that I have personally incorporated into my own practice. I find that it creates momentum.”