Hello Angelo and welcome! I think the answer to “what does an indie filmmaker do about it?” can be found by looking into indie filmmaking’s past. A filmmaker’s ultimate power comes from making films that audiences want to see. More on this in an upcoming post.

By way of example of what a great business festivals have going, we submitted Champion to a Certain Very Large and Prestigious Festival Which Will Go Unnamed (but which was not Sundance because, c’mon, why bother?). The movie was, of course, rejected with astonishing alacrity. $35 entry fee. In their (nice enough) rejection letter, they said that they received 6,500 submissions for 110 screening slots.

6,500? Times $35? $227,500 without having to even sell a single ticket?

Rockin’. That covers your venue costs, right there, so the box office is pure profit. I’m so there.

Festivals have not been completely worthless for us, because they do have PR and advertising value (all those pretty laurels on the cover of the DVD, and thanks again for the artwork). But that’s because we already have distro before we send out the first screener, so we’re already outside the core market for festivals.

And thank god for GLBT festivals, which tend to be considerably less squeamish about sex.

But you are absolutely right: If you want a career in indie film, especially in short formats, well… don’t quit your day job.

Hello Xof, glad to know you’re still reading. LGBT Film Festivals can be and are less squemish about sex because they, like the fests mentioned above, serve a different agenda. Rather than existing to be funnel for a hype and distribution system that puts filmmakers at a terrible disadvantage LGBT festivals exist to celebrate the experience of watching films in a communal setting. This emphasis on the communal experience of watching a film allows them to put aside the “virginity fetish” that most festival indulge in, and which works to such a disadvantage to filmmakers. More thoughts on this in upcoming posts.)