In the 1st ten pages of the book he talks about going to video Holidays all around the globe and enjoying every one of them. I am not sure about you, but this sounds like heaven to me. Whether or not you are a film backer or a filmmaker with a film entered, a film holiday is a fun experience and one you are going to need to copy as frequently as possible. There had been a point when film holidays were far and few between. Lofts controlled each side to filmmaking and there had been not too much of an independent spirit to be found anywhere. It appears with the upward thrust of Indie films that each state in the country has it's own film holiday.

In California alone there has to be twenty or more film holidays. There had been a point when films didn't occur at all unless they were under the auspices of the lofts. There wasn't any real possibility of the tiny guy getting their film out there. The small guy likes to show his films anywhere he will be able to, thus the upward push of independent film holidays all over the country. Sundance, Tribeca, and the Toronto Film Holiday are the firstly holidays to submit your film to.

However there are at least a hundred other film holidays that you can submit your film to. This is rather like the lottery ; if you do not play you can not win. You may continue to submit your film as many times as you can till you ultimately get acknowledgment into a holiday.

you could get a few rejection letters till you get your first acknowledgment letter.

There are a couple of things that might help you out though. You should remember a film holiday board could have eight hundred submissions and only forty spots for a film to be shown. Many a refusal letter has given the fact that they'd way too many submissions to even view them all. My recommendation to you is that when you have your film done and you've got the first date they are opening for submissions then submit your film. Confirm your film is entered into the right holiday as an example, you wouldn't enter a kids's film into an adult alternative film festival. It's not that I am sure there's even the second class, but you get the general drift. It may need your entry to be mailed, done online, or maybe in the flesh. In the class of short film, be exceedingly careful you stick to any time necessities for your piece. If it's a small too long then do more trimming. Solely to be on the safe side if the film is to be ten minutes long, make it for nine mins. Don't give them any reason to kick back a refusal letter. Refusal is an amusing thing with Film Holidays ; there's art even in refusal.

The Slamdance film holiday came about as an answer to the refusals from Sundance.

The Sundance Holiday shows in Park Town , Utah. At the same time in Park Town , Utah Slamdance runs. This is a calculated attempt to show the films that have been over looked by Sundance.

I should bet there is a lot of action in that city in the mixed running of both holidays. If you get an opportunity to go to the Pacific Northwest in the end of May and start of June, the Seattle Global Film Holiday runs for about a month occasionally showing as much as three hundred films. They have great filmmaker's forums and there's their original "Fly Filmmaking Challenge" that they hold each year. Theirs is the longest running and shows the most films of another film holiday in the country. I inspire you to do your own search of film holidays and check out their application processes.