How to create a Film Festival Strategy

A lot of people think that they’re just one great film away from festival success. And while your film has to be great, the true way to success is to strategise from the very start. If you create something with your audience in mind and the festival selection process that leads you to that audience, then you’re more likely to be selected. 

Find Your People

From the moment the idea for your film arrives into the world you should be thinking about who this is for, why is this the story that you want to tell and what does it mean to you seeing this on the big screen? Start listing the types of audiences and the types of festivals that you feel this is for.

Scottish Short Films at Edinburgh Short Film Festival

If this step is difficult, think about films that have inspired you and why they have resonated with you. How did you find those films in the first place? If those films were in festivals, then those festivals are where you want to be looking to share your work. If that film was in a cinema, then how did they get you to pay money to go and view that film? Was that online marketing? Was it physical marketing? Was it word-of-mouth? All of these elements are going to paint a picture of the type of person that you want to see your film and how to reach them. And if you are watching films in festivals and thinking "this really resonated with me" and you’d inspired to make something based off of what you viewed, then this is a festival that you should bring into your strategy.

Do Your Research

Each festival has its own theme or values and they tend to wear this on their sleeve. So even if you haven’t been before, there will be information online of what they’ve previously programmed. They’ll also have a submissions page, whether that’s something that built themselves or if it’s on a platform like film freeway. On the submissions page they will tell you what they value and what they want to program at their festival. 

From your list of festivals, start going through their submission pages, call outs and guidelines and take a look at the wording they use. Pull out key words and use that in the formation of your own film. Build it into your logline, synopsis, title, script, anywhere you can inject this language, go for it. Using the terminology of the festivals is reassuring to them, and audiences, that your film is what they're looking for.

For an example of how to do this, check out our Festival Strategy video, where we take Raindance Film Festival as an example.

Keep The Project Focused

Festivals tend to see the title, poster and trailer for your film before they see the film itself. And these materials need to let festivals know immediately what the tone, subject and themes of this film are. Thinking about how you sell this idea and theme to festivals from the start of the project means you can craft the perfect materials during the project. You can plan the promotional images and poster image so you capture exactly what you want during production, and don't have to scramble for materials once the film is finished. You want these materials to strongly represent your film and get festivals excited to include it on their program, and use your imagery to promote their festival.

Promotional stills from The Boulder (2025)

Bringing The Purpose Into The Art

Further to the crafting of the promotional materials, think about how the audience and festival research can help strengthen your film. Following through on your themes and genre in the first scene, is a great way to get festival programmers and audiences to feel that the film matches their expectations. It’s about following through on what you’ve promised from all those initial materials so your festival is confident that having looked at your poster, title and synopsis this could be the type of film for them and now they’re watching it and they’re getting that confirmation.

It’s also important to align with the quality that that your chosen festivals expect, and create a piece of art that offers value to a viewer. What stands out about this story, the approach to this story or the message that could be something people are excited to see?

If the message of the film reaches further than the audience the festival can already pull in, then it means your film maybe a way to tap into new audience members and more audience members for that festival. Have a think about what parts of your film are unique and do stand out. What’s newsworthy about your film? Maybe it’s not a headline, but if it’s something you think people would like to discuss online online, then it’s something you can use to again get a festival excited to be showing it. If someone knew nothing about your film, then what exactly would you want them to read and go "Wow I absolutely have to see that!"

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