Film Festival Strategy with Ross Ozarka
Posted 2nd September 2025
I don’t know about you, but I got into film-making because I crave applause. I’m dying for
attention, recognition, and praise. I need people to give me the clap. So it stings when my team’s 48Hour film doesn’t get selected for the finals, and it’s even worse when I post the film to social media and it gets a paltry 96 views, and nary a steelpotato comment in the Screening Room. There’s so much talent in 48Hours that if they were to adequately recognize every film-maker, the awards ceremony would also last 48 hours, so some years you’re going to have to make peace with your brilliance going unrecognized.
Or do you? What if I told you that 48Hours isn’t the end of your film’s life: it’s the beginning.
There are people the world over who organize community screenings of short films, playing
everywhere from bars in Minnesota, TV stations in Denmark, or in the middle of a corn maze in Northern England. To the organizers and attendees of these events, New Zealand is an exotic locale, our customs strange and our accents cute. They want to see short films from here. They might even want to see yours! And there is a wonderful website where you can show it to them, called FilmFreeway.
What is FilmFreeway?
FilmFreeway is a platform that all those quirky film festival organizers use to aggregate
submissions. They make a page on the site featuring information such as when and where the event is, what kinds of films they’re looking for, who the audience is like, if they’re giving out any awards, etc. Film-makers can browse these pages and submit their films to festivals that catch their fancy.
Uh, is this going to cost me money ?
So the first thing to know about film festivals is that most of them charge an entry fee. This covers the time it takes for them to narrow a list of 20,000 submissions into 50 official selections. For the top-tier festivals like Sundance, Berlinale, Cannes, TIFF, and the like, this can be up to $130. Do not submit your 48 Hours film to these festivals. You’ll be competing against people who had more than 48 hours!
I recommend not paying any money. FilmFreeway equips you with a slider where you can filter the entry fee down to $0.
At any given time, there are about 300 film festivals on FilmFreeway currently accepting
submissions.
All you have to do go through all 300 of them, choose “submit now,” and send them your film! A lot of them will be concerned with niche interests: some only want submissions from young filmmakers. Others only want environmental films. Others only want films from North Africa. But there are quite a few that will be looking for broader categories: comedy, horror, LGBTQI+. Some will take anything! I can usually submit to 50-100 festivals on a good FilmFreeway session, and it takes about a lunch break to go through them all.
I’ve heard this website has fraudulent film festivals
When FilmFreeway first started out, they did not have very good screening policies. Scammers came along and made fake film festivals with names like CANNES FILM FESTIVAL əi9i a u əer9rou ə t l n n s꜀ n n ree i 9 , they charged the high entry fees, didn’t actually host the event, and presumably made off to Cabo with their filthy lucre.
FilmFreeway has since implemented measures to reduce this kind of fraud. They charge first-time festivals a $100 USD setup fee, and require them to submit a copy of a government-issued ID, as well as a signed agreement with the venue they’ve hired to host their festival. They also don’t release their entry fees to them until after they can provide photographic evidence the festival took place.
You can read their full policies on this here.
My theory is that if the festival isn’t charging you money, there’s nothing to take from you, so it’s probably legit. And if it’s somehow not, all you’re giving them is a vimeo link to your movie.
If you are going to spend money submitting to a festival, you can research it to evaluate its legitimacy. Look at the website they’ve listed. Does it look slapped together by a lazy scammer? Look at the photos they’ve posted. Do they all look like they’re from the same event? Research it--is anyone else talking about it in places other than FilmFreeway? Look at the reviews: do they seem fake?
Are there other options?
Yes, there are many platforms that film festivals can use to aggregate submissions, such as
ShortFilmDepot (https://shortfilmdepot.com/), ClickForFestivals (https://www.clickforfestivals.com) and Festhome (https://festhome.com/). I like FilmFreeway because the UI is the least annoying, and they have the most free festivals. I don’t like paying money!
Is it worth submitting to free film festivals?
I feel like the main purpose of a film festival is to network. So is it really worth submitting your film to a festival you can’t even attend?
I would say yes- it takes a only couple hours to set your film up on the platform and flick through all the free submissions. In return for that time, I’ve had my films on TV in the Netherlands, in a toy store in Japan, on a niche horror streaming platform in Montreal, a soviet bomb shelter in Russia, and three films in TromaDance. Of course, it would be better to be able to go to these events in person, but it’s fun knowing that there’s a room full of people somewhere on the other side of the globe watching your weirdness on screen, especially for us recognition-cravers.