Every year thousands of filmmakers like you unleash their newly completed movies upon the film festival circuit. Whether you're a first-timer with a comedy short or a seasoned veteran with a documentary feature, you all face the same set of problems. You all ask the same questions. You all want the pleasure of seeing your film play before a festival audience and gain the recognition it deserves. This is your book. Film Festival secrets will help you select the right festivals for your film, prepare your festival screener, save money on festival fees, create marketing collateral, and craft a screening sell out plan. And that's just the beginning.

Anyone can make a short film, right? Just grab some friends and your handheld and you can do it in a weekend or two before being accepted to a slew of film festivals, right? Wrong. Roberta Munroe screened short film submissions at Sundance for five years, and is an award-winning short filmmaker in her own right. So she knows a thing or two about how not to make a short film. From the first draft of your script to casting, production, editing, and distribution, this is your one-stop primer for breaking into the business. Featuring interviews with many of today's most talented writers, producers, and directors, as well as revealing stories (e.g., what to do when the skinhead crack addict next door begins screaming obscenities as soon as you call "action") from the sets of her own short films, Roberta walks you through the minefield of mistakes that an aspiring filmmaker can make--so that you don't have to make them yourself.

Professional organizer Peter Walsh presents this witty and enormously practical guide to getting it—and keeping it—all together. With more than 500 easy-to-follow how-to instructions, How to Organize (Just About) Everything is packed with shrewd advice and insider tips to make your home, your workplace—indeed, every imaginable aspect of your life—run more smoothly. Step-by-step solutions help even the most organizationally challenged take on: Kids Schedules Storage Photos Lists Politics Education Remodels Meals Weddings Finances Holidays Parties Vacations Emergencies

As the digital revolution has democratised film production, a new hybrid model of distribution is the way independent filmmakers can take control of their own distribution. This approach is not just DIY or Web-based - it combines the best techniques from each distribution arena, old and new. In Think Outside the Box Office, Reiss explains audience identification and targeting, negotiating split-rights agreements, the new role of film festivals and more.

The last decade has witnessed an explosion of interest in film festivals, with the field growing to a position of prominence within the space of a few short years. Film Festivals: History, Theory, Method, Practice represents a major addition to the literature on this topic, offering an authoritative and comprehensive introduction to the area. With a combination of chapters specifically examining history, theory, method and practice, it offers a clear structure and systematic approach for the study of film festivals. Offering a collection of essays written by an international range of established scholars, it discusses well-known film festivals in Europe, North America and Asia, but equally devotes attention to the diverse range of smaller and/or specialized events that take place around the globe. It provides essential knowledge on the origin and development of film festivals, discusses the use of theory to study festivals, explores the methods of ethnographic and archival research, and looks closely at the professional practice of programming and film funding. Each section, moreover, is introduced by the editors, and all chapters include useful suggestions for further reading. This will be an essential textbook for students studying film festivals as part of their film, media and cultural studies courses, as well as a strong research tool for scholars that wish to familiarize themselves with this burgeoning field.

Documentary film festivals do more than provide a venue for watching films: they have the potential to foster critical thinking, especially toward mainstream media. The film festivals discussed in this book also help build a sense of community locally, as well as promote solidarity with people involved in struggles for social justice and ecological integrity around the world. Documentaries by independent filmmakers reveal stories ignored by mass media, stories at times tragic but more often than not inspiring. It can be said that documentary film festivals create a public space for citizens to listen together and to become informed on current issues in greater depth than newscast bulletins offer. This book shows how documentary films create a liminal space with transformative potential, a space that challenges assumptions, supports the development of empathy, and often stimulates engagement and action. In viewing documentaries together and engaging in critical reflection and dialogue, citizens can imagine alternative possibilities and consider solutions. Documentary Film Festivals: Transformative Learning, Community Building & Solidarity offers the voices of attendees, sponsors, and organizers who shared their thoughts and experiences of documentary film festivals and the impact on their views and engagement. Activists and organizers of various social movements who are seeking ways to inform and inspire will see evidence in this text that documentary film festivals are a means of drawing diverse audiences, engaging differences and respectfully promoting hope and preferred visions of the future. Documentary Film Festivals: Transformative Learning, Community Building & Solidarity includes concrete examples of creative and courageous struggles that have led to victories often ignored by the media. This book is bound to inspire.