Do you remember the short film Waking Up In Paradise that was shot in Sweden the fall of 2023? Based on scene 62? I went a bit ballistic on filmfreeway.com, sending it to 232 film festivals all over the world. My Apple Pay account was at the time my Swedish account that had just been filled up by the sale of my property in Sweden.. And paying for a festival was only a fingerprint read away on my laptop.. Thus, 232 festivals.. And of course, since most film festivals are once a year, it has taken time to get an answer from everyone. But, now results from filmfreeway.com are in.
Out of the 232 festivals I have submitted to there has been an amazing 114 selections, out of which there are 63(!) awards, 2 finalist, 25 semi-finalist, 2 honourable mention and 22 “just” selections with no award. It is amazing that so many festivals gave the short film so much praise. There are still 6 undecided festivals, where the Sundance International Film Festival Festival is on top. In spite of all the praise it has gotten on all those other festivals I haven’t gotten any email from any manager wanting to read the whole feature film screenplay. I assume that is because very few, if any, of those festivals are reaching the kind of representation that could be interested in this.. Because if it had, surely someone would have wanted to know more??! 😉
That is why I now place all my bets on Sundance. This festival call themselves a “festival of discovery”, as they have discovered many film makers over the years since it was founded by Robert Redford in 1978. Unfortunately, their late submission deadline is in september for the following years festival, and since our short film was shot in October 2023 we could not make that deadline. But this year we had plenty of time, entering the festival already in May. The festival receives over 10.000 short films every year. And being the “discovery festival” that they are, they insist they give every short film a fair chance. Thus, it takes a while hearing back from them. December 4. is their official notification date. And here we are, my team and I, hoping it will be selected. If so, we are planning to go there to attend the festival. If that happens, this is where I hope the short film will be discovered by industry who will want to read the full script and hopefully produce the whole feature film.. Wish us luck..