On Wednesday of this week we’ll email all confirmed filmmakers their tentative festival schedules, and then next Monday, March 16, we will have a locked schedule. The programme itself is essentially finished, with only a few loose ends to knot this week. This is mainly due to some footsy from a few of the invited films. We’d love to include them in Hot Docs, but we’re at the point where we can no longer wait for a decision. Hint hint.
Last week I wrote about the difficultly of declinations, and our approach to it. But with 3-5 of the invited films we’ll be on the receiving end of the kiss off. This is also a normal part of the programming process, and happens at every festival, the biggest and the smallest. Programmers at smaller regional or local events probably assume, poor-pitiful-us-like, that festivals such as Cannes, Sundance and TIFF have films spread out for them like they’re Kobayashi at Nathan’s annual hot dog eating contest: that they get whatever they want and never have to email invitees, like, every third day waiting for a confirmation. Not true. The studios and major producers keep them dangling too, often yanking films last minute. The festival gods giveth, and they taketh away.
Every event has a “competitor” to which they lose coveted titles. Hot Docs used to lose one or two to Tribeca, but now that we follow them that’s been resolved. More recently I’ve noticed that Cannes has become a factor for documentaries, and hence Hot Docs. Huh? I understand this for world premieres of big talent docs (like a Michael Moore, or an Errol Morris), but it baffles me, on every level, otherwise. Last year two of the better received Sundance docs blew off several festival invitations, including ours, waiting for Cannes. Neither got in. This year three of the films we’re awaiting word from are caught up in the Cannes juggernaut. They’re all good films, but none of them, based on my experience tracking Cannes’ English language doc selections, have a reasonable chance to be invited. The one film that has already, quite gracefully and in a timely fashion (thank-you), declined our invite just also happens to have the best chance for Cannes.
But, what can I say….don’t wait for Cannes? Of course you’re going to wait for Cannes! I would. Who wouldn’t want to have a film in the world’s most prestigious festival? Even buried in a sidebar, and with travel expenses costing more than the entire budget of your film…its fuckin’ Cannes. Looks good on the resume.
So, I don’t get too worked up about Cannes. Its certainly less irksome than some of the other reasons producers/distributors/filmmakers reject us. They are:
1) “Waiting for a distributor.” Really? Good luck with that.
2) “Another, much smaller and less relevant festival with absolutely no documentary industry presence insists on playing my film, if they have the world premiere…..of my nice, low key observational film that is quite good, if unmarketable in a commercial sense, and will need EVERY opportunity available to be noticed in a cluttered market.” Really? And will this festival be clearing your credit card debt, helping to fund your next film…heck, paying for even one night’s hotel?
3) “Still waiting for a distributor.” Okay, call me.
4) “My film is ready for the world, and I’m thrilled you like it and I looove your festival…..but I’m going to wait several months for what I presume will be a better festival invitation, and if we don’t get that invitation I’m going to wait a few more months for another, and if we don’t get that, um….well, I don’t know, maybe we’ll try to get a distributor or something.”
5) “We’d like an $800 Euros screening fee.” This one I get, totally…but Hot Docs doesn’t pay screening fees, and won’t until we can pay everybody a screening fee. Which would be great, wouldn’t it? Until then, we hope that we offer credible sales and marketing opportunities, along with the opportunity to advance filmmaking careers (and we do. I truly believe this, or I couldn’t say it, personal ethics wise). So far only one film has declined due to lack of screening fees at our event. Respect.
6) “We’re trying to get a sales agent so we can get a distributor….and even though we’ve been waiting for months for sales agents to even look at the screeners we’ve sent them, we’re confident this will all be wrapped up in a week, so we’ll be in touch. And please save us a good slot.”
7) “Are you an Oscar qualifying event?” Um, I don’t even know. Are we?
Why does the digit “8″ followed by the symbol “)” result in this silly happy face icon in WordPress? I’m so not an emoticon kind of guy. How do I make that go away? (the icon, that is. not my misanthropy re: emoticons, which I’m totally comfortable with) Obviously, this is a digression and has nothing to do with a documentary not accepting an invitation to Hot Docs. And, is this particular happy face emoticon one of those that’s supposed to be wearing sunglasses? I can’t tell.
9) “Twenty people have given me conflicting advice and I’m paralyzed by doubt and indecision.” Tick tick tick….
10) “Shit, sorry I didn’t respond to your repeated emails, phone calls, smoke signals, or the police knocking on my door on your behalf…is it too late to get into the festival? And, do you know any good distributors?”
Yeah, its too late. We’re done…..almost.