The Importance Of Film Festivals To Documentaries

Here is another interesting take on the documentary world and film festival exposure as it relates to this sometimes obscure genre. Here is some of it below:

The Importance Of Film Festivals To Documentaries
David Holbrooke

This column is a bit of a hustle to get you to come to the Tribeca Film Festival to see the World Premiere of our documentary, Hard As Nails. You see hustling is in the job description for filmmakers.

In my past life as a TV news producer, I worked hard but had a steady job, making good money. Now, as a filmmaker, I make less money, I always have to hustle and for the most part, I love it.

The actual production work I do now is pretty much the same. In both TV news and documentaries, you research, shoot, and then edit your footage into something watchable. But then the similarity ends.

With television, whatever I worked on, was going to be funded and seen. By contrast, getting a film off the ground takes a leap of faith and a lot of good fortune (if not, a personal one).
When I finished a TV piece, it was done. As a particularly talented colleague at the Today Show used to say after handing over her latest masterwork, "There it goes, off into the ether." When I finish editing a film, the work is far from over, as I now have to find an audience.

And that's where film festivals come in. Theoretically, the idea is that distributors and broadcasters will come to a festival, see your film and then get it out to a larger audience. But the reality is that a majority of the films in festivals are like my first films, worthwhile but largely un-commercial.

I made four odd and esoteric short docs on topics like the relationship between nature and man, images of God in the 21st century and so on. (Check them out at www.originalthinkers.com) I am very proud of them, but being shorts, the marketplace was limited. Yet I happily hustled them around the country because being in a dark theater with an audience watching, engaging and most of all reacting to my work, was amazing and completely unlike making television.

I think film festivals are also essential because of the discussions after the screenings. For me it was: American Splendor's crew, cast and subjects at Sundance; a heated argument about Israel after the documentary, Arna's Children at Tribeca; or our own experience with a film I produced called Live from Shiva's Dance Floor.

Read full article HERE, where you can also find a link to his interesting blog:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-holbrooke/the-importance-of-film-fe_b_44829.html