Film festivals online catalogues help to select proper festivals for your film.
A filmmaker can look for festivals not only in the catalogues but also at online-platforms where immediately you can sign in and make submissions. We advise to look over our review of оnline-platforms for festival submissions.
Filmfestivals
Festivals amount: ~6000 items.
The service was launched in 1995 and nowadays is considered to be a social network, platform for communication and opinion exchanging between the filmmakers, journalists, film festivals representers and audience. Along with the catalogue itself there is a lot of articles, blogs, video and photos from many festivals and also everyone can register a film or a festival.
Festivals selection opportunities:
- By date;
- By submission deadline;
- By entry fee;
- By theme or genre (comedy, horror, sci-fi etc.);
- By festival format (documentaries, student, animation etc.);
- By host country.
+ Advantages:
- Maximum amount of the festivals;
- Each festival has its own description, history in short, links to rules and regulations and festivals team contacts.
– Disadvantages:
- Inconvenient and outdated interface (suffice to say that there is no opportunity to find festivals in the catalogue by the the title, only whole site search);
- Quite low quality of the catalogue (for example many festivals are duplicated and active festivals are along with the closed for many years ones).
Short Film Central
Festivals amount: ~3600 items.
One more honored service that has a nine-year history and its main goal is to help the filmmakers of short films to promote their projects. Professionals will find here not only festivals catalogue but also a database with companies, organizations and people anyhow connected with film industry.
Festivals selection opportunities:
- By date;
- By submission deadline;
- By acceptable date of final film production;
- By entry fee;
- By festival format (documentaries, experimental etc.);
- By acceptable film length;
- By prize amount;
- By online submission opportunities;
- By host country.
+ Advantages:
- Vast amount of festivals;
- Simple and easy interface;
- Vast opportunities for festivals search.
– Disadvantages:
- Signing in is required.
Festival Focus
Festivals amount: ~2800 items.
Free and easy to use festivals catalogue that was launched in 2008.
Festivals selection opportunities:
- By theme or genre of the film;
- By entry fee;
- By host country.
+ Advantages:
- Vast amount of festivals;
- Quite detailed festivals description with information about festival format, prizes and deadlines and contacts;
- Some of the festivals in the catalogue accept submissions via Festival Focus (for submission signing in is required).
– Disadvantages:
- Lack of filters for sorting out proper festivals in the database.
Festagent
Festivals amount: ~1700 items.
First-rate film festivals database in Russian Internet, in action for over five years.
Festivals selection opportunities:
- By festival format (documentaries, fiction, animation);
- By film length;
- By entry fee;
- By online submission opportunities;
- By FIAPF, EFA and Oscar accreditation;
- By festival date;
- By deadline;
- By theme;
- By host country.
+ Advantages:
- Russian interface;
- On-the-fly updating;
- Informative festival pages with all the data: program, prizes, format, required submission materials, festival team contacts etc.;
- Vast opportunities for sorting out proper festivals.
– Disadvantages:
- Data can have some mistakes;
- Paid subscription for using additional filters.
British Council Film Festivals Directory
film.britishcouncil.org/festivals-directory
Festivals amount: ~1300 items.
Catalogue based at British council site. It’s an international organization which aims at developing cooperation in the spheres of education, culture and art between Great Britain and other countries.
Festivals selection opportunities:
- By festival date;
- By submission deadline;
- By host country.
+ Advantages:
- A lot of British festivals (257).
- Outdated information;
– Disadvantages:
- Lack of filters for sorting out festivals.
Themed film festivals catalogue
- Animation animation-festivals.com;
- Human rights humanrightsfilmnetwork.org;
- LGBT films queerfilmfestivals.org;
- Documentaries dokweb.net;
- Genres mifff.org.
Review by Dmitry Safin
Translation Valeria Ougurtsova
See also:
