What should I look for before submitting to festivals?

With thousands of festivals and awards programs out there, being selective is smart. The challenge is knowing what to look for before you spend a single dollar on submission fees.

Before looking at deadlines or laurels, ask a simple question:

Do films like mine actually play here?

Look at past lineups. Look at previous winners. Pay attention to tone, genre, and scale. A quiet, grief-focused drama may be beautifully made, but it won’t thrive everywhere. The goal isn’t to prove your film is “good,” it’s to find places where it will have a receptive audience.

Some festivals exist to curate an experience for an audience. Others exist primarily to distribute awards. These aren’t the same thing. Festivals with strong curation show their work publicly: photos of screenings, audience reactions, filmmaker events, and past programs. If you can’t tell what actually happens at the festival, that’s worth paying attention to.

Red flags worth taking seriously

Not every small festival is a scam, but certain patterns should give you pause. A lack of audience photos.  Multiple editions every year without clear programming history. Lack of local press covering the event. These don’t automatically mean a festival is illegitimate—but they should prompt more research.

Submit to one category

In most cases, one category is enough. If you are unsure which category you should submit to, ask the festival! Submitting to multiple categories rarely increases your chances in a meaningful way. Instead, choose the category that best represents the film and look at who’s won that category in the past. If your film feels wildly out of place next to those winners, that’s useful information.

Festivals that feel more focused on volume than curation often share one trait: everything feels generic. The language on the website. The awards. The categories. The lack of specificity. Curated festivals tend to be opinionated. They know what they like, what they don’t, and who they’re programming for.

Acceptance rates matter

A 10% acceptance rate is considered strong, and with only 5–7 submissions, rejection is always a possibility—even for good films. That doesn’t mean your strategy is wrong. It just means festivals are competitive. If your budget allows, expanding the list slightly can reduce pressure—but only if those additional festivals still make sense for the film.

Runtime is a secret advantage

A strong 7-minute film is easier to program than a 20-minute one. Shorter runtimes help programmers build balanced screening blocks and give your film more chances to fit. If the film works, that length can absolutely be an asset.

Researching festivals takes time. There’s no way around it. But the good news is that once you do it properly, that knowledge carries forward to your next project. Every film makes the process a little clearer.

Submitting to festivals isn’t about finding the best festival—it’s about finding the right ones for your film and your goals. Your film doesn’t need to play everywhere. It just needs to play somewhere that makes sense.