What’s the point of so many film festivals?

The frustration is understandable. Thousands of festivals exist, many with little visibility, unclear value, or no live event at all. Add in scams and award mills, and it’s easy to feel like the entire festival ecosystem is broken.

One of the biggest misconceptions is that all festivals are trying to do the same thing. They’re not. Some exist to launch careers at the highest level. Others exist to serve a regional audience. Some are built around genre, community, education, or access. Expecting every festival to function like Cannes or Sundance sets filmmakers up for disappointment and misses what many legitimate festivals are actually designed to do.

Most filmmakers fall into one of two traps: submitting to everything without research, or believing only the top-tier festivals matter. Both approaches tend to fail. Submitting blindly wastes money. Chasing only the top five festivals often removes the community, momentum, and real-world screenings that help films grow.

Scam festivals are real—and they hurt everyone

There’s no denying it: online-only award mills and cash-grab festivals exist. They often have dozens of categories, no photos of real events, vague websites, and automated acceptance emails. These festivals don’t serve filmmakers, and they muddy the waters for everyone else. Learning to spot red flags is essential, and doing that research is now part of a filmmaker’s job.

Small does not mean illegitimate

What often gets lost in these discussions is that small or new doesn’t automatically mean useless. Many legitimate festivals start without industry prestige but offer something far more tangible: real screenings, real audiences, and real community. For some filmmakers, that experience—watching their film in a theater and talking about it afterward—is the entire reason they make movies in the first place.

A top-tier festival can change a career overnight. A mid-sized regional festival can help a filmmaker build momentum, gather press, connect with collaborators, and gain confidence. A smaller local festival can sell out a theater with cast and crew, creating a meaningful premiere experience that no online laurel ever could. These are different kinds of impact, not competing ones.

Research is key

The hardest part of festival strategy isn’t avoiding scams it’s choosing between legitimate options. Two real festivals can both be “worth it” on paper and still offer very different value depending on the film and the filmmaker’s goals. In-person screenings, audience size, programming history, community engagement, and filmmaker experience all matter. There’s no shortcut here, only intentional decision-making.

At the Utah International Film Festival, the goal has always been clear: serve filmmakers and audiences through real screenings, accessible communication, and thoughtful programming. We don’t claim to be the biggest festival in the world or even in Utah, but we do believe that legitimacy comes from showing up, creating space for films to be seen, and helping filmmakers build something meaningful around their work.

Recently, at a filmmaking event, there was a sign in the restroom that read:
Do not flush napkins, towels, kittens, alligators, or your hopes and dreams down the toilet.

It was meant to be funny—but it also landed harder than expected.

It’s easy to get jaded. Easy to let bad experiences, rejection emails, or scam festivals convince you that the whole system is broken. But most of us didn’t start making films for laurels or validation. We started because we wanted to tell stories and share them with people who care.

Don’t flush your dreams because of a few bad apples

You’re working too hard to give up now. Instead of walking away, look for the people already doing the kind of work you want to be doing. Collaborate. Show up. Support their projects. Let their momentum pull you forward. In many cases, the dream doesn’t start at the finish line.

The festival landscape isn’t broken, it’s crowded. When filmmakers define their goals clearly and choose festivals intentionally, festivals stop feeling like a gamble and start functioning as what they’re meant to be: places where stories are shared, communities are built, and dreams get a little more oxygen.

And that’s still worth believing in.