your film needs a cheerleader
how do films bounce from festival to festival, then pick up sale? well, talk to the programmer.
This week, I watched 50 short films and features. While this number seems like quite a feat, I still have at least 50 more to watch by next week.
I remember when I wanted to be a film programmer, I thought spending my days watching movies would be the epitome of relaxation and joy. While it is, there is so much more responsibility than I ever anticipated.
For me, building sisterhood media TV was my strategy to have a distribution platform for films that I believe in stream across the world. But I also still had a deep interest to sit at the table at festivals invested in the exhibition of the latest films on the market.
After working my way up from screener to sitting on the programming teams of Hot Docs, Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, and DOC NYC, I realized that programmers were not just the tastemakers curating what played in front of their audience — in fact , they are the cheerleader for many unsung films on the market.
In Stacey Flowers’s Ted Talk (yes, I still love me a good Tedx), she says there are five key people you need in your life: a cheerleader, a mentor, a coach, a friend, and a peer. Your cheerleader is the person who believes in you, no matter the obstacles set in front of you. A programmer can be a cheerleader. They are the person who believes in the power of your work, and despite shortcomings it may have, will sing your film’s praises at every meeting, happy hour, and interview.
Now I watch at least 500 films a year for my festival circuit. I have a lot of opinions and critiques for almost every film on the market. But when I find a film that I believe has tenacity, originality, and heart, I will fight for it.
While every film I may love does not land on a festival line up, many programmers work at multiple festivals and are also hired by theatres and television shows as guest curators. That means that if your film did not make X festival, a programmer may tap you to submit to Y platform, and so on and so forth.
Once that programmer is on your team, they will be the cheerleader that brings excitement behind your project.
We attend Board of Directors events, VIP events, industry events, not to mention interview for many folks in the press, and everyone asks us: what should I watch this season?
That programmer who fought for you anonymously in the festival meetings or reached out for a screener link is an asset to your film team and someone you should build a strong, long-lasting relationship.
There is so much more I can add to this conversation and I will speak more candidly about this on June 29th at a online panel series hosted by Blank Canvas. The event is free to attend and I will chat more about programmers being the key to a film’s strategy for sales and the festival circuit.
I often reflect on building a career where I can sustain myself watching, analyzing, and curating films for audiences. I am amazed at the dedication it takes to support people I may not ever meet in real life — people I may not even know how to pronounce their names — and fight for them at the programming and acquisitions tables. But when you believe in a project, you become invested in seeing it thrive.
Get a programmer on your team to be your advocate in the room, because most times they are the person who will launch your film to higher places in the world.