WilliFest!

Just over a week ago, the Williamsburg International Film Festival was in full swing, and yours truly was in attendance! It was an amazing event, and more than your typical film festival since it also included a concert series, street fair/block party, and more.

It was the first film festival I ever attended, and I was so honored to be there on the strength of my film. Going made me wish I had attended film festivals long ago, even before I had any movie to show. I feel like I learned more about networking, financing, and actually making a film HAPPEN in four days at the festival than I could have from any book, lecture, or class.

To quickly recap the events, I went to opening night and was automatically thrown into a world of people who love story and film as much as I do. I had worried about meeting others, since I was entourage-less, and making the most out of the opportunity to network.

I didn’t need to worry.

Each person was so excited to talk about both their project and my project that starting conversations was easy. What’s more, everyone was there to network, so making connections was far simpler than I had thought. By the end of opening night, I had watched the first few movies with two new film-maker friends from Minnesota, then went out to dinner with three others who had come all the way from Australia. (Industry Magazine was also present and I’m pictured twice on their website at the opening gala, http://industrym.com/willifest-2012-press-gala/, third one in on the second row and second one in on the bottom row.)

The second day, I hunkered down to watch six straight hours of short films in three two-hour blocks, of which my film was in the second block. As the student film category got under way, I quickly felt my confidence and excitement take a hit. Student films? I couldn’t tell them apart from the regular short films which had screened just before. They were so sleek, so polished and professional… I knew that my short had a strong story and that the actors had delivered amazing performances, but still… by the time mine came on and I heard how rough and ragged the sound was compared to the others, I wanted to melt into the floor.

I had noticed that on other student films, there were long lists of crew members, whereas in my case, there were just three other folks helping me. Also, during the filmmaker Q&As, I quickly realized that every other filmmaker had had a budget ranging from a few hundred dollars up to about ten thousand. When it was time for my own Q&A, I had to report into the microphone that I had spent a grand total of $0 on my film.

Despite being slightly embarrassed by this, it was also an inspiration… what an amazing chance to find out exactly how people went about financing and organizing these teams of people to put together these great films! I used the opportunity over the next few days to find out as much as I could about how to do this myself.

My story has a very happy ending. Two days, two panel discussions, one big party, and countless screenings later, it was time for the awards ceremony. I was thrilled to find out that my short actually took one of the prizes, the Certificate for Achievement in Short Film.

Being accepted into Willifest and then having also received one of the prizes has been so encouraging… while I was starting to stall a bit on the filmmaking side of things, I now have huge incentive (and enthusiasm) for tackling another project!