V - RAISING AWARENESS
 (Sept 2017 - April 2018)

​Chapter 26
First Contacts & Festivals : FAIL

In September 2017, I finally had a solid version of the film that I could show:

• editing, music, sound and color were done;
• non-commercial permission for the artwork was granted;
• and the narrator was voiced by American actress Tiffany Hofstetter.

As I mentioned previously, her voice was only meant to be temporary, as I still felt there was one final piece to complete my ideal vision for the film: and that was to convince a famous actress to re-do the narration. But - and this is a big but - I had no money to offer, and because of that, I didn't think I stood a chance. At least not going through official channels, i.e. agents.

How else could I reach a famous actress?

I certainly had ways in. From my time working on the shoot of "Brice de Nice 3," I had the e-mails of Jean Dujardin, James Huth, and the Altmayer brothers. But by then I hadn't spoken to them in over a year and privileged access to such people expires quickly. Plus I didn't feel confident asking them to connect me with an English-speaking, A-list actress to voice my no-budget film. These people respected me at least for the short amount of work I did with them. I didn't want to ruin it by calling in a favor they'd awkwardly have to decline.

There was another way, though: if the film got some exposure, in festivals or in the media, then it might get picked up by a distributor (say, Netflix or Amazon) who would then be in a position to secure a famous actress (and, also, secure the commercial rights for the artwork). So that was my gameplan: let's get this version of the film out there, to gain some attention and hopefully find a distributor who would then invest enough for the rest.

Doing so also felt like the right move because, if I was to never achieve these final goals, I still wanted to get the film to be seen, one way or another, at festivals and other free public events.

So, my first step was: let's  try and get the film into some festivals. Because of the cost of submissions being usually between 50 and 120 dollars for feature films, and given my limited resources, I initially applied to four different US festivals: Sundance, Slamdance, Seattle International Film Festival and South by Southwest. Reading this now, it sounds way too ambitious, but at the time, I genuinely thought it was possible, and most people around me did too, even those working in the film industry. “Why not? You totally have a chance. Festivals want to be the first to reveal new talents. And honestly, I’ve seen worse films come out of there!” Seemed reasonable. I had some big intellectuals in the film, too, so, despite some degree of caution, I went for it, thinking that maybe one of these festivals would accept my film, even just as a non-competitive wild card.
 
While I waited for replies, I presented my film to Nicolas Altmayer, the producer of Brice 3, who had shown some interest in my project and wanted to know when it was finished. And while he complemented the directing, acting, scope and production value, he didn’t see what he could do for it now as a producer, given that basically, it was already a finished product. He wanted to be involved in projects from the very inception. So he put me in touch with a few distributors he knew in Paris. I contacted them and while being recommended by Altmayer got me some replies, it didn't get me any offers. He had evidently sent me to companies that he was used to working with that distributed “proper” films around France and Europe, and my product was just too "low-budget and niche."

So I continued looking up other distributors I thought might be interested, sending them a private screener of the film and a link to this whole journal, hoping they'd connect with the story this far and want to become a part of it. One company I was really excited about contacting was Oscilloscope Laboratories in the US. They'd produced and/or distributed some of my favorite films - such as Samsara or Dear Zachary. But here as with the others I reached out to, I got no reply at all.
 
In the winter of 2017, the festival replies came in. Here’s the one from Sundance:

I guess I'd been gearing myself up to be turned down by Sundance, so this one wasn't too big a hit.

Then came the reply from SIFF: they didn't want it either. And then SXSW... well, I actually never got a reply from them, not even a rejection e-mail, not sure why.

At this point, I was still managing my disappointment, as I'd gradually accepted that psi was probably beyond the reach of these major film festivals. ​But I was still holding out for Slamdance - THE home of DIY filmmaking. If my film didn't get in there, where was it supposed to go?

​And then...

Did you read through the whole e-mail? Neither did I. I made it to about "We realize it's not what you wanted to hear from us."

This one was way more troubling and the doubts started rolling in: Had I completely overestimated the quality of my film? Was it just not that good? Did I have to reevaluate what I was eventually going to do with it?  Did the festivals not like my film because it was essentially a one-man operation? Should I have found a producer or a seller to support the film's exposure? I didn't know...

​At the beginning of 2018, I flew to Los Angeles, hoping to make some connections and get things moving. I had put together a list of contacts – friends of friends, directors, agents, DP’s who I’d been put in touch with by friends and colleagues and who I hoped could help in some way, by directing me to other festivals or introducing me to producers and distributors. But over a week in LA, some of my meetings got cancelled, and the others turned out to be polite coffee-favors. That was a miserable week.

​I had one last chance, one last hope I was clinging to. I had submitted psi to another festival: COLCOA, which is the French Film Festival of Los Angeles. I thought this had to be it: this is a fairly unknown festival (at least to the mainstream audience - I myself had never heard of it); it’s a festival that prides itself on connecting French and US culture, focusing on Paris and Los Angeles, and discovering new talents, so my project seemed to be right up their alley. I was even in direct e-mail contact with the director of the festival, who assured me he would take a look at the film himself and get back to me. We e-mailed back and forth a couple times, but then never heard back from him or anyone at COLCOA – not even to decline the film.

​At that point, I knew there was something wrong, I just wasn’t sure what. Was it with my film? Was it too cheap? Too amateurish? Too weird? Too intellectual? Was it just not good enough? Or was my strategy for presenting it all wrong? Maybe I had also just aimed too high with the festivals I had applied to. But then where could I take it, really? How many interesting "low budget" feature film festivals are there out there?
 
Or maybe the problem was with everything surrounding the film: it had no industry support, no distributor lined up or sales agent pushing it, no famous director or actor attached, no media “buzz” surrounding it, no viral marketing campaign, community support or social media word-of-mouth. Maybe it was just not an attractive project on the whole compared to the competition?
 
That's when I realized I had to adopt a different strategy. I had to get people talking about the project before even sending it to festivals. Later that month, I left LA to spend some time with my Dad who had moved from Las Vegas to Reno, Nevada, and hatched a new plan I hoped would ignite new fire into this project: a Kickstarter Campaign.

<------ Previous Chapter: Art & Copyright
Next Chapter: The Kickstarter Campaign ​-----> 
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