This spreadsheet is patterned after the awesome film festival database by Michael Forstein. Please note, the film festival database stopped being updated around 2020.

[Updated: February 25, 2023] As Predawn gears up toward production in May 2023, the eye is already on the goal of submitting to the plentiful film festivals with deadlines as early as July 2023 and forward. Intended festivals will be listed here, confirmed submissions, accepted, and those that declined us. Full transparency.

Parameters: Predawn can be submitted to festivals that consider short films up to 40 minutes or less. Most festivals consider a featurette/feature to be 40 minutes or more. I’m estimating Predawn to come in, with credits, at 39-42 minutes, qualifying it for some festivals as a feature. I’ve charted what we are submitting under as either S (short) or F (Feature/Featurette) closer to the final edit. The Online column will populate to decide if the film is being submitted online only or not. As of this date, many of the festivals have deadlines before June 2023. I would not want to rush the edit and I’m more than willing to wait for the following year to submit to them in 2024.

Goal: I’ve captured 100 festivals on the spreadsheet between 2023-2024 that Predawn will potentially be entered into.

Why, you ask?

Why the hell not, is my response.

I read somewhere that warned people not to submit to major festivals (Sundance, Tribeca, etc, etc) because you have no chance of getting accepted. I call bullshit on that statement because, when last checked, all of them were festivals that requested films. By that simple understanding alone, I am obligated to send to as many festivals as I can, not just for my benefit, but for the cast and crew that took a chance to work with me.

Then there is the yammering on and on about wasting your submission fee submitting to festivals you have no chance of getting accepted to. Again, more bullshit. People spend a whole lot more on gambling and playing the lottery every week and the odds are worse. By ensuring I tell a good story and submit a quality film, I have a better chance of acceptance than you have to win the lottery.

Lastly, the money that needs to be paid out to the cast and crew can exceed, easily $2k-$3k a day, and that’s on the low end of budgets. If I can’t find $40.00, on average, to pay a submission fee for a shot at a dream — while people are out there spending hundreds weekly to guess five random numbers and a Powerball — something is wrong with me and I don’t shouldn’t be in this business.