Hello!
It’s been a little while, I’ve been busy, aside from my part-time day-job, I’ve been working with my favourite arts organisation, Alchemy Film & Arts on their 2024 festival, which was a couple of weekends ago. It’s been busy, it’s been lovely, it’s been affirming, it’s been thought-provoking (another post coming soonish I swear), there’s been communal snacks, and it’s been PAID! I like being paid. Not because I like capitalism, but y’know, I like that it means I can pay my bills and engage with culture and stuff. I’m sure you can relate.
This post is about economics. It’s about the economics of being an experimental filmmaker, or, seeing as no two artist’s practices are the same, about my economics of being an experimental filmmaker. The real, secret title is “Why I’m done paying submission fees to film festivals”.
Spreadsheet fans / film festival curators / organisers, please go here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pa1nuRaMUAZe5qBLqrm79vKlipZF4Huqv6vvx6wcKaE/edit?usp=sharing
Incase you don’t know this world, the experimental film world is some kind of hybrid between the commercial film world and the contemporary art world. Actually that’s a lie. It’s nicer than that. The people are, on the whole, generous souls who really are here for the art, and here to make friends too. Most of my films are made completely independently, but many experimental filmmakers collaborate all of the time, and are great pals, and have lots of fun making weird films together. The only thing is, some festivals seem to still think that it’s okay to charge filmmakers to submit their work to them.
It sounds perfectly reasonable when I put it like that – it takes time to watch submissions. (I’d know; I’ve been on the programming team for a festival. It felt like I spent all winter in front of a screen with headphones on.) It takes resources – software, administrative staff. It takes funding. That funding, however, shouldn’t have to come from the filmmakers themselves, who in a great deal of cases, make up quite a lot of audience numbers. Other funding sources are available, it’s just that extortion is easy when artists are desperate for ✨Exposure✨.
Add to this, that being paid (paid!) a screening fee is pretty unlikely. Many festivals don’t actually pay filmmakers to show their films. A lot of these are competition festivals, which means that a tiny handful of lucky filmmakers get paid, and everyone else just… doesn’t. I suspect you’ll probably only think this sounds INSANE if you’re not involved with experimental film festivals.
Imagine paying anywhere between £5 and £50* to send your film somewhere, then, hurrah! it’s accepted! I’m so honoured! I really respect the other filmmakers whose work I’ve seen in their programmes! This could be my big break! Then you find out that you’re not getting paid (did you really think you would be?). They might pay your train ticket to be there, to appear on stage and discuss your work. They might give you free merch, They might put you up in a hotel, but they might not even do that. You’ve just paid to have other people pay somebody else to watch your film.
*£50 is not the most I’ve seen subs for an experimental film festival at, but it is, I’m embarrassed to say, the most I’ve paid.
Experimental film festivals, or parts of wider festivals that focus on the experimental have been convinced somehow (I don’t know how, but there’s a link at the bottom for a talk which will inform and entertain and might shed light on this shady world) that they need to charge submission fees to filmmakers, that it’s part of their economy.
Many have it as a key part of their budgeting (a cited justification, which they seem to think filmmakers can’t argue with), like “the festival can’t run if you don’t pay up”. It could run, they’d just have to think a bit harder about how they make decisions.
Others suggest that their ‘low fees’ make submitting available to a wider range of films from varied backgrounds, despite ‘low’ being subjective, and unattainable if your budget is £0.
A festival this week told me that it would be unfair to offer me a full fee waiver (I’d received a partial one already), as it would not be fair to other filmmakers who have paid full price. How do I tell them that… we don’t all have the same, fair and equal amount of money? (seriously help, this is the email that spurred me on to write this post. I’m still baffled.)
Apologies, I’m trying to not rant tonight. I actually just wanted to publish a reality check.
I am but one experimental filmmaker, who’s got a part-time day job that keeps them fed and warm, but would rather (please don’t sack me Kevin) be making films and writing full-time instead. Here’s why I can’t do that, and what experimental filmmaking actually makes for me, in real monetary terms:
My Actual, Serious Film Economics / Finances
Here’s a spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pa1nuRaMUAZe5qBLqrm79vKlipZF4Huqv6vvx6wcKaE/edit?usp=sharing
Here’s the tldr:
If I had been paid Scottish Artists’ Union Rates for the time I spent making films between 2020 and today, I’d have been paid £14,402. (That’s a conservative estimate.) In reality, I was paid 2,715.
Each film project I’ve done is different, ranging from a residency project that paid me(!) in 2021 (though Alchemy Film & Arts), and a Creative Scotland funded commission I worked on with Moving Image Makers Collective the same year – to self-led films that I mostly lose money on. In 2023, I made 7 films. The average pay (excluding overheads) I made from this was -£6.42 per film. I lost almost £45 making films last year, before I count what I spent on new hard drives and notebooks and my Vimeo subscription.
This, despite appearances, isn’t a hobby. I do actually know what I’m doing. Look how grown-up my website looks for a start! There’s a reason I’m typing on my blog at… 22:31 on a Wednesday evening about this: it’s because it’s serious! It’s my actual Career. Like another person might go from job to job and work their way up the ladder of their profession, I’m doing the same, just part-time, and slower. Knitting is my hobby, reading fantasy fiction is my hobby, badminton is my hobby. Filmmaking isn’t. It’s serious business.
I’m trying to work out my active approach to submission fees now – not wanting to burn bridges mostly, because I really do want people to see my films, so apparently can’t be blunt to the power-holding curators and festival directors of the world. All of the ones I’ve met are nice folks with good intentions. I just… literally, do not have the budget for submission fees! Read it on the spreadsheet! Maybe sometimes I’ll still pay, because of panic and desperation and knowing that well, yes, the day-job can cover £20 here or there. Maybe I’ll send link to this post and a pointed remark alongside. Maybe I’ll sabotage my career, or maybe I’ll be part of making a change for the better in the weird cultural microcosm that is the Experimental Film Festival Landscape.
Refusing to offer a fee waiver on request must be squeezing the pool of filmmakers who can submit to festivals – to those with the budget, or those with the charisma to sell them in-person. It’s maybe for anothernother post, but… Working class and economically marginalised voices are being silenced by this arbitrary charging of fees.
I’m dreaming of a utopia where artists get paid, where all artworkers get paid.
I know, I know. It’s too much to ask. But maybe it’s okay to ask if things can be a bit less shit?
Also note here I’m not sure I’m actually working class, but am definitely not quite middle class? One for more research… Maybe the class system isn’t actually that helpful for most of us? Maybe that’s my privilege speaking?
In the name of hope and positivity, here is a list of Film Festivals who I’ve received hassle-free fee waivers from just by asking nicely with a quick email (this is from a quick search in my inbox, I’m only properly endorsing EIC and Alchemy):
Alchemy Film & Moving Image Festival (no questions asked, the code is literally in an auto reply to the waivers email address) ❤️
Diametrale
Experiments In Cinema (Might just be free to international filmmakers, best double check, they’re based in the USA.)
Bucharest International Dance Film Festival
Wide Open Film Festival
Ok it’s bedtime.
Jessie x
Links Links Links:
Aaron Zeghers: The Film Festival Industrial Complex Talk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwAN3IWLNQQ
The only spreadsheet you need:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pa1nuRaMUAZe5qBLqrm79vKlipZF4Huqv6vvx6wcKaE/edit#gid=0
Scottish Artists Union 2024 Rates of Pay:
https://www.artistsunion.scot/rates_of_pay_2024
If you’ve read the spreadsheet and feel sorry for me and my economic adventures, please consider buying me a coffee £3 via ko-fi, joining my Patreon, or just sharing my work with folk you think might appreciate it. 🥰
Jessie Growden 