In this first week of the year, it is time to take stock of 2018. Since 2014, I have dedicated the first post of the year to reviewing the previous year’s distribution.
This is the first report where there is a drop in selections compared to the previous year, which was expected, as an adjustment usually follows several years of growth.
In 2018, we reached 2,087 festival participations, taking into account all the distribution projects we are managing and all selections both in and out of competition. Each selection is equivalent to one screening at a festival.
Selection figures and their annual evolution since 2003
There were about 41 fewer selections, with greater inequality between national and foreign festivals.
In festivals held in Spain, we did exceed last year’s figure, with 1,187 selections, 50 more than in 2017; this is the fifth consecutive year of growth in our country. The adjustment occurred at an international level, with about 91 fewer selections compared to last year. In any case, we achieved 900 selections.
Here is the updated graph with this year’s figures. Annual totals are in yellow, festivals outside of Spain are in red, and Spanish festivals are in blue; this way, you can see the evolution of each type of selection separately:
In this graph, you can see how the drop in selections is slighter compared to other years, maintaining the number above 2,000 for the second consecutive year. One of the most notable data points is the difference between national and international selections, the largest since 2005.
This difference has not grown so much due to the decrease in international selections, which remain in a high range, but rather due to the surprising rise in participation in national festivals, which continues to grow and has slowed the drop in selections we expected this year.
One must also consider international trends: there are more and more films in distribution, and entry fees are present in more festivals every year, reducing submissions and tightening selections.
Analyzing this graph from 2003 to the present also gives an idea of the evolution of our work and how we have grown. In the early years, it seemed impossible to manage more than 2,000 selections in a single year, let alone maintain them.
Monthly evolution during 2018
In the evolution of monthly selections, there have also been several significant changes compared to 2017.
This is the updated graph with all the data:
As you can see, the differences between October and November have grown significantly compared to other years. It is the first time that both months have exceeded 300 participations in competitive sections.
The month of October was particularly spectacular; it is the best so far by a wide margin over September. If we add up all selections, both in competition and non-competitive, October closed with 334 selections and November with 358.
In other words, in these two months alone we managed 692 selections, an average of 11.5 selections per day.
There are two other data points from 2018 that represent a change from previous years. On one hand, the stability of the rest of the year, from March to September, every month was between 100 and 150 selections; and on the other, a particularly good December, surpassing March and July despite the slowdown compared to October and November.
International selections
In the international sphere, the trend of recent years continues, with growth in the number of countries compared to 2018 and 2017 . There were 73 countries where we had at least one screening in 2018.
Here is the complete list:
The United States repeats as the country with the greatest presence of our films, with figures very similar to last year: 139 in competition and 6 in non-competitive sections. Italy regains second place and France returns to third.
Germany, Mexico, and the United Kingdom remain among the countries with the highest number of selections.
Conclusions
It is increasingly difficult to talk about the number of selections to analyze the year, as festivals are very different. Nevertheless, as a distributor and taking all data into account, these are figures that allow for an analysis of our films’ presence at festivals, as well as our organizational and submission capacity.
To reach these figures, we had to complete more than 20,000 submissions.
In addition to these figures, we participated in many top-tier festivals such as Fantastic Fest, Seminci, Flickerfest, BFI London, Foyle, Clermont-Ferrand, Encounters, Alcine, Guadalajara, Cork, Austin, etc., maintaining the line of recent years, where we are balancing the number of selections with the prestige of many of the festivals in which we participate.
We enter 2019 with a great desire to maintain this level of work; we already have more than 100 confirmed selections to start the year.
We must continue growing, learning, and maintaining the same drive and enthusiasm.
Happy New Year 2019!