At the beginning of December last year I published a post on the first stages in the distribution of Madre, by Rodrigo Sorogoyen. In those first months it had already achieved 61 selections and no fewer than 58 awards.
It was also selected for the Goya Awards, where it ultimately won the award for Best Fiction Short Film, collected by director Rodrigo Sorogoyen and producer Maria del Puy.
This post is a continuation of the previous one, so I recommend you review it before you keep reading.
Now it is possible to take a more general look at what the festival distribution has been like, especially over the last seven months of distribution, from December 2017 to July 2018, completing more than a year of festival submissions.
The journey of Madre is a good example if you are planning the distribution of your short film: how to tackle the different phases, the number of festivals you can submit it to over a year, and the different strategies at each stage.
The distribution strategy in 2018
The distribution approach in 2018 begins with a more intensive strategy than in 2017. The short has already premiered both nationally and internationally, and festivals with national-premiere requirements have also been taken into account.
At this point, after more than six months of distribution and with a short film performing very well, it is time to start increasing the number of festivals.
It should also be taken into account that the Goya Award won in February qualifies it for the Academy Awards, so this year we will be able to submit it to compete for the Oscar in 2019, with the submission deadline in October.
During these months it has taken part in particularly important festivals on the international circuit, such as Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia, which requires a premiere in Japan, Nashville Film Festival, Bermuda, Omaha Film Festival, Miami Film Festival, Regard Saguenay Short Festival in Canada, Anonimul in Hungary, Oaxaca in Mexico, etc.
On this journey, the Audience Award won at the Vilnius International Film Festival, the most important festival in Lithuania, has been especially important. Programming at this festival is by invitation, among the short films that perform best internationally, so it is a very competitive selection.
Along these lines, it is also worth highlighting the Best of Short Films Festival in La Ciotat, France, where only the best short films internationally take part, and at the
Lebu International Film Festival in Chile, where it won the award for Best Short Film in the very year that this festival gained Oscar-qualifying status, meaning it has had two ways to qualify: the Goyas and Lebu.
The figures for the distribution of Madre
In total it has achieved 157 festival selections so far, although 8 of those selections are at festivals in the Cortoespaña network, so we could speak of 149 festivals if we count Cortoespaña as a single selection.
These selection figures cover more than a year on the festival circuit, from the premiere at Medina del Campo and Málaga, both in March 2017, to the last international festival scheduled in Dijon, France, in November this year. This selection will amount to 21 months on the festival circuit, with distribution not yet fully closed.
If you are in the middle of the distribution process with your short film, you will be wondering how long you need to keep circulating it through festivals. Every case is different and timelines can vary depending on the success you have achieved.
In this case, in the first months it was only submitted to two festivals: the first submission was in December 2016, for Málaga, and in January 2017 for Medina. Between February and March 2017 it was submitted to eight festivals, gradually increasing the figure between March, April and May.
In total we have made 479 festival submissions over all this time, and we expect to reach 500 submissions before the end of the year.
This figure is especially important.
This number of submissions was necessary to reach the 149 selections. Think about it: more than 300 festivals have rejected the short, one of the most successful of the year.
Keep this in mind when you start receiving non-selection notifications for your short, you will have to receive many rejections before you start getting good results.
Internationally it has been present in 15 different countries, with France, with 13 selections, being the country with the highest number of festivals, followed by Italy with 10 and the United States with 8.
Among these festivals no fewer than 90 awards have been achieved, a figure that is among the most significant of all the short films I have distributed, leaving aside very exceptional cases such as Porque hay cosas que nunca se olvidan, by Lucas Figueroa, which went on to reach 300 awards between 2008, 2009 and 2010.
The number of awards for Madre is particularly noteworthy because most of them have been first prizes, second prizes and audience awards. Winning 90 awards from 157 selections is a truly impressive percentage.
The evolution of selections
Here are the monthly evolution of the selections achieved by Madre between 2017 and 2018:
After the first stages of distribution, the monthly evolution has remained steady, surpassing this August the figure from the previous year. It is worth highlighting the good results in March and especially May 2018, with 18 selections, a figure very similar to the 20 achieved in November.
Festivals with submission fees
I recently published a post on the importance of festivals with submission fees in your distribution strategy.
We have also taken these festivals into account, although in this case we have a certain advantage, since a short that performs very well usually receives many invitations and it is more likely to submit with discounts or a waiver to a larger number of festivals.
In total we have submitted to 124 festivals with fees, which have resulted in 28 selections and 9 awards.
Next steps
At this moment the feature film version of Madre is already being prepared, a project that was announced when the Goya Award was collected in February. This film will be Rodrigo’s fourth feature; the short has helped greatly in securing the film’s financing and has achieved significant international exposure for its director.
The pace of distribution is already gradually slowing down, as you can see in the chart. From now on, international sales can be boosted, on VOD, and even an online release can be considered—options we will need to evaluate over the coming months.
In any case, the short’s main objectives have been more than fulfilled.
I hope these two posts on the distribution of Madre have served as a reference for circulating your short film, always bearing in mind that we are dealing with a very special case.