Shortly after publishing a post about submission platforms in short film distribution, a new platform designed to compete with Withoutabox appeared on the market. After almost a year, FilmFreeway.com has surpassed 1000 festivals, with 1092 according to its website, and a strong commitment to free festival submissions.
That is, FilmFreeway (based in Canada) does not charge for submissions; its pricing policy is based on a commission from festival fees, at 8.5% compared to Withoutabox‘s 35%. It also allows for the embedding of an online screener from Vimeo (similar to the Spanish platform Festhome). These two features are, without a doubt, the most important.
In addition to being tough competition in the Anglo-Saxon market, it highlights the European model represented by reelport and shortfilmdepot (and followed by other platforms). That is, where European paid platforms charge directors and producers, FilmFreeway charges nothing. And let’s not forget that the submission process in Europe has always been free until the appearance of Reelport.
The free aspect refers to the submission process; festival fees depend on each festival, and this is where they generate income, by applying a percentage to these fees. This means that a festival that does not charge fees can use the platform for free. The design is much more modern and better adapted to the reality of the web. So far, my use has been limited, but overall it has good usability and does not overload the profile with too much data. In fact, it only has thirteen mandatory form fields, including the screener, compared to several pages of data on other platforms.
However, it seems they have festivals listed on the platform that have not confirmed their use. This means we might make submissions that the festival never sees (I hope these are few cases). To avoid these problems, it is essential to thoroughly read the festival rules on their own websites and check if they offer the platform as an option. The festivals we submitted to via FilmFreeway offered it as an option, and it was clearly reflected on the festival’s website. Furthermore, they could improve the invoice generation process, as only a confirmation (like a receipt) appears, and there is no transaction history.
The battle is on. We will see how Withoutabox handles the competition, and especially how the concept of free submissions influences the European market. We will be watching closely.