The evolution of distribution platforms for festivals seems to be entering a new stage. After a few years in which new projects have been constantly created, in January we learned of the closure of Uptofest (effective as of February 1) following its merger with Festhome, which now, together with Movibeta, leads the Spanish market, with Clickforfestivals not far behind.
This market is made up of around 12 platforms, which are the ones operating most actively worldwide, and which I have already covered in the post about distribution platforms and in the update on these platforms. Although different pricing policies are mixed, most of them are generalist in nature, covering all festival segments.
There are several exceptions, such as the filmfestivals4u.net platform, dedicated to German festivals for young directors (most under 27), and filmfestplatform.com, dedicated to French festivals.
In recent months I have come across two new projects, which seem to make it clear that segmentation appears to be the logical evolution of this market. On the one hand, Docfilmdepot has been launched, dedicated to documentary film festivals, and on the other, T/Port, for short films from film schools.
#1 Docfilmdepot
This platform was launched in January of this year and was created by the Ardèche Images Association, which for 30 years has been dedicated to promoting and training in documentary film in France and organizes the États Généraux Du Film Documentaire festival each year in the French town of Lussas.
To launch this project it has had the collaboration of Shortfilmdepot, a platform created by the Clermont-Ferrand Festival, from which it takes its name. Both platforms share the same technological development by the French company BoostUp, which is also responsible for designing the Clermont-Ferrand website and screening platform.
Its business model is another similarity with Shortfilmdepot, as it charges an average of €3.50 per submission to directors and producers (both have the same price) and around €450 per year to festivals. It also does not allow the use of Vimeo links, requiring the video to be uploaded.
At the moment there are three festivals with open calls: États Généraux Du Film Documentaire, Escales Documentaire in La Rochelle, and Filmer a Tout Prix in Brussels.
Although it is a recently created platform and makes a very smart bet on a very clear segment, such as documentary film, there is a lack of greater innovation in terms of pricing, considering the success of the free model of Filmfreeway and Festhome’s flat fee, as well as the possibility of working with Vimeo screening links, which has become the standard for festival viewing.
#2 T/Port
Although it has not yet been officially launched, it is already possible to request an invitation through the website. It is a project of the Tel-Aviv Student Film Festival, one of the most important in the world dedicated to film schools.
The aim of this platform is to become a meeting point for film schools, programmers, sales agents and distributors. In principle it is open only to film schools so they can upload their best productions and share them with professionals, including festivals.
T/Port aims to solve the problem that exists in the film education sector and that many programmers face when trying to find new student productions and manage rights, both for TV channels and VOD platforms, as well as for festivals.
Its business model and how it works are not very clear, but the concept is interesting: it is not just a submission platform, but an online marketplace for sharing productions from film schools.
The future of platforms
It seems that segmentation is going to shape the future of submission platforms for several reasons:
- They make it possible to solve the problem of the mass influx of submissions, since both festivals and films are filtered from the outset; festivals will only receive the type of films they are looking for.
- It is possible to design tools and forms specific to a type of film, increasing productivity in festival organization.
- Having a platform with all the films from a given segment makes it possible to offer other services to programmers, sales agents and specialized distributors.
The platform market keeps evolving; we will have to pay close attention to new trends and the evolution of this market.
What do you think of submission platforms? Do you think this market can continue to evolve with new proposals?