{"id":11698,"date":"2017-05-09T10:02:44","date_gmt":"2017-05-09T08:02:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ismaelmartin.com\/festival-segments-and-niches-for-distribution-strategy\/"},"modified":"2017-05-09T10:02:44","modified_gmt":"2017-05-09T08:02:44","slug":"festival-segments-and-niches-for-distribution-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ismaelmartin.com\/en\/festival-segments-and-niches-for-distribution-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"Festival segments and niches for distribution strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Festival segments and niches are increasingly important<\/strong>. When we start with the distribution of our film, we always tend to begin with the most general festivals, such as Class A festivals, and leave niche festivals aside, giving them less importance. <\/p>\n<p>But you cannot forget that thousands of films move each year and it is increasingly difficult to find a slot in festival programming. Therefore, <strong>being able to find the most suitable niches is fundamental for designing the distribution strategy<\/strong>. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Festival niches are groups that share similar characteristics and whose programmers seek a very specific type of film<\/strong>. New niche festivals emerge every year, and I am increasingly clear about the importance of segmentation and market niches to combat the overcrowding of festivals and the production of films, both short films and feature films. <\/p>\n<p>To navigate these niches and segments, I have divided festivals into four major groups based on different criteria: by genre, niche festivals, by director characteristics, and by film duration.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>#1 Festivals by genre<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>This group would include festivals <strong>specialized in animation, documentary, or experimental cinema<\/strong>. Additionally, there are festivals focused only on fiction, which do not accept documentaries or animation. Therefore, in this first group there would be four types of festivals:  <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Animation<\/li>\n<li>Documentary<\/li>\n<li>Experimental<\/li>\n<li>Fiction<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>#2 Niche festivals<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>This group would include all niche festivals properly speaking. This group is enormous; I would venture to say it is practically unlimited. <strong>There are many festival niches and new options constantly emerge<\/strong> that make it very difficult to know them all. This is a small list with some of the most popular ones.  <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fantasy and Horror Cinema<\/li>\n<li>Human Rights<\/li>\n<li>LGBT<\/li>\n<li>Film Schools<\/li>\n<li>Festivals for children and youth audiences<\/li>\n<li>Environmental Festivals<\/li>\n<li>Comedy<\/li>\n<li>Disability<\/li>\n<li>Musical<\/li>\n<li>Sports<\/li>\n<li>&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>#3 By director<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>It must be taken into account that the director is the most important member of the team for festivals. These are some examples: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>By age (up to 25 or 35 years old, for example).<\/li>\n<li>By situation, festivals for first, second, or third films.<\/li>\n<li>By gender, such as festivals dedicated to films directed by a woman.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>#4 Festivals by duration<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>They are fundamentally divided into short films, medium-length films, and feature films. This separation is increasingly questioned, especially due to the disparity of duration limits that we can find and which I already discussed in this post about <a href=\"https:\/\/ismaelmartin.com\/2016\/12\/13\/limites-duracion-peliculas-festivales\/\">duration limits at festivals<\/a>. <\/p>\n<h2><strong>Mixing typologies and festival niches <\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Many of the typologies and festival niches (or we could even call them micro-niches) are born from the mixture of these groups. For example, we can find music documentary festivals such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.in-edit.org\/webapp\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">IN-EDIT<\/a> in Barcelona or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dockofthebay.es\/2017\/es\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dock of the bay<\/a> in San Sebasti\u00e1n, and even film school documentary festivals, such as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fide.festivaldoc.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fid\u00e9<\/a> in France. We can also mix genres, as in the case of festivals with sections for animated documentary, such as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dok-leipzig.de\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">DOK Leipzig<\/a>.  <\/p>\n<p>Additionally, there are festivals with a programming line that tends toward a very specific genre or type of film, such as the short film festivals of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kurzfilmtage.de\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Oberhausen<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/festival.curtas.pt\/home-en\/\">Vila do Conde<\/a>, which have a clear tendency toward more experimental cinema.<\/p>\n<p>The possibilities are very broad, both from the director and producer&#8217;s point of view, for the creation of new proposals, and from the distributor&#8217;s perspective, when designing a festival strategy. The commitment to greater segmentation also allows <strong>festival organizers<\/strong> to create new models and different sections that better fit the needs of their target audience. <\/p>\n<p>As I said at the beginning, <strong>committing to a segment is increasingly important<\/strong> <strong>to participate in festivals<\/strong>, have a certain trajectory on the circuit, and carve out a space in the industry. We must be very aware that the selection percentages of major festivals range only between 1 and 2 percent of all the films they receive. <\/p>\n<p>If you ultimately do not manage to get your film into important and more general festivals, do not worry too much; the important thing <strong>is to stand out within your segment and your festival niche<\/strong>. This should be the main commitment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Festival segments and niches are increasingly important. When we start with the distribution of our film, we always tend to begin with the most general festivals, such as Class A festivals, and leave niche festivals aside, giving them less importance. But you cannot forget that thousands of films move each year and &#8230; <a title=\"Festival segments and niches for distribution strategy\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/ismaelmartin.com\/en\/festival-segments-and-niches-for-distribution-strategy\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Festival segments and niches for distribution strategy\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[250],"tags":[429,428],"class_list":["post-11698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-festival-strategy","tag-niches","tag-segments"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Festival segments and niches for distribution strategy - Ismael Martin<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Festival segments and niches are increasingly important, and we must take them very much into account in our distribution strategy.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ismaelmartin.com\/en\/festival-segments-and-niches-for-distribution-strategy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Festival segments and niches for distribution strategy - 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