Why didn't my film make it into the Sydney Underground Film Festival's program?

Yes we're about to answer the burning question: 'Why didn't my film make it into the Sydney Underground Film Festival's program?'

We receive many films each year (this year over 800!) and we watch each and every one. The vast majority of these entries are very good films.

Duration and editing

So how do we narrow it down with so many great films? One factor is the length of the film. Not meaning to simplify it too much, but as you can imagine it’s a lot easier to include a short of 3 minutes than a film of 21 minutes in one of our short film sessions. Not that a longer film can’t be really good as we program them often - however, if your film is longer it really needs to be outstanding as the rest of the films in the session will need to be programmed around it. Also, longer films often fall in the trap of being too long unnecessarily. They could be something really unforgettable with some more editing and not just become an example of a filmmaker unable to lose some scenes. Sometimes, you just have to be ruthless and only keep in the scenes that are important to the story, or edit down scenes that are drawn out for no good reason.

The zeitgeist

Another big deciding factor is the theme - themes start to emerge when entries come in and we allow them to organically form, so if you’re in tune with the arty, the challenging, the creative, the marginal and the perverse collective consciousness – this could be a factor of getting in. Our 'Recycled Cinema' or ‘Mothers Milk’ or ‘LSD Factory’ short film sessions are good examples of this.

Is your film doing something different?

We do have an ethos to our festival and though the definition of ‘underground’ is constantly in flux there are some films that are just not underground, no matter how much you stretch the imagination. An example would be an instructional documentary on the production of berries. Now if the documentary had some subversive subtext, like they are grown specially to assassinate the president of the USA or they are franken-berries that are produced by Monsanto and have some crazy genetic mutation – that would qualify for SUFF, otherwise it would probably have a better chance if it is targeted towards a more appropriate festival, like a gardening film festival.

So how does a filmmaker increase their chances of success?

The best thing to do is to study what we've screened at past festivals and see if your film could be a good fit for SUFF. We're not saying don't enter if your totally awesome film goes longer than the average short (it may become one of our features / stand out films within a program) but just keep these points in mind. As with any festival entry, try to look at your film from a festival's point of view and give yourself an honest appraisal of whether you would be able to screen it if you were in their shoes.

Don’t be afraid

We encourage people to not be afraid, and reward cinematic risk, creativity and diversity. We are masters of sniffing out cinematic fear! Let me explain: there are two types of filmmakers in this world. First there are those who do it for the art, love, passion, creativity and experimentation. These people usually want to push and challenge consciousness through cinema and make their cinematic decision from a place of risk and potential gain. The second type are filmmakers who make their films based on what they think people want to see, what they think will get them the next gig, or what is ‘socially appropriate or acceptable’ to investigate as subject matter. Usually these people are afraid that if they do something different, they will hinder their chances of securing an ‘industry’ job of some description – they operate from a place of cinematic fear.

Show your film to someone who hates you.

Yes you heard me right - get people who don’t know you, don’t like you or even hate you to look at your film and give it a critique. That is where you’ll most probably find out what sort of impact your film really has. Let people talk. Don’t interrupt them and don’t tell them what you were intending by this or that. Just listen to their reactions and work out if you had intended to evoke that particular type of reaction with your film.

However, please remember to take feedback with a grain of salt. People might be offended by your film and it could be a good thing. People could be reacting negatively because you hit a nerve – and that’s one of the best things you could do. Assess the feedback based on the demographic of the audience member.