The Programming Team Gives a Few Tips on Submitting to NHFF

The NHFF Programming Team is an eclectic group of people including filmmakers and producers on the international and local levels, film students, and film enthusiasts. The result is a wide variety of tastes, and interests, viewpoints from the filmmaking aspect, and the audience aspect and hopefully very little room for a great undiscovered indie film to fall through the cracks.

With only one month left until the late deadline, the programming team has offered up a few short words of advice for submitting filmmakers:

Always include a cover letter – A cover letter and a detailed synopsis is a great way for screeners to get excited about watching a film.

When possible submit via secure online screener – The ease of screening online is a great way to guarantee as many eyes as possible on your film, plus it means saving costs on DVDs, promotional materials, and mailings, and the earth will thank you too.

Shorts are your friend –  (especially for a directorial debut), too many times a talented beginning filmmaker will ambitiously attempt a feature, drain a lot of funds, and have to cut corners on actors, sound, lighting, and editing, significantly reducing the quality of the film.  Flesh out a small piece of your idea first, it could act as a great teaser for a potential feature, and get you the connections and funds you need to make your film with no compromises.

Be as accurate as possible with submission details — Double check if you’ve accidentally submitted under any sub-categories, make sure your contact information is correct, and don’t hesitate to contact us if you submitted your film as a world premiere and it was subsequently accepted to another festival.

Know your audience —  Not everyone on the team is in the industry or is going (or went) to film school, this is a purposeful decision.  Unless you plan to watch your film by yourself in a room over and over again, there needs to be accountability to an outsider.  Be authentic. Don’t shock, just to shock, and keep your theme, vision, and purpose consistent.

Lastly, extremely tough choices lie ahead, and there’s not enough days or slots at NHFF to select all the films we want, but we admire and respect the art you create, and are glad you’ve made our lives so hard.

Let the last month of submissions begin!