Do's and Don'ts in film festival rules

Moving most programming online and creating an Emergency Filmmaker Support FIlms Streaming for our Fellows. But even in the midst of continued uncertainty, we remain fiercely committed to our work: championing creative independence in visual storytelling and supporting a community that embodies diversity, innovation and uniqueness of vision. Who opened the panel by asking the programmers to outline just how many submissions they receive each year. Zwicker quoted approximately 4,000 total submissions for feature films, and Barrera 9,000 for shorts. Of these, only 120 or so features make it in each year, and about 60-70 shorts. “Less than one percent,” notes Barrera. So that’s arguably the bad news. The good news? The programmers were emphatic that each and every film submitted is watched in its entirety. Even the worst film Zwicker ever screened—which, according to her, included “a lot of masturbation and poop-eating”—was watched through to the bitter end. Even in these direst of poop-eating circumstances, programmers are marshaled onward by the promise of discovering something great. As Zwicker said, “You trust yourself that no matter how tired you are, the next film you put in could give you a special feeling. Sundance has a team of 10 full-time programmers; each with a specific focus or expertise tied to the festival’s different competition and exhibition categories. Zwicker’s beat it is international film, while Barrera’s is shorts. “All year long, we watch everything,” said Barrera of her nine-person shorts team.