Film Festival Submission

November 2009

The first round of film festival submissions for Woke Up Alive is complete! For our supporters and those aspiring filmmakers out there, we want to shed some light into what went into the process.

The years of sweat and blood are over. The independent movie has been shot, the script designed, the footage organized and captured electronically, the scenes roughly pieced together and then condensed and polished-and polished-and polished some more.

There was legalities, music, color correction, sound, graphic design, frustrating technical matters that stalled us for weeks, new and costly lessons learned, another dollar spent, another problem that we didn't anticipate and periods of depressing self-doubt finally overcome by a spirited drive to finish what we started. Then it hit us. Technically, emotionally, financially and mentally, we could go no further. The project really was finished.

There was an effective and good looking website to consider, a press kit, industry connections to be made and of course, the need to raise many more shekels that seemed impossible to come by. Some how-some way-we scraped up the money and expertise we needed to present the film in a professional light. After all this, now it's finally time to submit our film to the festivals.

From an emotional standpoint, film festivals represent a well deserved celebration of our determination. They are essentially an opportunity to celebrate the better parts of us and have those better parts of us validated by others. This is an exciting time but also a time of nervous anticipation. Although we think we have something worthwhile, we're not sure what the world and specifically the "film world" will think of the movie. What if the world thinks the better part of us is worthless? As first-time, independent filmmakers, the fear of public perception is our last major hurdle.

We chose twenty three initial festivals for submission, based on level of prestige, location and focus. Here's how our logic went; "Why not try to get into a few of the elite festivals? If that doesn't pan out, let's go somewhere cool like Europe or Asia! No Europe or Asia? That's OK, we'll premiere at a festival that appreciates the spirit of the movie."

Below is a list of our first round festival submissions. Wish us luck!


South by Southwest, Seattle, Ann Arbor, Palm Beach, Portland, Gasparilla, Peace on Earth, Big Muddy, Blue Planet, Film North-Huntsville, Festival Ireland, Kixote Indie, New Hope, Phangan, Spirit Quest, Strasbourg, The Nickel, Glasgow, GLOBIANS Berlin, European Spiritual, Crystal Palace, Portland Jewish and Maine Jewish.