81 – Hacking the Documentary Film Festival, Part Two

It’s that time again to turn our attention to breaking down the barriers of that ever-elusive filmmaking animal that we’ve all come to respect and love, but few of us truly understand… the film festival.

Last year, we ran a two-part special on the subject of the film festival for the documentary festival. Lyndon Stone, festival director of Melbourne Documentary Film Festival, invited us into his world of curating and producing a documentary film festival and he helped us better understand what all goes on behind-the-scenes of such an endeavour, as well as how we, the doc filmmaker, can best apply to these festivals and use them to leverage our film’s success afterwards. We also spoke with two filmmakers who were playing MDFF, in order to gain their perspective on what the documentary film festival experience was like for them, and how we might best be able to learn from their experiences.

Due to the popularity of that two-part special, we’ve decided to do it again in anticipation of this year’s MDFF! Lyndon will again tee-up each episode for us and we will also have two doc filmmakers who have had their film’s selected as inclusion to this year’s festival. And for part two of the special, we’ll talk with Dawn Mikkelson, whose film Risking Light marks Dawn’s fifth documentary film in which she has applied to the film festival circuit. This is her first to play MDFF, which had reached out to her a couple of years prior when they were made aware of a crowdfunding campaign for the film.

Topics Discussed

• how the MDFF film selection process goes through a very specific panel process
• why it’s important for festivals to be hosting more filmmaker visits
• how Dawn Mikkelson’s first festival experience changed her entire perception of the film festival circuit
• why it’s exciting & important for doc filmmakers to have their subjects present at some festival screenings
• how festivals are a critical way for a doc filmmaker who isn’t from LA or NYC to casually network with other doc filmmakers or industry people who might help you get your next doc funded

Related Sources

Watch the trailer for Dawn Mikkelson’s Risking Light

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1qx_v7gCvI&vl=en

Sponsors & Thank Yous

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