Indee Blog

You want to make your film festival more fetching and deck it up with a bit of glitz and glamour. You settle for the classic favourite- a tried and tested idea of having a high profile guest or the recognizable director of one of the films attend your festival. Brillant, but soon enough you stumble upon the ‘Now what?’ scenario. How do you go about demystifying this delusional idea?

Well, if you are one of those bloody lucky festivals with a glut of funds, stop reading this and figure out how to reach the agent of said actor or director. Your money  will do the work for you. For the rest of the festivals however, here’s how we’ve gathered your peer festivals go about this.

As Kathy Kay of the Victoria Film Festival suggests, often throwing in flight tickets and hotel accommodation will get the ball rolling. Failing which, try clubbing it with what your location offers. The film fraternity loves experiences, so depending on what your town can offer, try to rope in sponsors to provide an experience to the visiting celebrity. A private whale watching trip in New England, a spa day in Arizona or a private event with the best chef in town giving a private barbecue in Texas. With the opportunity to get photographed with a celebrity shopping in their store/restaurant/spa, it’s a win win and a win. Offer this along with meals and top billing at the festival at the same time for added “wow”.

Christian Gaines of  Withoutabox says doing a bit of homework will go a long way. If you know whom you want in your festival, try and research what they do. Almost every celeb tweets and it’s a piece of cake to find what they are involved in. If luck has it, they might be into some kind of charity work. In which case, offer to donate your screening fee to the cause they are associated with. Not only does this show that you are interested in the celebrity but also in the charity and you end up feeling good having spent money on a good cause.

One of these might just fetch you the assertive nod you are looking for.

Can you think of any other strategies to convince actors and directors of your films to attend the festival?