You’ve Been Selected! Festival Strategy and Best Practices

Film festivals are a crucial and exciting aspect of being a filmmaker, providing opportunities to connect with audiences, build relationships with other filmmakers, and see your work on the big screen. What materials are required for submitting your work to film festivals, and what do those materials say about it? How do you determine which ones to even submit to? This discussion will explore these questions and prepare emerging filmmakers for the film festival ecosystem.

This workshop will be presented with Open Captions.

Presenters

Sam Flancher is a film programmer who has worked in Chicago for over a decade. He currently works programming international feature films for the Chicago International Film Festival after spending five years at the head of their short film program. He has served on film juries both nationally and internationally, and was named one of Newcity Magazine’s ‘Film 50’ in 2019, 2022, and 2024.

Hannah Schierbeek is a Chicago-based writer, director, and producer. As a producer, Hannah’s credits include The Headhunter’s Daughter (Short Film Grand Jury Prize 2022 Sundance) and Vox Humana (2024 TIFF, Gold Hugo 2024 Chicago IFF), directed by Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan; and Video Funeral (2023 Chicago IFF), directed by Linh Tran. As a director, Hannah’s films explore intimate interpersonal stories backdropped by today’s socio-ecological dilemmas. Her credits include the short films An Alternative Method (2021 BFI Future FF), A Black Hole Near Kent County (2024 Clermont-Ferrand ISFF), and Radiant Frost (2026 Sundance FF). Hannah is an alumnus of the 2025 Berlinale Talents.

Erika Valenciana is an award-winning Chicana filmmaker based in Chicago. She shares underrepresented stories to build towards a media landscape where diverse experiences are uplifted. She is very big in Sheboygan.