Lights, camera, action! Children can learn to direct movies, and submit them to film festivals!

Whether you are a child interested in making movies or a parent encouraging their hobby, submitting to film festivals can help support those dreams. Film festivals provide moviemakers with accolades and screening opportunities. Traditionally, many are made for adults, but there are plenty that will consider movies made by children too. This should be a fun experience for children, so make sure not to focus on pressure and expectations!

Some festivals also share filmmaking challenges to inspire the creation of movies, which is perfect for young filmmakers needing direction and motivation to film. Having a film festival to submit to could be all the incentive a young filmmaker needs to finally complete a project.

You might wonder how I learned to do this myself. In addition to being a blogger who has covered red carpet events from the El Capitain Theater in Los Angeles, I used to work in movies before I began teaching. Now, I hope to share my expertise to help children earn recognition for their movies.

I teach virtual filmmaking classes for children, and I raise two daughters who started to enjoy making movies during the pandemic. Some of their movies include ‘The Power of Play,’ an official selection of the Ocean City Film Festival, and ‘A Halloween Sleepover,’ an official selection of the Kids First! Film Festival.

Although my children created YouTube vlog-style videos for years, venturing into the creative world of filmmaking tested their skills in a new way. Filmmaking challenged them to tell captivating stories, which improved their writing and thinking skills. Being competitive with their filmmaking reminded them to work their hardest to have good production value with the right lighting, camera angles, and set design. This experience has given them a confidence boost!

Submitting children’s movies to film festivals is simple. Check out a few tips to submit a movie to a film festival for the first time.

Take A Filmmaking Class

If you can hold a camera, you’re a good age to learn filmmaking! However, understanding how to make a quality movie takes some practice and instruction. In-person classes can provide a hands-on experience. They are likely to encourage group work, which is good practice for working on real movie sets!

Virtual filmmaking classes offer the convenience of filming from your house. You have the creative freedom to film using your own actors and a setting of your choice. Although you do have to provide all of your equipment, it can be as inexpensive as a Smartphone and good tripod.

Parents and children might wonder, We have all the equipment already. Why take a class? Taking a class can help make sure that the movie gets done. It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of planning to film a movie. However, without a deadline, you might never remember to pick up a camera. Classes provide support from an instructor as well as positive peer influences from classmates. You are more likely to reach your goal of having a movie done by the end of the class than if you were going at it alone.

Create Marketing Materials

If you plan to submit to film festivals, you should create marketing materials as soon as you begin to shoot the movie. Kid moviemakers might wonder, What does marketing mean? If you are trying to do marketing for your movie, you are trying to advertise it, or persuade people that it’s worth watching.

One of the first steps in marketing your movie is to take photos on set. These photos become part of the materials you send in with your film festival submissions. They are sometimes referred to as still photos. Also, make sure to take a photo of the director that they can use as their headshot.

Making a Movie Poster

You will also need to make a movie poster for your movie. Here’s a movie poster I made, but it promotes this blog post instead of a movie!

To make a movie poster, set up a free account using Canva. Click Create a Design, and select movie poster as the type of design. There are templates to choose from, although some require a paid Canva Pro account.

After you select a template, drag and drop your favorite still photo from the movie. Add your title, credits, and hopefully eventually, laurels from festival wins. You might also wonder, What are laurels? They are the award that a festival provides if you win or are selected. If you earn any, you want to share them to help promote your movie.

Set Up A FilmFreeway Account

Submitting to film festivals requires an account on FilmFreeway. This is a website that film festivals use to collect all their submissions. It also helps you organize your marketing materials.

You can create an account with your Google or Facebook account, or email address. For children, this requires parental help and supervision. After logging in, you select Add a Project. List the type (most likely a film/video). Enter the title, and a brief 1-2 sentence synopsis.

Adding a Project

Make sure to enter your contact information under Submitter Information. This section should not appear publicly, but I also recommend setting the entire project to a Private view under settings. If you are submitting a child’s project, you wouldn’t want it to be viewable with a Google search, especially if you are including a Student ID from their school to show proof that they can submit to student categories or receive a student discount on the submission fee.

Then, provide the credits for the movie. Enter the name of each actor and the name of the role they play. If the child who made the movie did the majority of the moviemaking themselves, you can give them the title of writer, director, and producer.

Upload the movie file itself in the highest quality possible. If you win, film festivals request to download the movie from FilmFreeway to show it at their screening. You want it to be in its best quality since it could be shown on a big screen in a real movie theater!

Make sure to upload any other still photos you have. Share the director’s photo and a brief biography. You can include a Director’s Statement too. This is a statement provided by the director about their artistic vision.

Next, it’s time to submit! When you search for film festivals, you can narrow your search down by price, type of festival, and years running.

Searching for Festivals

I recommend narrowing it down to festivals that are free to $10-$15 dollars to begin. You can get a sense of whether festivals might pick the movie up before you spend too much.

Narrowing down the amount of time the festival has been around can also help you make sure that you are spending money on a trustworthy endeavor.

Make sure when you choose a festival, that there is a Youth division for children to submit.

Selecting children under the type of festival will narrow the search down to festivals that only focus on kid-friendly entertainment. However, sometimes those festivals prefer to share adult-created movies made for children.

There are also festivals that include all genres of movies. Even though they have one division for Youth-made films, they won’t show up if you narrow your search down to only festivals focused on children.

You also may want to look into local festivals since they can be a great place for children to get their start. These festivals tend to like promoting the movies of children in the same town or state.

Submitting to film festivals as a child takes a lot of courage! If you made it as far as here, you have everything you need to know to submit to your first festival. Good luck!

What kind of movie are you making? Share in the comments!

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