Online submissions are fast becoming the norm. But be careful, especially with online submissions where entry fees are involved.

Withoutabox allows you access to a multitude of U.S. and international festivals. Listing your film is free, but upgrade fees are required to add a presskit and/or trailer to your project. But be cautious. It’s very simple and easy to submit to a festival via Withoutabox — it’s only a click and you’re done. Entry fees must then be paid to the individual festivals (credit cards accepted) so you can rack up a huge bill very quickly.

The Short Film Depot is a European equivalent. Setting up a project is again free and entry fees to these festivals are rare. Only a small number of European (mostly French, some German) fests are accessible from this engine, but they are very nice fests and if your work suits them, this is a valuable access point.

Reelport is yet another European digital film distribution engine. Again even though the number of fests accessed through this portal is limited, these are important festivals.

In addition to these centralized submission sites, some festivals such as Sundance have set up their own online submissions engines.

Signe Baumane advises filmmakers to weed out fests that are inappropriate for your film. She has discovered that festivals that accept all genres will accept small films more often than exclusive animation festivals.”

Independent animator Signe Baumane’s advice when it comes to targeting your entries is short and sweet:

“You probably have one of those film festival guides? That should pretty much give you everything you need to know. You don’t want to submit your film to an inappropriate festival, like a sex film to a children’s festival, a straight story to gay and lesbian festival, etc. That leaves 27,626 festivals for you to explore and, as I said, the best criteria to weed them out is if they give you a fee discount or a waiver. Aagh, and another thing — Pat [Patrick Smith] and I — we have discovered that festivals that are accepting all genres — docs, live-action shorts, animation, etc. are more likely to accept our humble films than exclusive animation festivals.”

Below is a list of Signe’s and my favorite festivals. We make very different types of films. Signe is a narrative animator (her films have a solid storyline) while my films are more artistic and experimental. But together we cover much of the gamut of the best of the fests that show animation.

I must also add that this is by no means a complete list — there are other excellent festivals that we’ve simply forgotten to include. But it’s a start for people beginning the long and arduous task of getting their films out of the drawer.

In addition to the mega festivals such as the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, Los Angeles and Palm Springs Short Film Festivals, Berlin International Film Festival and Sundance Film Festival, Signe’s top North American picks (along with her commentary) include:

Florida Film Festival: the one festival that is worth entry fee. If you get in, they treat you as celebrity no matter that you are animated short maker — they know all about you the moment you get out of car!

Brooklyn International Film Festival: maybe they don’t get every single person out to Brooklyn to see your film but they have great connections with other festivals, so I get about 10 invitations (free entry) to submit my film from just being in their catalog. Those guys do a great job — and yes! they do treat short filmmakers with respect. If you are present at the screening, they stop right after your film and you get to do a Q & A right then, which is so amazing!

If you don’t get into festivals or aren’t happy with your film's acceptance rate, organize your own screenings.

San Francisco Independent Film Festival — they are great guys to work with and they do their best to get 1,712,624 people to the screening, and I like their PR.

Woodstock Film Festival is an amazing experience — and it is hard to get into because Bill Plympton and I have been selecting animation programs for last few years...

Atlanta Film Festival, Garden State Film Festival, Philadelphia Film Festival, Red Shift Film Festival, Newport International Film Festival, MUFF — Melbourne Underground Film Festival, Stony Brook Film Festival, Red Bank International Film Festival, Film Columbia, ASIFA-East Festival, Coney Island Film Festival (I just love it!), Rooftop Films (they get 500 people for a screening!), Tribeca Underground Film Festival (an excellent alternative to Tribeca Big Bro! and I don’t think they ask for an entry fee!).

You’ll notice that Signe’s list includes mostly live-action film festivals. My list, on the other hand, focuses on the ASIFA and other dedicated international animation festivals such as AniFest, Anima Argentina, Anima (Belgium), Animac, Animated Encounters, Anima Mundi, Bimmini, Cinanima, Hiroshima International, Holland International, I Castelli Animati, Kalamazoo, KROK, Melbourne International, Norwich, Ottawa International, Trickfilm and Zagreb.

I also like to include the documentary and short film festivals that take animation seriously such as Bradford, Brief Encounters, Canadian World Wide Short, Clermont-Ferrand, Dresden, Fantoche, Flickerfest, Leipzig, Oberhausen, Prix Ars Electronica, Tampere and the Victoria Independent Film & Video.

Finally, if you don’t get into festivals or aren’t happy with your film’s acceptance rate, organize your own screenings.

Here are Signe’s closing words on the subject:

“Together with other filmmakers, energize your local community. Find a bar, a restaurant, a movie house that would host your evening, and build a relationship with people who come, build your own audience independent of the festival circle. That way you don’t have to despair when yet another festival rejects your film. And your film is out there, doing its job; entertaining people and making them feel and think.

So there you have it.

Rules, recommendations, resources and our best wishes for lots of good luck.

Sharon Katz is an independent animator who lives and works in Ottawa. Her recently released animated short film, Slide, is now traveling more than she is.