Rejected!

The Changeling was rejected from its first festival last week.

I had rushed to finish the film in time to qualify for New Directors / New Films, a festival here in NYC which is run by the Musuem of Modern Art and Lincoln Center.

The festival was a long shot; they only choose a few films and most of them are made outside of the U.S. And all of them have budgets, which while small, are huge compared to mine.

I found out that I didn't get in when I saw a full page ad in the New York Times on Friday listing the lineup for the festival, which does not include The Changeling.

New Directors said it would let each person who submitted to the festival know if their films were accepted or not. I expected a letter, not a full page ad in the Times (how did they know I'm a subscriber)?

Well now I feel like a real filmmaker! I'm in the fray now, dealing with rejection.

I've submitted to two other festivals so far. I have a good inside contact at one of them so hopefully that will help. This is all very much new to me. Figuring out the festival circuit is a lot more perplexing than figuring out how to make a movie. But I'm going to keep at it. Now that I have this movie, I really have to do everything I can to make sure it's seen.