For the past year, I have been advising filmmakers how to take care of their mental health as they navigate the intense and sometimes stressful film festival circuit. This is discussed in further detail in my ‘Film Festivals & Looking After Your Mental Health’ E-Book. I’ve been doing more research recently into this topic which drew me to write this article focusing upon how to process – and accept – a film festival rejection letter which is often a very difficult thing for a filmmaker to do.
I came across an article written by a group of Kids Health experts who discussed how to cope with rejection. Although the article is targeted at young adults who are going to University and subsequently their first Prom, a lot of what they discussed can be applied to anyone at any age and especially with regard to the film festival circuit.
The writers correctly point out that feeling rejected is the opposite type of emotion to feeling accepted. In the context of film festivals; being rejected doesn’t mean that your film isn’t liked, valued, or important. It just means that with regard to that particular festival which you submitted to; the festival couldn’t do anything with your film and ultimately couldn’t find a place to programme it.
Rejection is part of the film festival process. Everyone will get rejected from a film festival at some point on their festival journey and highly likely more than once.
The better you get at dealing with rejection, the less it affects you and the more resilience you build. One way to get better at handling rejection is to go through the process of acceptance.
Feel all of the feelings of rejection – don’t ignore the feelings or try and push them to one side; feel the feelings and acknowledge how normal it is to feel like you do. Did this rejection upset you a lot? Or just a little? Cry and scream if you want to – don’t hold back – as this means you are processing the rejection and moving into a place of acceptance.
It’s also quite normal to automatically feel left out when you receive a rejection from a festival (it’s very similar to not being picked for a school play or a soccer team). A client once said to me that all of his friends were in a festival that took place in their home town but the reality was that wasn’t true – only a quarter of them were – it just felt like that to him at the time.
One way to prevent these false narratives from developing and to move into the space of acceptance is to limit your social media usage – especially on Instagram as that can stir up more stress and unnecessary comparisons to other filmmakers in your inner circles. Starting up a support group with other filmmakers who you trust and can confide is a way to develop more positivity, belief and encouragement.
One conversation you could have for example in your support group is seeing the positive aspects in festival rejection and having honest discussions with your colleagues asking them for example if there are things you can work on and if your film was good enough for that particular festival or if you were aiming too high.
It’s very healthy to think about whether there’s room for improvement. Perhaps you need to re-think your festival strategy so you can improve your chances of getting accepted into more festivals. Use the rejection E-Mail as an opportunity for self-development.
Sometimes a rejection is a harsh reality check. But if you approach it in the right frame of mind and go through the process of acceptance, it could help nudge you in a direction that turns out to be building a festival strategy that is the perfect match for your film. This then opens the door for more opportunities and abundance to come into your life and build your career.
For more information on navigating the festival circuit and looking after your mental health download my ‘Film Festivals & Looking After Your Mental Health’ and ‘The Film Festival Doctor’s Guide To Navigating The Festival Circuit’
E-Books both available from my E-Shop 👇
https://www.thefilmfestivaldoctor.com/shop
Need help getting your film seen on the circuit?
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