ABSTRACT
This chapters explore how the internet plays a key role at almost every stage of the life of a contemporary film, in particular examining how and why amateur and independent filmmakers use film festival submission websites in order to find audiences for their films. It argues that amateur and independent filmmakers are encouraged to buy into the naturalised logic of wanting to become increasingly visible, or cinematic, and that they thus pay various sums of money to give their work a chance of garnering attention, for example at film festivals. The chapter examines how this competition in some senses always already favours existing professionals. In other words, while amateur and independent filmmakers pursue recognition at film festivals, typically in pursuit of becoming a professional, the chapter will critique the exploitative nature of film festival submission websites, and what we might call the professionalisation of amateur filmmaking. Festival submission sites offer the lure of a passport into fleshworld production and distribution.
