It’s that time of year, where everyone is starting to kick into high gear to finish up works-in-progress for festival submissions for the coming year, and as hopefully everyone here knows, the IFP New York program in September is a hot stop for many projects. Once the IFP Market, now re-monikered Independent Film Week, the program is a great spot to meet programmers, financiers and other filmmakers, but getting ready can be daunting. Last year, I wrote a piece for indieWIRE and filmmaker Tracy Strain shared so great tips. I’m re-posting as most of the information remains valid. Good luck to the lucky included projects!

I wrote a 1200+ word article for indieWIRE last month, Doc Filmmakers Guide to the IFP Market, geared toward filmmakers who are taking a project to this year’s incarnation. Naturally, I got more responses from generous past participants than I had room to include so I generalized and used pertinent quotes, etc., but one message came in that I think needs to be shared in whole. It came from Tracy Heather Strain who has been to the Market with her work 7 times, last year with her Lorraine Hansberry project! I asked Tracy if I could share her advice in its entirety here because it is so practical and helpful for filmmakers, particularly those going for the first time. And I think her cost and time saving tips can be adapted for festivals and other sales gatherings that occur so frequently in film. Read the entire post>>