Festivilia, is a Nigerian tech start-up headquartered in Lagos co-founded by Tobi Ogunwande, a young Nigerian Independent filmmaker, blogger and content creator with a discography of films selected and screened at film festivals around the world including the 2015 Art All Night International Film Festival, USA, 2016 Udada Film Festival, Kenya, Cameroun And 2015 Africa International Film Festival, Nigeria just to name a few. Festivilia launched its Beta about a year ago as a result of African experiences told by filmmakers not getting submitted to these film festivals, the start-up wants to help bridge the gap with the African movie society and the much bigger international film community that host most of the high-profile film festivals, giving these African films international exposure and a broader audience to appreciate their visual stories more and also help them monetize their films. Festivilia acts as a film festival distribution platform that helps Nigerian filmmakers automatically submit their movies and shorts to curated film festivals.
We understand that there are a few festival submission platforms that make it easy for filmmakers to search and submit their films to festivals easily but we realize that it’s still not effective as we still have to sit down for hours every month browsing and sorting festivals that are right for our films. With today’s technology, we know that there should easily be a seamless solution and we decided to solve our own problem. With a team of both passionate filmmakers and highly skilled programmers, we have finally made it possible for us and our fellow filmmakers including you to get the most out of your festival runs. – Via Festivilia.
The start-up promises any film submitted will be able to get into over 500 film festivals, through a single festival submission form which gets your film comprehensively reviewed and an automatic proprietary algorithm matches the film to it’s preferred festivals. The films get distributed to certain film festivals in Festivilia’s database based on factors such as the genre, length, location, among others. The company started in 2017 and now boast some impressive stats with a 70 percent acceptance rate, also serving as a sales agent for filmmakers, helping them find distribution deals and so far has helped 300 films get accepted into festivals, distributing at least 76 award-winning films.
I will rather prefer to use my time for other valuable things. Unfortunately, that can’t happen because I have to do all the work. The idea of Festivilia was born to help other filmmakers like myself spend less time scouting and submitting to film festivals and focus on creating more amazing films. So, I thought, why can’t we just have a universal platform where you only have to fill one submission form and your film automatically gets submitted. All you have to do is sit down, relax and receive festival acceptance notifications from time to time, as well as monthly updates on the progress of your film.– Tobi Ogunwande
The start-up offers a freemium subscription service which allows only one film to be submitted each year, and the film’s distribution is restricted to just 10 film festivals but also has paid plans that cost $9.99 and $19.99 per year with each payment plan offering a wide variety of options and distribution spread. With good consistency, they are destined to grow into a bigger structure, though to get to that level they’ll need to have a stronger social media presence to help them engage with more young filmmakers who are creating more radical, innovative films.
