We are flipping the script on the traditional panel format with an interactive session that we call an Industry Insight Exchange. Our topic on June 21 will be How To Fest: A Film Festival Reality Check. Presented as part of Queens Rising 2025, the month-long celebration of the borough’s vibrant cultural scene,  this is a free event where all the voices in the room will shape the conversation around how to elevate our festival game, no matter which end of the submission button you are on.

This is a no-nonsense, conversation about the film festival landscape

We will ask ourselves:

• Are film festivals relevant?
• What is a festival strategy? 
• What is a fair submission fee? / Are submission fees scams?  
• Will I find a distributor at a festival?
• What do festivals owe filmmakers? What do filmmakers owe festivals?
• Why is my screening empty?
  

“We’re not handing down wisdom—we’re making space for it to rise up from the room,” says Katha Cato, Executive Director of Queens World. “This is about making room at the table so that filmmakers feel seen, informed, and connected.”