After Nabbing 12 Films At Sundance, Amazon Expands Its Festival Presence

At the Sundance Film Festival, Amazon made aspiring filmmakers an offer that many of them couldn’t refuse. Post your film to our Amazon Video Direct platform, the digital retailer said, and we’ll pay you $100,000 and offer you two-times our typical royalty rate. Ultimately, 12 Sundance films, including several that won awards at the festival, chose to opt-into what Amazon is referring to as its Film Festival Stars program. As a result, the offer will now be extended to filmmakers at other festivals, including South By Southwest (SXSW), the Tribeca Film Festival, and the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

The Sundance films whose creators took Amazon up on its offer include Manifesto, which stars Cate Blanchett and won the Special Jury Award for Cinematic Vision, and Free and Easy, which won the Special Jury Award for Cinematography. As per the terms of the deal, those films must be Amazon exclusives for at least two years.

Up next for Film Festival Stars is SXSW, where films in the narrative feature competition will be offered $100,000 bonuses, documentary features will be offered $75,000, and other qualifying films will be offered $25,000. In the U.S., these films will also accrue 30 cents for each hour of watch time they generate, as opposed to the normal 15-cent rate available on Amazon Video Direct.

The goal of Film Festival Stars is to give aspiring filmmakers a place to share their work in front of a sizable audience while also building a competitive library for Amazon Video Direct, which launched in May 2016. “The Amazon Video Direct Film Festival Stars program provides an unprecedented opportunity for independent filmmakers to reach a motivated audience,” said Danny Fisher, CEO of distribution company FilmRise, in a press release. “Prime Video customers have demonstrated a strong interest in independent film and are searching for high quality, festival content. Amazon Video Direct brings this content straight to customers through Prime Video.”

Amazon’s offer is valid for SXSW entrants until April 30th.