The participants of the Short Film Competition of 46th Moscow International Film Festival spoke about the production and the promotion of their films.
The director Ujjal Paul and the cameraman Abhishek Basu Roy, Clerk (India): "I have finished this work just recently, so Moscow International Film Festival is the first place where spectators can see the film. I hope the film has a good festival track record and then it will be released on streaming platforms. We are now looking for distributors to do it. We started filming in 2022, and to finance we used our festival prizes, which we received for our previous film. The final budget was about 30 thousand dollars".
The director Wei Bohan and the cameraman Pengbo Zhao, Panorama Swirl (China): "We want the film to be available at streaming platforms after festivals so that our efforts will be paid off, as our main task is to show our film to spectators. The total budget of the film was 200 thousand yuan and to make it, we invested the funds of our company, which shoots commercial ads, and we also received support from our colleagues in Beijing Cinema Institute".
The director Manu Zilveti, There is No Sea in This Town (Brazil): "I am now promoting my film at festivals and then I will show it at the Association of Cinema Clubs and in theatres across Brazil. I believe it will be available on streaming platforms in a couple of years and will be publicly available sometime later. The making of the film started in 2019 when I was studying at Cinema Department, but the production was postponed because of the pandemic, so I resumed my work in 2021. The script of the film won at several creative workshops in Brazil, but there was no money for the project. In 2022, we crowdfunded two thousand dollars and then the regional cinema foundation joined the production: they gave us 10 thousand dollars".
The director Olivier de Bree, Gaze (Germany): "This is my first film in German. Before that I lived in the Netherlands and filmed in the Dutch language and then I moved and wanted to settle down in Germany. So, I funded this film all by myself and started shooting only when I saved the needed amount. I will have to calculate all the costs, but it was roughly 10 thousand euro, which is not a big amount for film production".
The director Andres Angel, Rage (Columbia): "It was hard to get funding for my short film. I wouldn't have managed using just my own money. Luckily, there are state foundations supporting filmmakers in our country. It took me three years to get money there, though. When I finished filming, I understood I needed funds to promote it and I was lucky to find some sponsors. Adding this, the total budget amounted to around 60 million Columbian peso".
The directors Sousan Salamat and Behzad Alavi, Taxidermist (Iran): "We created the film in cooperation with a public organization, which helped us with raising funds. The budget was 4-4.5 thousand dollars. Maybe it is a small amount, but for Iran's context it is sufficient. We also managed to make the film quickly, the shooting took only three days".
The director Hao Wu, the cameraman Yuyao Chi, No Place to Place (China): "I am a student, and this is my first film, so my family's financial support was crucial. As my film is about my native places, I also found some wonderful people there who invested their funds in the making of this film, for which I am very grateful".
The director Ujjal Paul and the cameraman Abhishek Basu Roy, Clerk (India): "I have finished this work just recently, so Moscow International Film Festival is the first place where spectators can see the film. I hope the film has a good festival track record and then it will be released on streaming platforms. We are now looking for distributors to do it. We started filming in 2022, and to finance we used our festival prizes, which we received for our previous film. The final budget was about 30 thousand dollars".
The director Wei Bohan and the cameraman Pengbo Zhao, Panorama Swirl (China): "We want the film to be available at streaming platforms after festivals so that our efforts will be paid off, as our main task is to show our film to spectators. The total budget of the film was 200 thousand yuan and to make it, we invested the funds of our company, which shoots commercial ads, and we also received support from our colleagues in Beijing Cinema Institute".
The director Manu Zilveti, There is No Sea in This Town (Brazil): "I am now promoting my film at festivals and then I will show it at the Association of Cinema Clubs and in theatres across Brazil. I believe it will be available on streaming platforms in a couple of years and will be publicly available sometime later. The making of the film started in 2019 when I was studying at Cinema Department, but the production was postponed because of the pandemic, so I resumed my work in 2021. The script of the film won at several creative workshops in Brazil, but there was no money for the project. In 2022, we crowdfunded two thousand dollars and then the regional cinema foundation joined the production: they gave us 10 thousand dollars".
The director Olivier de Bree, Gaze (Germany): "This is my first film in German. Before that I lived in the Netherlands and filmed in the Dutch language and then I moved and wanted to settle down in Germany. So, I funded this film all by myself and started shooting only when I saved the needed amount. I will have to calculate all the costs, but it was roughly 10 thousand euro, which is not a big amount for film production".
The director Andres Angel, Rage (Columbia): "It was hard to get funding for my short film. I wouldn't have managed using just my own money. Luckily, there are state foundations supporting filmmakers in our country. It took me three years to get money there, though. When I finished filming, I understood I needed funds to promote it and I was lucky to find some sponsors. Adding this, the total budget amounted to around 60 million Columbian peso".
The directors Sousan Salamat and Behzad Alavi, Taxidermist (Iran): "We created the film in cooperation with a public organization, which helped us with raising funds. The budget was 4-4.5 thousand dollars. Maybe it is a small amount, but for Iran's context it is sufficient. We also managed to make the film quickly, the shooting took only three days".
The director Hao Wu, the cameraman Yuyao Chi, No Place to Place (China): "I am a student, and this is my first film, so my family's financial support was crucial. As my film is about my native places, I also found some wonderful people there who invested their funds in the making of this film, for which I am very grateful".