Hi everyone,

Ellis here! For the past 6 months, Eddie and I have been building this growing and community platform called Coffeehouse Cinema and one of the top questions we get is “How do you select the films?”

I go into more in-depth about our evaluation and curation process here:

The other top question we get “How do you receive submissions?” and up until now the answer was “by any means necessary.” We mainly relied upon our relationships with filmmakers and industry professionals to provide us with films and referrals and while that is definitely an important part of our strategy as curators, we want to make sure Coffeehouse Cinema remains open to those we don’t have a relationship with.

So I am happy to say that we are finally formally offering open submissions to our screenings.

When creating this process Eddie and I consistently came back to how do we make sure we create a process that values our time, our audience, and the submitting filmmakers. It took a lot of delegation, but here’s where we landed.

First, we had to explain what we are looking for.

What We Look For

We’re drawn to films with a distinct voice, emotional honesty, and strong storytelling craft.

We gravitate toward films that immediately pull us into a world, make us feel something genuine, or leave us thinking long after the credits roll. We value intentional filmmaking over empty spectacle and are less interested in chasing trends than discovering filmmakers with a clear perspective.

When reviewing films, we often come back to a few key questions:

Voice — Does the film feel specific, confident, and authored?
Connection — Does it emotionally engage the audience?
Craft — Does the filmmaking elevate the story through performance, cinematography, editing, sound, and overall execution?
Experience — How does the film play in a room full of people?

The best way to understand our taste is to explore the films and filmmakers we’ve previously showcased. See lineups below:

VOL.1, VOL.2, VOL.3, VOL. 4, VOL.5, VOL.6

Second, maybe more importantly, we had to say what we didn’t look for.

What tends to work less for us

• Films that rely solely on shock value or aesthetic without emotional substance

• Comedies built around a single joke without character development

• Projects driven primarily by visual effects over storytelling

• Branded or promotional work without a strong narrative perspective

• Films that feel overly derivative without adding a fresh voice or point of view

• Work that takes too long to establish its tone, stakes, or intention

This answer is incredibly subjective and while we say we are looking for one thing and end up programming another, it might make us look inconsistent. But the reality is, we will make exceptions when they “seem right.”

This is the right headspace we want to people to be when wanting to screen at Coffeehouse Cinema.

At the end of the day, we’re simply looking for films that create a meaningful experience in a room full of people. Our answer to that question is directly tied to our programming choices, but that answer might be different from yours. And that’s how it should be.

So then the question became “how do we receive them?” Do we make it free? Do we charge a fee? If we charge a fee, what do we charge?

Why it’s not free

The reason why I struggled with free is because when you have no sense of quality control, and that’s okay, but it requires either a lot of watching or a lot of ignoring. I worked in creative development, so while the people we had relationships could send us material for “free,” it also meant many scripts weren’t getting read and many people weren’t getting responses.

The other thing it almost incidentally does is it creates a closed-loop cycle of “if you know how to reach us, then you can reach us.” The how either comes from being an industry insider, a developed relationship or referral, or just pure luck. We can’t sustain a healthy industry of discovery with nepotism and coincidence. But we also couldn’t watch everything when the barrier to entry is too low.

Here’s where we landed.

Submission Fee is $40… with a catch.

$40 is a standard price point for film festivals, so we started there. We have cultivated an audience who trusts that we will show them something great, so we want filmmakers who feel their work is great enough to get seen in front of our audience, and don’t just see us as a room with a screen and projector.

The problem that Eddie struggled with a fee is because at its surface it feels “pay-to-play” or even borderline extraction. Many festivals will take filmmakers’ money without the filmmakers even knowing if their film was actually considered. Filmmakers can go broke submitting to numerous festivals because that’s just part of the process, but we didn’t want to do that. So here’s what we’re doing instead.

If we select to screen your film at Coffeehouse Cinema, you will get your submission fee completely refunded. We would be thrilled to give you an opportunity to screen at Coffeehouse Cinema and know we aren’t trying to take. We are trying to give.

Okay that’s cool, but what we if don’t select your film? If we don’t select to screen your film at Coffeehouse Cinema or want to retain your film for a potential screening down-the-line, we will give you back 50% of your submission fee. It’s our way of having our submitters support us and our community, but also letting them know we aren’t here to get rich on the back of submission fees.

We aim to get back to filmmakers within a two week period, but if they don’t hear us then they can follow up and we will get back to shortly. The earliest we would consider a film for submission is two months away from our next event.

Curated with intent

We are highly selective about what we program. Every block is built around tone, pacing, emotion, and conversation. We care deeply about how films complement one another and how an audience experiences the night as a whole.

A great film can entertain people. A great lineup creates an experience people remember.

There are some films that just don’t meet our standards. That’s fine, they are still welcomed at Coffeehouse Cinema and I encourage them to return and be inspired to make more great art.

And there are others that are incredibly interesting, but we can’t find an obvious place or reason to program it immediately without the right lineup. We want to keep those films in consideration too without telling the filmmakers to kick rocks. Either way, you’re getting half your money back. If at some point, we find a place for that film, we give them back the other half.

Time to Think Different

Coffeehouse Cinema exists in an interesting space. We are not exactly a film festival, and we are not exactly operating like a traditional production company or studio. What we are building is something different.

If we are building something that does not fit neatly into the old categories, then we cannot make every decision from inside those old categories.

It would be easy to borrow too heavily from existing models. We could operate like a nonprofit film festival organization, or we could adopt the behaviors of a studio or production company. But Coffeehouse Cinema is trying to define a different kind of value. That means we have to be willing to think differently, operate differently, and build a model that reflects what we actually are.

That will be an ongoing process. It may not always look familiar, but it should always be intentional. Our goal is to create something valuable for everyone involved: for Coffeehouse Cinema, for filmmakers, for partners, and for the audiences who show up and believe in what we are building.

More information and submission page here:

https://www.coffeehousecinema.com/submissions

Our next event is Friday July 24th at Re/creation Cafe. Tickets on sale Monday July 13th.

See you at the Coffeehouse.

Ellis