How Film Festivals Have Evolved Over The Years with Bill Ostroff

This week’s guest is Bill Ostroff, the First Glance Film Festival Director who tells us how indie film festivals have evolved in the past 20 years. Bill shares his insights on festival submission trends, storytelling, camera technology and most importantly marketing. First Glance Films is the creator of the hashtag #SupportIndieFilm that has engaged and united thousands of indie film makers around the world.

William Ostroff, the FirstGlance Film Festival’s creator and director, is a Producer, Independent Media Consultant and DGA Assistant Director who has worked on over 100 film and television productions. He graduated from Temple University in 1993 with a degree in film and video and has since worked with major studios such as Disney, Warner Bros, Universal, Dreamworks, and Paramount on feature films and television series.

As the FirstGlance Film Festival Director, he has produced 37 film festivals to date, has watched over 20,000 indie films and is hands on with programming and decision making of all aspects of the Film Festivals. In 2013, he created the World’s Largest Traveling Comic Con Film Festival, which has screened genre indie films to over 5 million attendees over the 1st fours year in 2 countries, with plans of taking this concept global. He continues to work on expansion and new avenues for exposure for filmmakers including creating the hashtag #SupportIndieFilm which is globally accepted as the go to branding on all social media platforms.