FILM FESTIVAL PLANNER
See the whole festival run
before you spend a single fee.
Lay your festival strategy out as a campaign map: tier the festivals, sequence deadlines against your finish date, track every submission and outcome, and keep the press kit beside the plan. Storyflow is paid-only during early access, with plans from $9.99 a month, and a Free plan launches before the end of 2026.
Plans from $9.99/mo
Free plan coming late 2026
Works in your browser
Used by creative professionals at:
Artlist
Pixar
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Start from a ready-made template
Pick a board to see what you can build, then let AI fill it in. Every template is a real, editable starting point on the same infinite canvas.
Pre-Production
Pull the brief, script, shot list, and moodboard into one pre-production hub so the whole shoot is planned in one place.
What is a film festival planner?
A film festival planner is a tool for working out where a finished film should go, in what order, and what has to be true for each submission to make sense. It holds the festivals you are targeting, the tiers they fall into, the deadlines and fees attached to each one, the state of every submission you have sent, and the materials a programmer or journalist will ask for the moment something lands. The submissions themselves happen on FilmFreeway. The strategy, which is the part that decides whether those submissions were worth the fees, has to live somewhere else.
A festival run is a campaign, not a submission form. The mistake almost every first-time filmmaker makes is treating it as a list of deadlines to hit, when the thing that actually matters is the shape of the run: which premiere burns which eligibility, which A-list rejection you need back before a regional deadline closes, which genre festival is a fallback and which is a goal. A world premiere at a small local festival can quietly disqualify you from the majors you were saving the film for. That kind of mistake is invisible in a spreadsheet row and obvious on a map, because it is a problem of sequence and dependency, not of dates.
Storyflow is an AI-native infinite canvas built for exactly this kind of campaign. Describe your film and your goals in a prompt and the AI lays out a structured festival board: tiers to sort candidates into, a submission tracker, and space for the assets. Then you do the strategic work by hand, dragging festivals between tiers, sequencing waves of submissions against your finish date, and marking what each acceptance or rejection unlocks. Re-prompting builds around the cards you have already placed, so the plan grows without being rearranged under you.
Planning a festival run means working across five connected layers: the tier map (premiere-eligible A-list targets, strong regionals, genre and niche festivals, and locals), the deadline sequence (early, regular, and late deadlines laid against the date the film is actually finished), the submission tracker (what was sent where, with which fee or waiver, and what came back), the premiere logic (which festivals require a world or international premiere and which acceptance would burn it), and the asset kit (press kit, stills, trailer, poster, and bios, ready the day a programmer asks). Storyflow keeps all five visible at once, which is what makes the shape of the run, and the mistakes hiding in it, findable before the money is spent.
HOW IT WORKS
From a finished film to a run you can defend.
No database to configure and no template to fight. Describe the film and start sorting festivals into tiers.
01
Open a canvas
Sign up in seconds, from $9.99 a month. No download. Your festival planning canvas opens in the browser.
02
Describe the film and the goal
Type what the film is, what it needs from the circuit, and where you are in post. The AI lays out a festival campaign board with tiers, a deadline sequence, and a submission tracker to fill.
03
Tier and sequence the run
Drag festivals into tiers, order the deadlines against your finish date, and mark which premieres burn which eligibility. Move a festival between waves and see what the change does to the rest of the run.
04
Track, share, and hand over
Log every submission, waiver, and outcome as results come in. Share a view-only link with your producer or sales agent, or export the map as an image or PDF for a strategy call.
The whole campaign, mapped and movable.
Tiers, deadlines, submissions, and press materials on one infinite canvas.
AI builds a festival campaign board from your film
Start from a strategy, not a spreadsheet
Describe the film, the genre, and what you want the run to do, and the AI lays out a tiered festival board with a deadline sequence and a tracker. You start by editing a plan instead of staring at an empty grid.
See Storyflow for indie filmmakers →
Tiers and premiere logic you can actually see
The shape of the run is the strategy
Sort festivals into premiere-eligible A-list targets, regionals, and genre plays, then sequence them in waves. When the whole map is visible, the local screening that would burn your world premiere stops looking harmless.
Explore short film planning →
Research every festival before you pay for it
Know the festival before the fee
Give each candidate festival a card: dates, deadlines, fees, premiere requirements, the films it programmed last year, and why it fits yours. Deciding between two regionals is easier when the evidence sits side by side.
See the film pitch deck builder →
Press kit, stills, and trailer on the same canvas
Be ready the day something lands
Keep the press kit, selects of your stills, poster drafts, and trailer reference frames beside the plan. When a programmer or journalist asks for materials, everything is one scroll from the strategy, not in five folders.
Build a film lookbook →Unlimited boards. No object cap.
Open a canvas, describe the film, and start mapping the run. Storyflow is paid-only during early access, with plans from $9.99 a month, and a Free plan launches before the end of 2026.
Unlimited festival campaign boards on an infinite canvas
Basic AI usage to generate boards from prompts
Starter templates for campaign and production planning
Share view-only links with your producer or sales agent
BUILT FOR THE CIRCUIT
More than a list of deadlines.
A deadline list tells you when to pay. Only the whole map tells you whether you should.
Tiers, waves, and premiere eligibility on one map
Work across every layer of the campaign
The tier map: Sort every candidate into premiere-eligible A-list targets, strong regionals, genre and niche festivals, and hometown screenings. The tier a festival sits in decides when you submit to it, not the other way around.
Deadline waves against your finish date: Lay early, regular, and late deadlines out against the date the film is honestly finished. A wave you cannot make with a final mix is not a deadline, it is a fee, and the sequence makes that visible.
Premiere logic: Mark which festivals require a world or international premiere and connect each acceptance to the eligibility it would burn. The screening that quietly disqualifies you from your top tier shows up as a line on the map.
Outcome-dependent branches: Plan what happens on each result: if the A-list pass comes back, which regional wave goes out next, and by when. A run planned as branches survives rejection; a run planned as a list just stalls.
AI that can see the run you have already planned
Plan with an AI that knows your film
Prompt to work through the strategy: Ask it to rough out a tier structure for a 15-minute genre short, to suggest what a submission wave should contain, or to lay out a tracker for the festivals you have already chosen. It uses the whole board as context, so suggestions fit your run rather than a generic one.
It structures, it does not decide: Storyflow is a planning canvas, not an oracle. The AI lays out tiers, sequences, and trackers so the strategic question is visible; which festivals your film belongs at is a judgment only you and your team can make.
Iterate without losing the plan: Re-prompt as results come in and the AI builds around the cards you have already placed. The festivals you researched and the outcomes you logged stay exactly where they are.
The asset kit beside the strategy
Keep everything a programmer will ask for
Press kit and bios: Draft the synopsis, director's statement, and bios in the built-in document editor beside the board, so the words that represent the film live next to the plan for where it goes.
Stills, poster, and key art: Drag in your stills and poster drafts and pick selects on the canvas. The three images that will represent the film at every festival deserve more deliberation than a folder sort order.
Trailer and clip references: Grab frames from YouTube or Vimeo cuts of your trailer and pin them beside the plan, with links to the current versions. When a festival asks for materials, the answer is a scroll, not a search.
One tracker the whole team can see
Run the campaign with your team
Submission and outcome tracking: Log every submission with its date, fee or waiver code, and status, and move it through submitted, in consideration, accepted, or passed. Six months of a festival run is too long to keep in your head or your inbox.
View-only links for producer and sales agent: Share a view-only link and your producer, sales agent, or publicist sees the entire campaign in a browser with no account. A strategy call goes faster when everyone is looking at the same map.
Comments and handover: Collect notes and decisions as comments on the board, invite a collaborator to work on the same canvas, and export the plan as an image or PDF when someone wants a snapshot for a meeting.
Explore templates for your project
Every template opens as a real, editable board on the infinite canvas. Pick the closest fit and make it your own.
Pre-Production
Pull the brief, script, shot list, and moodboard into one pre-production hub so the whole shoot is planned in one place.
HOW WE COMPARE
Storyflow vs FilmFreeway, Notion, and Google Sheets.
FilmFreeway is where submissions actually happen, and nothing here replaces it. The comparison is about where the strategy lives. Every tool below is genuinely good at its job.
Storyflow
Recommended
Visual campaign map on an infinite canvas
AI builds the board from your film and goals
Press kit, stills, and trailer refs beside the plan
Submit to festivals and pay fees in one place
Filterable, sortable deadline database
Free plan available today
FilmFreeway
Visual campaign map on an infinite canvas
AI builds the board from your film and goals
Press kit, stills, and trailer refs beside the plan
Submit to festivals and pay fees in one place
Filterable, sortable deadline database
Free plan available today
Notion
Visual campaign map on an infinite canvas
AI builds the board from your film and goals
Press kit, stills, and trailer refs beside the plan
Submit to festivals and pay fees in one place
Filterable, sortable deadline database
Free plan available today
Google Sheets
Visual campaign map on an infinite canvas
AI builds the board from your film and goals
Press kit, stills, and trailer refs beside the plan
Submit to festivals and pay fees in one place
Filterable, sortable deadline database
Free plan available today
What creators are saying
Join early creators getting structured workspaces and AI that remembers their projects
“Storyflow has sped up my workflow by at least 3x, which means more flow state and more projects I can actually ship. It truly changed the way me and my team create.”
Reilin Joey
Director & YouTuber
“One prompt gets me a structured board. But the tactics are my favorite. I run my YouTube scripts through them and my intros and retention got better. It's amazing.”
Justkay
YouTuber & Freelance Filmmaker
“I used to juggle five apps to plan a project. Now I describe what I am making and get boards, lists, and a schedule. All in one place.”
George
@fernwehchronicles
Festival strategy questions, answered.
How to tier festivals, protect a premiere, track submissions, and where FilmFreeway fits.
The filmmakers who run good campaigns organize around shape, not deadlines. They tier their festivals first: premiere-eligible A-list targets, strong regionals, genre and niche festivals that fit the film, and local screenings last. Then they sequence submissions in waves against the film's real finish date, holding the premiere for the top tier and releasing lower tiers as results come back. They track every submission, fee, waiver, and outcome in one place, and they keep the press kit, stills, and trailer ready before anything lands. The common thread is that the whole run is visible at once, usually on a map or board, because the expensive mistakes are sequence mistakes: a premiere burned at the wrong festival, or a fee paid to a wave the film could not make.
Map the run before you pay for it.
Open a canvas, describe your film and your goals, and let AI lay out the first campaign board. Plans from $9.99/month, no download, and a Free plan is coming before the end of 2026.