Festivals first, online afterwards. A public online release can disqualify a film from any festival that requires a premiere, and that door shuts one way only — you can publish later, you cannot unpublish back into eligibility.
After the festival run, or at once if you were never aiming at one, there are three routes: publish free on a platform and be paid in reach; sign a rights deal with a distributor or a regional OTT and be paid in distribution you could not arrange yourself; or sell access directly and be paid per viewer you bring. It turns on whether your audience is large and indifferent or small and invested.
Everything else on this page is reversible. This is not: a public online release can disqualify a film from any festival that requires a premiere. Festivals compete for the right to show something first, and most of the ones worth entering ask for a world, national, state or city premiere in at least one section. Their rules generally treat a public upload as a screening that has already happened.
The asymmetry is the whole argument for the order. A film that has played festivals can go online any day you choose. A film that has been online cannot take itself back — the URL was public, the view count exists, and a submission form asking whether the film has been made available online now has an answer you would rather it did not have. People discover this while filling in that form, which is a season too late.
Two practical notes. Each festival is the only authority on its own rules: read the one in front of you rather than the internet’s summary of it. Some tolerate an unlisted or geo-blocked release, some do not, and some distinguish between a film being online and a film being on sale. And a private link sent to a programmer, a journalist or a jury is not a public release — that is a screener, and it is worth learning to send one that expires, carries the recipient’s own code on screen and cannot be downloaded. Sending one here means publishing the film into the public catalogue first, so we are the wrong tool while a premiere is still in play; the screener guide says so plainly, and compares the usual alternatives (sending a private screener link).
What it costs. An entry fee at most festivals, paid per festival and per deadline, whether or not you are selected. Then deliverables — a specific file or DCP, subtitle files, stills, a synopsis — and travel if you are programmed and want to be in the room. Fee-waived festivals exist and are worth hunting for.
What you give up. Time, and availability. A festival run is measured in seasons, and the film has to stay unavailable for most of it.
Who it suits. A film with a hook a programmer can describe in one sentence. A first-time director who needs the credit more than the money. Anything aimed at funding, representation, or the next, bigger project.
The failure mode. Spending the film’s remaining budget on entry fees to festivals picked off a list, collecting rejections, and keeping the film offline while it happens. Entry fees are a real cost with no floor under the return. Choose a small number of festivals that actually programme your kind of work, and fix a date after which the film goes out regardless of what has come back.
What it costs. Nothing to upload. You pay in the currency the platform deals in: your film becomes inventory for a recommendation system, and the system decides whether anyone sees it.
What you give up. Premiere status, first and irreversibly. Then price: the film is free from that moment, and a film that has been free is very hard to charge for afterwards. Then context — what plays next, what advertising runs in front of it, and whether it is surfaced at all.
Who it suits. A calling card. If the point is to be hired, seen or subscribed to, reach is the thing you want, and nothing else here delivers reach like a free public upload with a thumbnail that works.
The failure mode. Expecting it to pay. Advertising is settled per thousand views against a rate you do not set, and most independent films never reach the volume at which that becomes money — while the people who would have paid get it for nothing. We have worked that comparison out properly in ads versus tickets.
What it costs. Usually nothing up front. You are paying in rights rather than rupees, which makes it the cheapest route to enter and the most expensive one to get wrong. Budget for paperwork as well: a licensed service will come back asking for a self-classification rating, content descriptors and grievance details, because the IT Rules 2021 put those obligations on the publisher and the publisher passes the request down to you. That is deliverables work, not a censor certificate, and the two are routinely confused (whether you need a CBFC certificate).
What you give up. Whatever the contract says, which is why this is the route where reading matters most. Find five things before signing: the term (how long the licence runs), the territory, whether it is exclusive and whether that exclusivity also blocks festival screenings, what triggers payment and how often you are shown the numbers behind it, and what happens to your master file when the term ends.
Who it suits. A film with an audience the distributor already reaches — regional-language work especially, where a platform with a state-level subscriber base can put your film in front of people you have no way of contacting. That reach is real, and you cannot buy it at any price.
The failure mode. An exclusive with no minimum guarantee and no committed release date. The film is then unavailable everywhere else, including from you, and nothing obliges anyone to publish it. Ask for a reversion clause: if the film is not released by a stated date, the rights come back.
What it costs. On watchmycreation, a listing fee of ₹99 keeps a film up to 15 minutes on sale for 90 days, rising with runtime, and is paid again only if you want another period. Then four deductions from each ticket: tax, the payment gateway, streaming and a flat platform fee. On a ₹20 ticket for a 10-minute film, ₹12.74 reaches the filmmaker. Put your own runtime and price into the earnings calculator rather than taking that example as yours.
What you give up. Premiere status, the same as a free upload. Selling requires publishing, a published film appears in the public catalogue, and most festivals treat a paid public release as a premiere spent — there is no hidden or unlisted mode here that would let you avoid that. After that, reach, and nothing else. No rights move: a ticket licenses one viewer to watch and does nothing more, we ask for no exclusivity, and you can be selling here while negotiating elsewhere. Each buyer gets 1 complete playthrough inside a 12-hour window that starts when they press play, not when they pay; stopping partway through and coming back later does not spend anything, and only a film watched all the way to the end uses the ticket up.
Who it suits. A filmmaker with a list. A cast and crew’s networks, a festival audience that asked where they could see it again, a newsletter, a college, a community that turns up. Small and invested beats large and indifferent, by a wide margin.
The failure mode, said plainly. Nobody comes. We are not a destination with an audience waiting to be introduced to your film. There is a catalogue, and it is not traffic. If you cannot name the people who would pay for a ticket, this route earns nothing and a free upload would at least have been watched.
| Route | What it costs | What you give up | Right when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Festivals | Entry fees and deliverables, per festival | Availability, for a season | The film needs a credit, a jury or a programmer more than it needs money now |
| Free and public | Nothing up front | Premiere status, and most of the pricing power | You want reach, and the film is a calling card |
| Rights deal | Usually nothing up front | Rights, for a term — possibly exclusive | Someone can reach an audience you cannot, and will commit to a date |
| Sell access yourself | A listing fee per period, then per-ticket deductions | Premiere status, and reach | You can name the people who would pay |
Most films should pass through more than one. The usual order is festivals, then a paid window, then free and public, because each step forecloses the one before it: you can charge for a film and later give it away, while charging for a film you have already given away is very hard. A listing here ends on its own at the close of its period, with a 7-day grace period before the film comes off sale, which makes a paid window a stage rather than a commitment.
The free route and the paid route also overlap more than people expect. A film on sale here can carry a trailer hosted on YouTube or Vimeo — we do not host trailers — because that is where a trailer gets found. The public thing is the trailer; the film is what you sell.
Name the people who would pay for a ticket before you choose a platform at all. If you cannot name them, that is the problem to solve first: selling access converts an audience into money and does not create one, and the routes that do create one — a programmer, a recommendation system, a distributor’s subscriber base — pay you in something other than money.
Published by Sajai Digital, which operates watchmycreation. We describe how our own platform works and what Indian law requires of it; this is not legal, tax or financial advice, and rates and rules change. Check anything that matters with a professional. Something wrong on this page? Write to support@watchmycreation.com and we will fix it.