BendFilm Festival Named One of Moviemaker Magazine’s 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee of 2023

MovieMaker announced that BendFilm Festival has been named to its annual list of 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee, celebrating festivals that serve moviemakers and audiences in some of the best destinations in the world.

MovieMaker, a film magazine and website based in Los Angeles, compiles its annual list based on surveys, filmmaker testimonials, and visits to festivals, among other factors. Key considerations include how much assistance a festival provides to traveling filmmakers; recent premieres at the festival; opportunities to meet distributors, fans, fellow filmmakers and press; and whether festivals are Academy-qualifying.

“With the film world in a state of constant change in recent years, festivals are more important than ever to help audiences and distributors find new films, and to remind all of us why we devote so much of our lives to making and loving movies,” said MovieMaker editor Tim Molloy. “The festivals on this list work incredibly hard to make it feel effortless.”

On receiving this honor Head of Festival Programming Selin Sevinc said “Moviemaker Magazine’s inclusion of our festival in their annual list is the type of industry recognition that helps us receive a bigger pool of film submissions to choose from year to year. A growing number of film submissions means there will be an increasingly higher quality of films that we can share with our community in Central Oregon and the larger Pacific Northwest. We pride ourselves in being one of the few organizations that are devoted to arts and culture in Central Oregon and the 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee stamp of approval greatly supports our cause.”