Introducing Hiike: Smarter Submissions, Stronger Festivals

Article by Brynne Norquist

I grew up ski racing. It was my sport for 11 years. In ski racing, if you miss a gate, you have two choices: ski off the course, or hike: climb back up, correct the missed gate, and finish the race, even knowing you’ve probably got a high chance of placing last in the competition. But it’s the only way to finish the race.

We’re building Hiike because the independent film market has missed its gate. The tools powering this ecosystem are outdated, and the market is being threatened by policy repeal and the consolidation of creative control. It’s the same spirit of resilience driving us to build something better for the film festival world.

Every successful independent film has had a successful festival run. So, it felt like a no brainer to solve for unnecessary inefficiencies in this space.

🎥 What is Hiike?

Hiike is a faster, smarter, and more intuitive platform form festival research, submissions, and management designed for both filmmakers and festivals.

For Filmmakers

Hiike is designed to take the guesswork out of festival submissions.

Submitting to festivals often feels like throwing your film into a void. And with high submission fees and transparency concerns, many filmmakers are left asking: Was my film even watched? Did I submit to the right place? Was that a waste of money? Is this festival even real? What was the point?

Hiike’s recommendation engine was built to change that.

Instead of relying on the “spray-and-pray” model we’re all too familiar with, Hiike helps filmmakers submit strategically:

• First, you tell us a bit about yourself and your film. Things like genre, length, budget, premiere status, themes, filmmaker affinities, and even your goals for distribution.

• Then, we take those details and match them against our curated database of real, currently running festivals in the U.S.. Things like their submission categories, rules & requirements, and previously programmed films.

• What you get? A personalized list of recommended festivals organized into four tiers, with similarity scores based on how aligned your film is with that festival.

This means no more messy spreadsheets, no more guesswork, and no more spending hundreds on submissions that were never a fit to begin with. Just clarity, strategy, and a better shot at success.

In other words, Hiike doesn’t just help filmmakers submit more efficiently. We help you submit intentionally.

Our manual festival search feature and database is 100% free, and the rec engine is just $15/project if filmmakers choose to use it.

For Festivals

Hiike is a complete submission and programming management platform designed for clarity, flexibility, and trust.

With a seasoned festival director with 30+ years of experience in the landscape AND a current assistant festival director on our team… we know firsthand how messy and time-consuming submission management can be.

That’s why Hiike is built to make the process smarter and more transparent, while saving your team time and helping your festival grow.

Here’s what you can do with Hiike:

• Review submissions in one centralized dashboard. Instead of submissions coming in as links in one clunky list, you can filter your view on submissions by submission categories, genre, or film type (narrative, doc, animation, new media, experimental, etc).

• See real-time analytics like average runtime, submission volume, and actually track how your team is progressing.

• Customize your scoring system. Not only can you set categories for judging each film, you can also set weights for what matters most to your festival. (Ex: Want to score both cinematography and dialogue, but value cinematography more? Just weight it higher.)

• Assign specific permissions to your team. Give different members of your team the right level of access on the platform— this can get as specific as assigning which screeners watch what, and you can even set a minimum number of viewers per film before final decisions can be sent out.

• Make submission categories searchable. Instead of relying on unstructured text entries, you can set your submission categories through a series of dropdowns for genre, sub-genre, film type, length, and filmmaker affinity, so your festival is easier to find for the right filmmakers.

• Show filmmakers their films are actually being watched. We’re integrated with Eluv.io rather than Vimeo to promote safe and secure submissions. You can toggle on view tracking analytics and build trust with submitters. No more “did they even open my link?” doubts.

• Discover new sponsors. While building our vetted database of U.S. festivals, we also collected their sponsors. Our sponsor discovery tool helps you identify leads based on region, focus, or even sponsor tier, so you can grow your partnerships and boost revenue.

• Use Hiike alongside your current solutions. We’re completely non-exclusive, so there’s no risk in trying us out while still accepting submissions elsewhere.

Whether you're a small team or an established festival, Hiike was built to meet you where you are and help you scale without burning out.

Hiike Hub & The Festival Accelerator

We’re not just building software. We’re building community.

Hiike Hub is our space for ongoing support: webinars, chats, resources, and 1:1 coaching for both filmmakers and festivals.

The Festival Accelerator is our 10-week virtual program to help new and growing festivals sharpen their foundation, boost revenue, and build long-term sustainability.

Whether you're launching your first season or scaling a legacy event, we're here to grow with you.

🚀 Who’s Behind Hiike?

We’re a small team with deep roots in both filmmaking and film festivals:

• (Me!) Brynne Norquist, a filmmaker-turned-distribution nerd who’s been pitching studios since I was 15 and launched Emerson’s first-ever distribution program, helping films reach festivals (which started this whole journey)!

• Tyler Knohl is our technical genius— she studied data science and business at Northeastern, is the assistant festival director at Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival, and has built Hiike’s backend AND frontend from scratch.

• Jon Fitzgerald, our third founder, is also the co-founder of Slamdance and former director of AFI fest, Santa Barbara, and many many more. He’s leading our Festival Accelerator and Hiike Hub: two programs offering personalized support, coaching, and community.

We’re a small team of real people who care deeply about this space. We want to make festivals' lives easier, and help more independent films reach the right audiences and actually get meaningful distribution beyond the circuit.

📉 The Current Landscape (and Why We’re Doing This)

The independent film world is at a turning point.

According to Keri Putnam’s recent study, festival attendance has dropped 38% since 2019, despite the fact that an estimated 6.6 million people still attend film festivals in the U.S. each year. But here’s the thing: there’s an estimated audience of over 20 million people who engage with film festivals.

That gap? That’s our opportunity. It's not that the audience isn’t there. It's that they haven't been brought in yet.

We believe festivals are the connective tissue between films and the people who need to see them, and the tools powering those festivals should reflect that.

But here’s the reality:

• Festival software hasn’t kept up with the needs of the modern filmmakers or festival organizers

• Trust is down massively, with many filmmakers unsure if their work is even being watched or if the festivals they’re submitting to are even real.

• Festival research is broken too. So many great films get lost in the noise because they simply don’t know how to get their films seen and think they’ll only be successful if they premiere at Sundance.

• And of the 5,500+ festivals listed on other platforms? We believe fewer than 1,500 are actually real and running. We know because we vetted every one of them, manually.

We’re not just another submission platform. We’re creating a new standard for how films are submitted, how festivals are discovered, and how trust is restored on both sides of the process.

Because a successful festival run is a vital step in the success of an independent film. Since the repeal of the Paramount Decree in 2022, there’s a real risk for consolidation of creative control, and the independent film market being indefinitely threatened.

So with integrity, transparency, and purpose, it’s our goal to not only keep this market alive, but thriving.

What’s Next

Hiike launches publicly on May 1, 2025, and we’re onboarding 50 Founding Festivals for our initial rollout.

Festivals who join early will receive:

• A 9% lifetime submission fee (vs. our competitors’ 12%)

• Full access to our festival dashboard and sponsor database

• A chance to help shape our platform through biannual feedback calls

• And zero payments until your next call for entries actually opens

You can stay on other platforms. Hiike is non-exclusive. But by joining now, you’ll be part of a movement to modernize how festivals and filmmakers connect.

🤝 Want In?

• Festival Organizers: Book a Demo Here

• Filmmakers: Join the Waitlist

Or just comment below. We’re a real team, building something real, and we’d love to talk.

Thanks for being part of this journey. Whether you’re running a festival, making films, or simply rooting for the future of independent film, we’re right there with you.

Let’s Hiike, and finish the race together.

💙
Brynne & the Hiike team

(ps. apologies for only 2 articles this week. There will be 2 film-tech articles next week)