Film website for trailer, screenings and press kit

Who visits, and when

What each visitor to an indie film website is looking for
Visitor	Looking for
Festival programmer	Logline, runtime, format, premiere status, a trailer, the director's previous work
Journalist or critic	Synopsis in two lengths, high-resolution stills, credits, director's statement, a press contact
Audience	Where and when they can see it, and how to get tickets
Distributor or sales agent	Festival history, rights status, contact for screeners
Cast and crew	Their credit, spelled correctly, and something to share

The pages

Home: Title, poster or key still, logline, the trailer and the next screening.
Screenings: Upcoming dates with city, venue, festival and a ticket link; past screenings below.
Press: Synopsis (short and long), director's statement, technical specs, stills and poster, and a press contact.
Cast and crew: Full credits in the order of the end titles, with links where people want them.
Contact: Who to write to for press, festivals and sales.

Anticode builds multi-page sites, so these can be separate pages with their own addresses, which matters for the press page: you'll paste its link into dozens of festival submissions. A short film website can fold everything onto one long page if the film's run is small.

The trailer

Published Anticode pages block embedded players and can't play video files, so a Vimeo or YouTube embed won't work and neither will an uploaded trailer. Show a still with a clear "watch the trailer" link to the hosted version instead. Many filmmakers pair that public link with a private screener for programmers, which you send by email rather than putting on a public page.

Screenings as a collection

During a festival run, dates change weekly. Keep screenings in a CMS collection, one entry per screening, with fields for the date, city, venue, festival, a ticket link and a short note ("Q&A with the director"). Entries are edited in the dashboard, so adding a new date doesn't mean touching the design. Move past screenings down the list rather than deleting them; a long list of past festivals is a credential in itself.

Laurels only where they're real

Festival laurels are the quickest shorthand a film has, and the easiest to misuse. Use them only for festivals that actually selected the film, and only with the right word: "Official Selection", "Nominee" or "Winner" mean different things, and programmers notice the difference. Use the festival's own laurel artwork where they provide it, check any rules they set for its use, and don't count submission platforms or pay-to-enter award schemes as festival selections. Six genuine laurels beat twenty doubtful ones.

Building it

Describe the film and what the site should hold: "a movie website for a film called Low Tide, a 14-minute drama, with trailer, screenings, press kit and full credits". Upload the poster and stills so the model can see and place them, and give it the trailer's link. Editorial (Geist) and Luxury (Jost) suit most dramas; Brutalist or Playful suit genre and comedy shorts. A domain such as lowtidefilm.com on a paid plan is easier to print on a poster.

Limits

No video on the page. Embedded players and uploaded video files don't play; link out.
No password-protected screener page. Published pages are public; send private screener links by email.
No ticket sales. Link to the festival or cinema's own ticketing.
No downloads from forms. Keep the full-resolution press pack in a shared folder and link to it.

Questions people ask

Does a short film need its own website?

Not always, but a press page at a stable address makes festival submissions and press requests easier, and it's where people land when they search the title.

Can the site sell the film after its festival run?

Not directly. If you sell downloads or rentals through a platform, link to it from a buy button.

Can I add reviews?

Yes, short quotes from published reviews with the outlet's name and a link. Use only real ones.