Is premiere status really that important?

Few topics create more confusion among filmmakers than premiere status.

Ask ten filmmakers what it means, and you’ll often get ten different answers — some rooted in experience, many rooted in rumor. The result is a strange mythology where premiere rules feel simultaneously rigid, arbitrary, and mysterious.

So let’s ground this in reality.

Is premiere status really that important?

The honest answer is frustratingly unsatisfying:

Sometimes yes.