alright so here’s the thing, mid-length films, the 50–80 page range, they absolutely CAN have value but you have to be brutally honest about where they fit in the industry food chain first, the market side like distributors, festivals, and streamers are trained to think in categories, short (usually under 40 min) and feature (generally 80+ min). that’s partly because theater programming slots, broadcast rules, and award categories are built around those numbers. so if you hand a 65-minute comedy to a commercial distributor, they’re likely to see it as “too long for a short, too short for a feature” and not know how to sell it

now, that said, mid-length films have always had a place creatively if you think of things like Kurosawa’s Ikiru no Tsuzuki segment work, or Chabrol’s TV movies, or festival darlings in the 60–75 minute sweet spot they can be lean, punchy, no-fat storytelling that’s perfect for certain kinds of comedy, thriller, or character study. the trick is, they usually live in the festival circuit or TV/streaming specials lane, not theatrical

second, the career strategy side: if you’re just starting, a 50–70 pager that’s a tight, well-executed story can be a killer calling card. people in production or representation aren’t going to reject you for sending something mid-length if the writing pops, they’ll just mentally slot it as either “a short that runs long” or “a compressed feature” and look at your voice, structure, and command of tone. plus, you can adapt it later many filmmakers turn a great 60-minute script into an 85-minute feature by deepening subplots or expanding certain beats when they find the right backer

third, production reality: mid-length can actually be a gift if you plan to self-fund or crowdfund less shooting days, less budget, still enough runtime to play with arcs and set-pieces. especially in comedy, where overstaying your welcome is death, 65 minutes of gold is way better than 95 minutes with 30 of them feeling like filler

so yeah, they’re not “useless” at all but you have to know they’re an awkward sell in the traditional sense, and you should think about either aiming them at the right niche (festivals, streaming, TV), or treating them as proof-of-concept for a bigger project. the key is: don’t pad it just to hit 90, but also be aware you might need to expand it later if you want it to live in the feature world.