I wonder who puts up the money to have one of these showings & if that's why the director/producers didn't plan many festivals initially?

That's a very good question. I know you have to apply to a festival to have your film shown. In my search one day for something else, I came across the application form for one of the film festivals. It was long and detailed, but it was a .pdf file and I couldn't figure out a way to upload it to Photobucket so I could post it. If I could have, I would have because it was quite interesting.

I've never had the impression a production company had to pay to have their film shown. That would hardly be fair to companies that didn't have a lot of up-front money. However, there may be an application fee. I don't recall if the application form I found required a fee or not.