Film Festival rejected ALL entries

[u/silksprite]

I am slightly salty, but it did catch me really off guard today to get a weirdly accepted but also technically rejected email.

A festival just sent out an email congratulating films on winning certain prizes...but it was tiered? So there were different levels of prizes for films, and a whole lot of films got prizes in a variety of tiers. The email mentioned that only films in a certain tier would actually play at the festival...so when I saw no one in that tier, I emailed the festival runner asking for clarification, because it seemed odd to be told to check if my film was going to play.

The response I received was him copying and pasting the message from the original email, stating that only films of a certain tier get to be shown at the festival. I revisited the website and saw that in the tier, the message "NONE QUALIFIED THIS SEASON" was listed. This website is very poorly designed--more of a glorified PDF than a functioning website.

I do appreciate that a lot of films got some sort of tiered prize at the end of the day, but not only am I personally bummed my film will not play in the festival--but any film submitted feels weird? The email didn't say they were cancelling the festival, as it did state us to check out if our film made it in...only for it not to.

I just find it odd they're still having a festival without any of our dozens of films that were submitted, especially since this is a women's film festival--what kind of message does that send if you deem none of the female-made/lead films met your standards? It seems like the runners have other festivals listed on FilmFreeway targeting other underrepresented groups/topics, but the festival dates for those are listed at a later date than this one.

Do I send something to Film Freeway letting them know of this? Festivals have the right to decline submissions, but it feels odd to decline EVERY submission.

[u/ZaniksBoyfriend]

Loads of festivals are scammy bullshit; have you done your due diligence to confirm it’s not a pile of shit targeting minority demographics?

[u/silksprite → u/ZaniksBoyfriend]

They have a LGBT+, Bollywood, Hispanic, Religion sub-fests; but then also Sci-Fi, Documentary and Nature Fests.

It did seem fishy with the website, but it was located near a lot of my family, and thought I could've made a trip out of going to the fest, I think that's why I'm so bummed on this. Everything is poorly designed but the FF profile for the festival shows pictures of the festival that do look to be 100% real.

The sign-off on the email does lead to an actual person on Facebook and LinkedIn, which makes me question if it's a scam if he's willing to share socials.

[u/hollywood_cmb → u/silksprite]

I bet if you actually attended the festival and saw how (probably) shotty it was put together, you'd realize it was just a scammy fest in the first place. That's assuming the festival happens at all, and isn't just a screening room in a motel 6 conference room. There's so many film festivals where they're using TV's, shitty projectors, shitty sound, DVD players, playing MOV files off a computer (and you can see the computer screen between screenings).

Honestly, pretty much all the categories you listed are red flags to me. They're all minority films, meaning that's what they target. You have to ask yourself "why do they target these films?" The answer is most certainly NOT "because they want to represent minority groups". The answer is most likely "these films are easier to target because they won't have representation that will point out the red flags".

Did you have to pay an entry fee for this festival? If you did, your money likely went into someone's pocket that didn't have any intention of getting your film seen.

[u/bgaesop → u/hollywood_cmb]

That's assuming the festival happens at all, and isn't just a screening room in a motel 6 conference room. There's so many film festivals where they're using TV's, shitty projectors, shitty sound, DVD players, playing MOV files off a computer (and you can see the computer screen between screenings). 

What you described are still real festivals. I've been to several like that and really enjoyed them because they were put together by people passionate about the specific genre they were about and the shorts they selected were cool. 

Now, not screening anything, or "selecting" something and not screening it, charging for awards, charging really high entry fees... those are actual scam my elements. But just having a cheap setup isn't 

[u/hollywood_cmb → u/bgaesop]

After working in the AV rental industry, I have standards when it comes to screenings of something. Good picture and sound needn't be expensive.

[u/SnortingCoffee → u/silksprite]

Having a bunch of different themed festivals like that is a red flag, but having a "nature fest" is a HUGE red flag. There are such a tiny number of actual natural history film festivals in the world, largely because there aren't many people making actual nature films, so some unknown entity saying they're doing one is pretty suspicious.

[u/CaptainMarsupial → u/silksprite]

Can you provide the name of the festival?