A Good Reason Not to Submit to Comic-Con Film Festival
I submitted my short film "Stull" to the Comic-Con International Film Festival in March of 2010. The submission guidelines required you to include a self-addressed stamped envelope. Last week, I got that envelope back in the mail. Filled with some other filmmaker's films.
No rejection letter from Comic-Con International Film Festival. In fact, no communication of any kind. I had assumed, from the fact that the Con happened without my hearing from them, that my short wasn't accepted. But now I get proof positive that my film and that of some other poor filmmaker was not even properly categorized. What proof do I have that my film even got a fair evaluation?
Sure, any film festival can have a slip-up. But here's the thing: the Con submission required the additional expenses of promo photo prints, the SASE and four (!) copies of the film. Why did I pay for all that if they weren't going to return it in a timely manner so I can reuse those materials for other festival submissions? Most film festivals are slow -- then again most film festivals have a tracking system to, uh, track films!
Since filmmakers can easily distribute short films online to a much wider and more appreciative audience than most festivals can gather, I'm hoping that the broken system of film festival submissions starts getting fixed. Lord knows withoutabox.com is a nightmare. They disappeared my money too, but that's another story.
Sorry for the rant, but don't piss off a filmmaker with a blog!
NOTE: Before posting this, I sent an email to the address on their website to ask what happened. No response. If you represent Comic-Con International Independent Film Festival and didn't see the email, here's the gist of it:
An apology and the replacement costs for the DVDs, photos and SASE would be a good place to start.
Filmmakers, if you know anyone at Comic-Con Film Festival, please send them the link and let them know that it is not okay to rip off filmmakers!
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September 7th, 2011 - 09:30
Yikes. That’s ridiculous.
September 12th, 2011 - 11:53
As someone who attends a lot of film festivals as press and sees the back-end of what happens at both the best run, and the more poorly organized, I can definitely attest that there is no excuse for this lack of care for your screeners and lack of communication in general. Go get em sir!