From: Anna Biller (email suppressed)
Date: Thu Jun 04 2009 - 08:44:44 PDT
I have had the same experience: not hearing that a film was selected
and finding out only by looking at the website. Also, yes, they often
will screen from the preview DVD when you applied to screen on film. I
used to bring my own 16mm projector sometimes to screenings when I
found out they wanted to screen on video; sometimes I've hired my own
projectionist for 35mm in another city when the festival didn't want
to bother although they had a 35mm projection booth. But of course
this is ridiculous. Once I applied to a festival and sent them a
print, and found out they were screening from the preview VHS tape. I
traveled to the festival and asked that they use the print, and they
(the programmers)! were unaware of the difference between a print and
a tape, so I had to explain it to them and they seemed put out by my
request. We had to dig around in the office and locate my print, they
dug up an extra projector, and we got a really surly volunteer to run
it. I used to think it was not worth it to screen if I couldn't screen
on film and would withdraw my film if possible if they said they had
to screen it on DVD, but it increasingly is a losing battle. The worst
thing is that the programmers often don't seem to recognize an
important difference.
On Jun 4, 2009, at 1:58 AM, Peter Snowdon wrote:
> Curious, but this made me think: I don't think I've ever NOT
> received a notification from an experimental/AG film festival,
> whether my film was rejected or selected.
> However, several times since I started dealing with more mainstream
> fiction-biased festivals, I've heard nothing back, and only
> discovered after the fact by checking on the festival website that
> my film was not selected. Some of the larger festivals even include
> disclaimers in their application conditions, to the effect that you
> should not expect notification if not selected -- or even if
> selected (are they serious about that?!). Still, some of the ones
> that didn't notify me were festivals which hadn't made their policy
> on this clear in advance.
> OTOH, I have several times had films selected and even screened
> without my being notified directly, even via my Trash/Spam can... So
> there's obviously an element of cyber-serendipity/human error can
> creep in!
> However, my favourite rejection note was one I received recently by
> email, with the subject heading: "[Film Title]: Exclusion from XXX
> Festival".
> I was expecting to read that I had sent a preview DVD which had
> destroyed three Power Books before self-destructing itself/provided
> them with 7 JPEGs in 287 dpi and a short biographical note when what
> they needed was 6 TIFFS in 349 dpi plus a photocopy of my life
> insurance policy/been identified by one of their interns as 'the'
> Peter Snowdon who was briefly associated with the Red Brigade in the
> early 70s and still had several arrest warrants outstanding in their
> country...
> But it turned out this was just their term for rejection.
> Now that's what I call getting a boy's hopes up...:)
>
> Here's what worries me, tho: roughly half the festivals that have
> screened a film of mine this year have asked me whether I am happy
> for them to screen from the preview DVD -- and one or two have even
> insisted that this is the only thing they can do, even tho they had
> seemed to offer other screening formats when I applied. Has anyone
> else noticed this trend?
>
> Peter
>
>
> On 6/3/09 7:01 AM, "Caryn Cline" <email suppressed> wrote:
>
> Dear Frameworkers,
>
> I’m submitting my experimental films to festivals again, after
> a hiatus of several years. When I submitted before, in the early
> 2000s, I always received a response from the festival, whether my
> work was accepted or rejected. Now, I find that festivals that
> reject my work rarely contact me at all.
>
> I wonder why this is the case? I’ve paid a fee to enter,
> usually, and it seems to me that the very least the programmers, or
> their interns, can do is to send me a form letter letting me know
> that my work didn’t make the cut. It would be even better to
> receive a thoughtful response with some feedback about my work. I
> realize that programmers often have a lot of entries to view and
> judge, but shouldn’t a response, even a canned response, to
> each and every filmmaker, be a standard of professional courtesy?
>
> I know that there are curators and programmers on this list. I will
> appreciate hearing their perspectives, as well as those of other
> filmmakers. I would also be interested to hear about festivals that
> do respond to all applicants.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Caryn Cline
> New York City
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________ For
> info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>
>
> ----- End Original Message -----
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.