This is an oft-seen reply: “too many submissions”. What to do? Will festivals cut off the number? They can’t possibly watch all submissions. Will a deadline be reliably administered? Here seems like a good forum for such a discussion, if only from the submitters side (best if festival reps would comment, too).
Hats off to Celluloid Now (Chicago), for example, who limit in one manner by requiring proof that a submitter already has a physical film ready to screen (although maybe they get “too many” also). I realize this is not a solution, just an example I happen to know of. At the very least, whether you paid (and that certainly adds up, even if low amounts per) a submission fee or not, we wish for our work to be seen and considered. Can’t tell if this always happens. Sandy On Tue, Aug 26, 2025 at 12:34 PM Dominic Angerame < [email protected]> wrote: > Over the past three years I have created a large volume of work and have > been spending a major fortune entering various film festivals around the > world, both large and small. Unfortunately the rejection notices amount to > more than 200. What I am told constantly is that the volume of work entered > had been incredibly large and many films had to be turned down. What I > figured out is that the average chance of being shown at a film festival is > about 5%. One major festival I know about had thousands of films entered. > Yet the amount of films that were shown were less than 1% of the entries. > With entry fees averaging about $30-$40 per film it appears that many of > the Festivals have just become pyramid schemes whose only purpose is to pay > for administrative costs and the return to the filmmakers financially is > minimal. > > I have better chances of winning money on a scratch off lottery ticket > than to get accepted into a film festival. The only power filmmakers have > is to boycott those festivals that charge such high entry fees. There is no > need for them and no pay back for the filmmakers. > > Now the only festivals I entered offer no entry fees or those less than > $15. When asked to enter film festivals charging more than this fee, I send > the film festival a rejection letter. It may not have much effect however > it feels great to reject a film festival than receiving a rejection from > them. > > Thanks for reading this. > > Dominic > -- > Frameworks mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.film-gallery.org/mailman/listinfo/frameworks_film-gallery.org >
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