[KineJapan] Fake film festivals

[Eija Niskanen]

We at Helsinki Cine Aasia film festival get often emails from Freeway and
other similar, who promise to provide us with films. We have absolutely no
need for that, as we select our program ourselves by going to Busan film
festival, Tokyo Film Festival, Filmex and Berlinale or such. We also have
good contacts to for ex.- Japanese distributors and they can be contacted
and asked for screener links.
I have no idea why any proper festival would need this in-betweener.
Eija

ma 26. elok. 2024 klo 2.22 Markus Nornes via KineJapan (
kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu) kirjoitti:

> While this is all fascinating, I think there is a more fundamental issue
> at hand. The festival circuit is huge now. Every little community has a
> film festival. They are all on the Freeway and they all charge people for
> entries. Even the little tiny ones. However, if you’re a famous filmmaker
> or a friend of the programmers, you can tapped directly and they often wave
> the fees. It is ridiculously expensive for independent filmmakers to break
> into festivals. Filmmakers need to craft their careers to ease into it. And
> filmmakers who know English go much further than anyone else because of it.
> Some years ago the Ann Arbor Film Festival fired its programmer, partly
> because he was letting all this friends into the festival free but charging
> everyone else for submission (and not everyone was being properly
> viewed—typical, I suspect). To their credit, the Ann Arbor Film Festival
> has a code of ethics and operates in a righteously transparent way. Check
> this out <https://www.aafilmfest.org/statement-of-integrity>. ) I think
> these fake festivals are insignificant compared to the real festivals that
> don’t actually give their (paid) submissions a fair shake.
>
> A personal example: our film *The Big House *showed around the world at
> many festivals and got distribution across Japan. If I submitted the film
> to the same festivals, I doubt they’d pick it up. But Soda’s name was
> attached and he could directly contact the festivals he’s already
> participated in…..
>
> Markus
>
>
>
> On Aug 25, 2024, at 5:29 PM, Aaron Gerow via KineJapan <
> kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:
>
> Thanks, Jasper. Searching online, it seems people are making a distinction
> between fake film festivals and pseudo film festivals. The latter is like
> the ones you mention, which do things like give everyone an award but make
> you pay for it, barely do any screenings, etc. But they do exist and they
> do something, though nothing like a full fledged film festival. The former,
> however, only take entry fees and then disappear. A total scam. These seem
> to be increasing in number since COVID. There are now a number of guides
> online on how to spot fake and pseudo film festivals.
>
> Aaron Gerow
>
> 8/25/24 午後12:07、Jasper Sharp <jasper_sharp at hotmail.com>のメール:
>
> Sadly an all too common phenomenon, especially since the advent some time
> ago now of online submission websites like Film Freeway where filmmakers
> pay a submission fee to various events of dubious legitimacy and find not
> only do their films not reach an audience, they don't reach critics or
> juries either. All you get in return for your money is a jpeg of some
> festival Laurels to add to your poster and promotional blurb.
> This has been going on for years, especially in North America, but also
> numerous small towns in the UK. I remember reading one such report in the
> Guardian about the Swansea Bay Film Festival as far back as 2011:
> https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/jun/27/swansea-bay-film-festival-disaster
>
> The object lesson here is if you can't get a film into an established film
> festival that has a reputation and a sizeable online presence, you probably
> shouldn't bother submitting.
>
>
> *The Creeping Garden <http://www.creepinggarden.com/>* - A Real-Life
> Science-Fiction Story about Slime Moulds and the People Who Work With them,
> directed by Tim Grabham and Jasper Sharp.
> Available now on Dual-Format Blu-ray/DVD from Arrow Films
> <https://arrowfilms.com/product-detail/the-creeping-garden-dual-format/FCD1435>
> .
> The book, *The Creeping Garden: Irrational Encounters with Plasmodial
> Slime Moulds *is out now from Alchimia Publishing
> <http://www.alchimiapublishing.com/creeping-garden/>.
> "A surprising investigation of perception, thought and life itself",
> Nicolas Rapold, *The New York Times
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/30/movies/review-the-creeping-garden-on-the-wonders-of-the-slime-mold.html>*
> .
> "An out-of-left-field nerdy delight", John DeFore, *Hollywood Reporter
> <https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/creeping-garden-fantasia-review-724416>*
> .
> "Strange, eccentric, diverting", Peter Bradshaw, *The Guardian
> <https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/mar/09/creeping-garden-review-slime-mould-film>*
> .
>
>
>
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-- 
Eija Niskanen
Programming director
Helsinki Cine Aasia, March 14.-17.2024
www.helsinkicineaasia.fi
+358-50-355 3189
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