I love the idea of film festivals. The romantic idea that they are a place where cinema might matter.

We are waiting on a final few before completing the festival cycle - but we have had 43 rejections. No interest at all from any “local” film festivals. Dungog and Sydney both rejected the film. I called and emailed SFF, and was not even replied to. We had a last minute glimmer of an offer from Dungog, but they seem content showing mostly films that have been in general release at Hoyts.

More and more I feel that the festival circuit is a pile of shit. The open entry system appears to be merely a paper pushing facade for an actual selection process that depends entirely on whom the filmmakers, and more importantly their distributors know.

I’ve wasted an enormous amount of time learning this and entering all these festivals. I don’t mind that they are a commercial and corporate concern, but I wish that they would drop the charade and simply select the films that they are lobbied to do - be open and transparent in their festival marketing and branding exercise. I would be shocked if any festival accepted our film now. It’s a good film. Real Australian Cinema. Audiences like it, and I am the harshest critic.

At least I know that the next film we make should be gently inserted into the rectum of the festival director over a long lunch - and then we’ll be getting somewhere… TR

This entry was posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under film, film crew, film festivals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.