September 13, 2009
5:25 am
By Eric M. Norcross

This morning I had an idea that stemmed from a series of festival rejections for two projects that are
currently pending "public screening" and "distribution".  Whilst this is a common place for my projects to
be early on in the promotional process, I decided to do a bit of research on the film festival system to
help with choosing my festivals to be a little more effective and efficient.

In this, I came across solid information that had secured a long standing suspicion: most film festivals do
not review all of their submissions, regardless of the monetary fee they've received from said
submissions.

Whilst this seems to be perfectly legal, it's by no mean moral.  My first course of action?  Start a group
to help create an undercurrent against all film festivals, so that official rules can be established that
would require that festivals adhere to the following practices:

1.        Film Festivals need to be legally required to view all submissions, otherwise refund submission
fees to submitting producers who did not get their films reviewed for exhibition and provide proof of the
review.

2.        Film Festivals need to be legally required to refund a portion of all submission fees for films that
are rejected without a detailed explanation, written for each individual film.

3.        Film Festival fees need to be capped at a pre-established rate, ensuring that festivals don't
demand absurd monetary fees for applications that may not make it to exhibition.

4.        A Commission needs to be formed that would "sign" all legitimate festivals as being a part of an
"Honest Festival Network", thereby adhering to the rules of this network.  It is in the agreement signed
by the festivals to join this network, that they will be legally required to adhere to the rules above and
future rules that may be established to ward off dishonest practices.