Over the years in submitting films to festivals I have had my share of good and bad ones, as I'm sure did anyone reading this post who has made submissions. There are festivals that will reply you and maybe even send you a letter even if they don't take your film, even if they didn't take money from you, there are those who would give you comments and feedback on your films and there are those that are plain just interested in the money you can give to them.
The San Diego Asian Film Festival is one of the latter. I submitted my film to them last year and communicated with them via email and even spoke to them on the phone. They were all nice and friendly and all like that, that is, until I sent them the submission dvd with the submission fee. I never heard from them again. I had to log on to their site when their 2010 festival was ongoing to find that my submission was not accepted. I emailed them and did not receive any replies from them. I did not make another expensive overseas phone call to them from where I was.
Its interesting that they couldn't be bothered to even send an email which would cost them zero cents to inform me. Sure, they have hundreds, maybe thousands of submissions, but after taking money from film makers, they couldn't even be bothered to take one minute to send an email out.
I understand that I'm not some big festival favorite or John woo, so I guess I'm just not in their sights, that's fine, lesson learned. Those of you thinking of submitting to the SDAFF, be warned.
The San Diego Asian Film Festival is one of the latter. I submitted my film to them last year and communicated with them via email and even spoke to them on the phone. They were all nice and friendly and all like that, that is, until I sent them the submission dvd with the submission fee. I never heard from them again. I had to log on to their site when their 2010 festival was ongoing to find that my submission was not accepted. I emailed them and did not receive any replies from them. I did not make another expensive overseas phone call to them from where I was.
Its interesting that they couldn't be bothered to even send an email which would cost them zero cents to inform me. Sure, they have hundreds, maybe thousands of submissions, but after taking money from film makers, they couldn't even be bothered to take one minute to send an email out.
I understand that I'm not some big festival favorite or John woo, so I guess I'm just not in their sights, that's fine, lesson learned. Those of you thinking of submitting to the SDAFF, be warned.
