With name of God the Almighty the Merciful.
Peace to you.
I don't know how many hearts I broke over the weekend but I do know there are over hundreds of them including their families and friends who must have heard the news about “not being accepted in a film festival”. A strange sadness came over me whereas I should be happy that after 4 years of preparation, countless sleepless nights, hard work, patience, rejection, perseverance, dedication and support of hundreds of people, I should be very happy that we are on track to launch the first Crossover Film Festival, if wishes God, and yet, I can't stop thinking what you must be feeling.
We had made a simple rule at CFF, all films will be judged with the “Truth”, the Truth will be the starting point for all the CFF judges and team members. The Truth can never be hidden and it can never be changed, it does not care about status, class, culture, nationality or the color of your skin, or what you believe in, it's just the Truth, we can't mess with the Truth and all arguments end at that.
You are the "CFF Official Participant" -
It’s a very difficult task to judge over subjective films with objectivity, no matter how good or bad they are, if someone says the opposite, they probably didn't watch your film, like a lot of the festivals have been accused of, but we went through them all, every single one of them, over 750. So I say this to you.
This is not a refusal or rejection letter, this is what we had promised to everyone, that we will do, reach out and build that bridge of communication that allows the filmmaker to go through a process of feedback and constructive criticism so we can improve from there and do better than yesterday. Without your film this festival might be irrelevant. You deserve your due credit. Download your "CFF Official Participant" laurel from this link -https://filmfreeway.com/laurels/44563/CrossoverFilmFest
You are the Official Participant at the Crossover Film Fest. By submitting your film, you participated, participants are not accepted or rejected, they contribute, and that's what you did at CFF 2018. You took a chance, you probably did your research on us and you believed there is hope in it so you decided and made up your mind and you did it, you actually participated. You should get a laurel saying that. “Official Participant Crossover Film Fest”.
Withoutabox and FilmFreeway don't have any other option except to say “Accepted” or “Rejected”. There is no middle ground there. We would like to change that. If we plan to accept film submissions on our own platform from 2019 we will try to come up with other options instead of the only two stated above. Like, Official Submission, Official Participant, Official Selection Main Event, Official Selection Online Viewing, Official Selection Next Year Qualifier, Official Selection Work in Progress and so forth.
This will allow the fest and the filmmaker to work together on a long term basis and truly look at their craft and see how it can be improved or marketed to benefit your film. It shouldn't be just about you submitting your work and then run onto the next one and we doing the same, there should be more to it if. We both want something constructive to come out of the interaction and efforts. A filmmakers ultimate goal is that his work should be seen and if he could get real feedback on it, let us together find ways to do that. It's a crossroad that one needs to cross, to move forward and stand on either side of the isle and actually communicate and not just talk. Feel free to give fest feedback hello@crossoverfilmfest.com
There were many, many films, that should have made it, but there are certain things that stopped that from happening. Some of those circumstances were beyond our control. Like time. We started with 3 hours, then moved to 4 and then to 6 and also changed venues from Alamo Drafthouse Cinema to NOVA Lakeside Theater, because we wanted to run as many films as possible. But we did not expect to receive so many. Just think about it, how do we run over 700 films, we would need a month long festival, maybe we should think about doing that for 2019.
Feature Films and Musicals -
One would say that all films coming in should be screened or accepted. What makes one film better than the other? How do you judge that? Everyone thinks their work is of some significance, and they have a point, so we are working on redesigning the fest in such a way that only those that will make it to screening would apply so there is no game of acceptance and rejection in the future and no shortage of screen time.
How can we run feature film in 6 hours? That means the entire 2018 CFF would run just
2 features. That won't be fair, so we had to decide skipping all the Feature Films and the Musicals from this years festival and move them to 2019 to atleast be able to screen about 20 or so short films. But this did not mean that your film wasn't worth it. This means we need to add more time to the fest in terms of accommodating long duration formats.
Note on Sex, Nudity, Excessive Violence and Abusive Language -
Some of the films were really very good, nicely produced, but we just couldn't add them, as that would go against our own rule set forth and mentioned online that “There are exceptions but this is a family fest so avoid nudity, sex, and lewdness, excessive violence and abusive language and see if you can tell a story without that.” We are planning to work on a more open fest geared towards a mature audience. But that does not make your film good or bad or worth rejection or acceptance. For many, your work could be a cool work of art but we won't ask anyone to censor what they think, we can only try and abide by own rules that we set up for CFF. It's very difficult to find a film that will be suitable to all audience but we took a chance on finding them and we did. But it's good you applied otherwise we wouldn't have known each other or about your work. So feel free to emails us films@crossoerfimfest.com
Acceptance or Rejection - Its Participation - All the films did get viewed -
For the time to come I will try to remember not to announce film selection results on a weekend eve. Because I can remember how I use to anxiously wait and see if a festival will accept my work or, in more painful words, reject it. Mostly there were rejections, which use to make me feel bad, but I didn't stop trying. After every 30 or so failed attempts there would usually come a wandering so called “acceptance” success, putting a smile back on the face. But now I look back and think that there should be a smile in acceptance or in rejection of my work. Any acceptance of a film festival or rejection of it does not quantify the value of my work for myself and for those who helped make it happen and to those who would like to use it or see it. The value of my work is in the fact that I did the work, and to the best of my ability, I tried to do it right.
Now as for those who received rejection email and message from the film submission platforms, I say this to you. First, these guys don't have any other option beside yes and no. We are planning to accept call to entries on our own site where we will have more options. A film can be rejected or refused or not accepted, the tagging matters. But You must find out why a festival does that. It is always good to know that so you can improve from there, You have a starting point of reference especially when it's truthful and taken objectively. Festivals should do more than just simply saying, you are accepted, congrats and all that talk or that sorry, you didn't make it and you feel like crap.
The Future -
We will be providing opportunities for filmmakers who submitted their films to have a one on one conversation with one of CFF judges to find out what happened, for free. For more details email judges@crossoverfilmfest.com
Second, we are thinking of taking all the other remaining films and organize a small but weekly or monthly festival where we can screen those films so they at least get a chance to be seen and get awarded recognition just like at any other film festival.
Third, we are also planning to work with the filmmakers and do this as an online weekly festival on LFXTV LFX.Network. Through LFX we want to launch the first film network on the blockchain that pays the filmmaker and the viewer of your film just by watching content. For more details on that email lfxtv@crossoverfilmfest.com
Things will not stop here. This was just the first step which means there is a lot more to come. Stay tuned to CrossoverFilmFest.com for updates. You can also email me directly with your feedback, suggestions and ideas. I will try and respond to the best of my ability.
On behalf of everyone on our team I thank you for your time to read this and we value your time and efforts. I hope that you will not be disheartened and would move forward. I also hope that you will join us again at CFF and LFXTV to try and take your film to the next level and to the viewers around the world.
Peace.
Imran Siddiqui
Founder
Crossoverfilmfest.com
FearofGodmedia.com
imran@fogmedia.live
imran@crossoverfilmfest.com
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