Fool Me Once…
Navigating Film Festivals in a World of Online Scams (Part 2)
The art of deception is pervasive in this scam-filled digital age. What can be done?
This blog is a continuation of my last installment: Just Take the Win, Damn It!
After receiving the unique “laminate laurel” from Enjoy Film Festival, I tried to sound grateful.
“It's certainly the most colourful laurel I’ve received,” I wrote.“This is my first laurel in this category, and so meaningful…
Then doubt and self-doubt set in. It was time to write the Enjoy Film Festival’s review.
Film Freeway, the portal they used, gave me a nudge…
Unfortunately, as mentioned in the last blog, not all the categories applied, but to rate one you had to rate them all with one to five stars. They didn’t accept zero.
If one could skip categories, Film Freeway might have caught on to the scam sooner based on low scores.
After all, how many winners give single stars on non-applicable categories to the festival that selected them as winners?
Oh wait, I did…
…and got this.
I took the opportunity to follow the links to see if any other red flags stood out:
🚩 The first and last links are controlled by Enjoy Film Festival where they push their content
🚩 The middle link is to Film Freeway where Enjoy Films supplies the required information on their festival, including reviews...
Arken Wheeler was my fiercest competition in the festival, whooping my feature film screenplay with his short film script, The Fifth Ring.
He rated the festival favorably, but could not attend the fictional festival in person. Good thing as:
there wasn’t an in-person festival
there were no hospitality services
or networking opportunities.
I reached out to him on The Black List website but haven’t heard back.
I decided to reach out to a few of the other winners. Some of them are “magazine-cover-famous” and names with the word Oscar attached. 🚩 It felt a bit like the Trump campaign’s use of Taylor Swift's fake endorsement - a scam for votes.
I also wrote Film Freeway (in full paragraph form that I’ve broken down below):
There is little to nothing about Enjoy Film Festival but their in-house websites… 🚩
and getting an IMDB account isn't very difficult…. 🚩
Some of the reviews are vague and suspect… 🚩
Of course, the entry prices should have been a warning sign, 🚩
I've entered many legit competitions through Film Freeway, even small ones like the Comox Valley International Film Festival which is in-person, and outstanding.
I hope you will start scrutinizing these competitions more thoroughly as starving artists need exposure at affordable costs. Even your Gold Member rate is too much if it is a scam. I would love to hear back from you about this, please.”
When I checked the links for Enjoy Film Festival, I found this… Hooray!
One down, more to come!
Takeaways:
(in addition to the 🚩 items above)
Research each competition you are considering entering.
Check out the festival’s reviews: too many stars, flattering words, etc… They like to flatter themselves as well as you.
Google past festival winners’ names and titles of their work to see if they’re legit.
Stay tuned for the next installment of this blog series where I investigate the War of Films festival.
Please feel free to leave a comment.
Thank you,
