Festivals are an integral part of getting eyes on your film as well as building industry clout and credibility for you and your team

The process of your film getting selected and judged isn’t often shared, so I’m giving you a behind the scenes insight into what it looks like judging films for a festival

1: Judges cannot vote or comment on a film if we know anyone involved

This is to make sure we can’t sneak in any biased reviews that could skew the voting and awarding process 

We can see the key credits listed on the FilmFreeway page beforehand, but occasionally you’ll catch a name you recognise only in the end credits. There was a beautiful short film that I’d written so many notes on, only to spot a friend of mine listed as Sound Recordist in the end credits

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2: We have a criteria to judge all films equally on

This includes originality, performances, direction as well as technical things like sound design and editing. Some films might score highly on performances but fall short in other areas

Films are awarded based on their overall score, meaning the nominated and awarded films were likely to have scored highly in as many areas as possible

This is something to think about in pre-production if festivals are part of your aim. Any areas that fall short won’t just prevent your film from being selected and nominated, it can also prevent it from getting selected at top tier festivals

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3: All festivals are different

It goes without saying, the criteria and process is different for every festival. But what’s also interesting to see is that this can change each year, even at the same festival

This year, the judging process was done ‘in isolation’, meaning no judges got together to discuss and debate their favourites. We scored everything according to the criteria, and nominations/awards were given based on final scores alone

Read more: My second year as a film festival judge: what’s changed

4: Everything is done via FilmFreeway

Meaning the judges can see everything on your page, so it pays to make this as professional as possible

Personally it also helped me with voting. There was one film in particular that I was really struggling to understand, and being able to read through the Director’s statement not only helped me grasp the core story, I could also see how well they’d executed their original vision

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5: Judges are biased

It might sound odd, considering I started this post by explaining how we cannot vote on a film if we know anyone involved, but judges – like all human beings – are biased

We come with our own set of views, life experiences and opinions, which all affect how we see, understand and vote on films

I’ve mentioned one film previously that I just didn’t get, and it was simply because the experience being depicted onscreen was so far removed from my personal experience. It took me a couple of views to properly understand the true story and experience they were sharing onscreen

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6: Leave them wanting more

The best way to score highly in all areas is to focus on making the viewer want more in each area

Get them wanting to spend more time with the characters (because of the character development and performances)

Make them want to see more of the set, or rewatch it to pick up on production design details they missed the first time round

Have them happily watching the credits right until the end because the score and sound design is so good

If you take one thing away from this post to apply to your films, let it be this: Leave them wanting more