Over the last week or so, there has been a lively discussion about festival and venue submission fees and Without a Box(tm) on the Frameworks listserv. Many experimental filmmakers on the list seem rather put off by what Without a Box (WAB) is doing and its potential impact on film festivals and other venues. In short, WAB is selling a service where a filmmaker pays a flat fee ($500) to mass-submit to festivals and venues. WAB covers the submission fee for that festival, and/but gets a cut of it from the fest or venue.
Here is what a few people had to say about it:
>All in all, I found WAB to be very unhelpful and unconcerned with
issues confronting experimental film, formats and issues.
>If you see withoutabox listed for a festival, then you know that festival cares little for you and your film or for ANY filmmakers.
>The Ann Arbor Film Festival accepts entries from WAB, and we DO care for filmmakers and their films.
>If a festival wishes to use the withoutabox system then they must impose a fee. The festival effectively has no choice.
>Thus as withoutabox spreads, so do the entry fees.
The discussion is not just about WAB, however, If you travel back through the thread a few days, they discuss the pros and cons of submission fees, in general. Click HERE to start reading the WAB discussion. To go farther back in the discussion, click HERE for the summer archive; this page is sorted by subject, and start reading at “The Tank” on August 21st.
We'd like to say again that the JSF has no submission fees.
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