NEW ZEALAND INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL

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Dear film enthusiast,

please read the following carefully before you email us:

We receive hundreds of submissions every year and at the end of the season our team works countless hours to watch and rate all the films, do the tally establish the winners and compiles the program. In New Zealand we have to send all the selected films to the Film and Video Labeling Body FVLB to get a rating (G, PG or M) for the audience. Since our events are meant for families as well we cannot screen any film that has a rating higher than M. The FVLB rates all films that are screened in NZ and so it sometimes takes months until we receive the rating and of course we cannot screen before we receive that rating. FVLB also charges hundreds of dollars for the ratings which adds a big chunk to our costs on top of the cinema hires. We have a small team and most of them are volunteers. We are trying to keep the running costs low so we can keep the submission fees down. Receiving many emails, especially at the end of the season takes a lot of time away from our main tasks and we can therefore not answer emails within a short period. We send out general emails to all submitters as soon as we have relevant information, so we would like to ask you to be patient. Please read those emails carefully before you send an email.
Many emails are in regards to the awards. So I would like to clarify this here again. The judges rate all films on a scale from 1-10, once every judge has rated a film we generate a tally with the scores. Every film that has an average of 6 or higher receives a nomination. So if your film gets nominated that means that the judges considered your film of a high quality. Unfortunately we can only have one winner for each category. The film with the second highest score receives the finalist award. Since program time is limited we can only screen the winners and some of the finalists. In some cases we find that a film has some outstanding features and deserves an award so we issue an honorable mention award. Once the program has been finalized we publish it on our website as well as the winners and finalists. If yous submitted your film to several categories then it can happen that it has the highest score in one category but not the other we therefore list the category that the film has one in as well. If your film has just received a nomination then this is independent of the category since your average rating is over 6 which applies to each category. You can find out on filmfreeway under submissions which category you submitted your film to for which festival if you are unsure.
Since the DCP format is quite complex and the projectors are different from one cinema to the next it can happen that a specific format does not run properly at the cinema. From experience we know which format works on which projector and this way we can ensure that all DCP files play without a problem at the cinema. Cinemas charge very high tech fees for testing films so we cannot have every film tested at the cinema and some glitches occur half way through the film, so the technician would have to watch the whole film which is not practicable. We therefore do all the DCP conversion ourselves which takes a lot of time in the weeks before the screening. You therefore do not need to submit a DCP format to us.
The international standard DCP format for cinemas is 24 frames so the conversion to DCP can sometimes be problematic when a film comes in 23.89 frames or other non standard rates. Here is a website that explains frame rates quite well: https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/video-frame-rate/
The preferred format for film submissions is MP4 or MOV, this tends to be the least problematic for conversion. Since we try to speed up the process we ask all submitters to upload their films directly to filmfreeway this way we can easily keep track of which films can be downloaded and which ones need a download request. Having to go to a different webpage for each film takes a lot of extra time and effort and often causes problems. We also have a dedicated PC that accesses the filmfreeway website for security reasons (viruses etc) and is not used for emails either.
Some submitters have told us that they like to have their film on Vimeo so they can see at the analytics how often their film was watched. We have tested this and this is actually not the case. Vimeo analytics only shows the views if the films were watched on Vimeo itself, if a film was watched on filmfreeway where the Vimeo link is then Vimeo analytics does not show this as watched. Since Vimeo charges for film uploads (with passwords) and does not offer any advantages we strongly recommend to upload to filmfreeway, the upload is for free and you can also password protect it if you are concerned.
Before we can send the films to FVLB we have to download them and so we need to download all the films well before the event date. Some submitters do not enable the download and we had to send several emails over weeks to them which has delayed the process tremendously.
In the past we had to postpone the event date due to the fact that not all films had been rated by FVLB because of the above reasons. This puts tremendous pressure on our team and the cinemas and causes that the announcement of the event date does not give people from overseas enough time to make travel arrangements. Therefore please understand that if we cannot download the film within a week of our download request we cannot add the film to the screening program.
We hope this clarifies most of your questions. So we would like to ask you to read the above carefully and only send us an email if you have an urgent question or request. You can go to our filmfreeway page https://filmfreeway.com/NZIndieFilmFestival and click on "email" there, which will be sent directly to us and we endeavour to answer promptly.
Please understand that if we have to answer hundreds of emails then we will have to employ a secretary just for that which increases the costs and so we will be forced to raise the submission fees.