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INDEXIdentity theft and film festivals
3 years, 3 months ago - Vasco de Sousa
I just got news that a few of the better film festivals had their identities stolen on film freeway.
https://spotmedia.ro/stiri/it/festivalul-astra-film-tinta-unui-atac-tip-furt-de-identitate-pe-platforma-filmfreeway
Sure, this has happened in Romania, which had a bad reputation in the past, but living here I can tell you, if it can happen here it can happen elsewhere. Romania is well developed, there are nice cars here, reputable global businesses have big buildings (sometimes even headquarters) here, most everything you see is legit. I guess that is why there is value in spoofing some of the local festivals.
Trends tend to spread, so it may not be too long before this starts happening to UK festivals.
According to the article, among the victims of this fraud are British filmmakers (and filmmakers from at least 25 other countries.)
If you are entering, be careful of festivals that use rip-off sound-alike names. And also try to find the official website or contact information of the festival, to see how they accept entries (instead of just searching through film freeway).
Do not hesitate to report rip offs that steal money from filmmakers with fake entry forms. They also steal from legitimate festivals by spoofing them.
(Anything negative I might have said about festivals in the past, if it at least is a legitimate festival, it could be worth it to some. And these festivals that have been spoofed are among the better ones. Increasingly, we are up against fraudsters pretending to be people or companies that they are not.)
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3 years, 3 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin
I knew a filmmaker who made his first feature, and wanted some laurels for it. He set up his own soundslike festival (swapping "international" or "independent" for "internet" as I recall), listed it on withoutabox (used to be a festival aggregator like filmfreeway), awarded himself the "Jury Prize". He was surprised that he had one actual application from some poor random, but you can see how the market was back then (well over a decade ago).
So yes, be very VERY cautious about which festival you're actually applying to! Even a lot that actually happen are of negligible-to-zero value.
Response from 3 years, 3 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin SHOW