Gotta warn you all about Galactic Sci-Fi Film Fest

IndyJones1023

IndyJones1023

Avoid them. I entered my film and was accepted, bought airline tix, reserved a hotel, the whole nine.

Then never heard from them again.

I thought they were a scam. Alerted FilmFreeway. Lost out on hundreds of dollars. Then saw they went thru with the fest anyway. I saw pix on their FB page of attendees. I tried contacting them repeatedly via FB, email, their web site, and a phone number found on their site, as well. All to no avail.

So, they sort of screwed me out of at least $300 in fees I can't recover. They finally responded after the fest with a "sorry, here's a waiver for next year." Not nearly good enough.

I say don't give them your money.
 
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@IndyJones Its really sad that you come on this website and tell people not to submit a film or pay them any money for a submission.

From the looks of this I put the blame in your shoes not the festivals. You were accepted and were notified from Film Freeway of your acceptance. The festival is under no obligation to have to call you, or contact you further. Now with this said I do think it would be nice for a festival to contact but not necessary.

It was your decision not to attend this festival after purchasing airfare, hotels etc... I put the blame completely %100 on you. You need to take responsibility for your decisions.

Now if you had flown to this festival and a festival was not taking place this would be another story and this post and call to Filmfreeway would be justified.

Filmmakers need to consider that these festival invest alot of time, money, and energy into these events. I have no idea of when you were calling them or contacting them. Sounds like the festival was very busy putting everything together.
 
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Hi Indyfilm.

An interesting thread to dig up for your first post.. something from last year. What is your affiliation or personal interest in this festival?


To IndyJones - I understand they never contacted you again but still had a festival. Do you know if your film was screened?
 
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Wow. I'm really shocked at the totally distorted viewpoint of "indyfilm." You seem to look at the world in reverse.

To answer your question, sfoster, I saw pix on their FB page of the festival and parties, but don't know if/when my film screened.
 
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I made every effort to contact them. When it seemed that their festival was a scam, I decided to cancel my trip to avoid spending even more money by trying to attend a non-existent festival. How can you not see this?

Are you a contrarian or part of their festival?
 
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I have nothing to do with this festival as I posted prior. You were notified via filmfreeway. What else would you want? I just think its wrong for you to come to a website like this and bash a fest because they did not hold your hand. Looks like lots of other attendees and everyone made it OK.
 
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Okay, clearly you don't have all your mental faculties. I'll stop engaging the troll.

Suffice it to say that I'm glad you did resurrect this thread so more people may be made aware of this issue.
 
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Having been part of helping to organize several different film festivals in the past, I or someone always responded to questions and made sure to confirm with the people who were selected. One of them even arranged for lodging, gratuity and transportation from the airport.
 
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I've been to many festivals with my movies over the years - they've ranged from great to crappy. If any had not given me info on screenings and/or didn't reply to my communications, I absolutely would have cancelled my trip - you have to cut your losses somewhere. And I appreciate IndyJones1023 posting about it here. If the festival disagreed with his viewpoint, they could/should have come on here to apologize for the lack of communication and pitch their fest in a better light.
 
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Not sure if user "indyfilm" has ever gone through the festival acceptance experience before, but under no circumstances should a filmmaker be expected to attend a festival blindly without any details from the programmers.

The major glaring problem in my eyes is that the link or DVD you send in when you submit to a fest, is never the version of the film they screen at the actual festivals. There are certain specs that need to be met to insure a technically sound projection or playback. Also, a lot of the time you submit with a work in progress, so the festival wouldn't even have your final version of the film until you are accepted and they instruct you to ship them a drive (or email a file for some smaller festivals).

My best guess here is that OPs film actually was not supposed to be accepted and it was an error by a programmer, or by FilmFreeway, or by some employee or tech glitch in between. If he actually were accepted, the festival would have definitely tried to make contact with the filmmaker.
 
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I understand OP's point.
The point indyfilm seems to try to make is that the fest 'only' failed to communicate properly, but didn't really scam the OP since he pulled the plug himself out of fear of a scam. Claiming he must be insane for saying so is not a nice thing to do, even if you greatly disagree.
Having said that: dead silence when you try to contact them does certainly ring the alarm bells.

Let's see whether Galactic Sci-Fi Film Fest has a google alert programmed for their fest's name, so they can react in here as well :P
 
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Let me get this right you win an award and then call the festival a scam trying to deter submissions. Because you did not go to the festival. All this because they never called you back. You should of just went to the festival.
 
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