Stro

[The Queen]

If only you had filmed it at the time. Now the best action you'll get out of us is us warming up. Not a euphemism. Just another sad comment on our aging battle-weary bodies.

Like the fight between Ed Asner and Christopher Plummer in “Up”? With Yuki as Doug?

[Greg]

Validation Day.

Maybe. I got a weird letter today asking me if I wanted to be part of an online screening event and the organizers wanted to know if I would like to be part of this event. And as sort of an aside, they said they were asking me this question because I was now considered to be selected for the festival.

More information when things get sorted.

[cranefly]

I presume this wouldn't invalidate Warsaw as the premiere, which I hope to hell happens and is inclusive enough to allow American despite the pandemic and our rogue leader. 

Congrats!

[Drunk Monk]

If only you had filmed it at the time. Now the best action you'll get out of us is us warming up. Not a euphemism. Just another sad comment on our aging battle-weary bodies.

Like the fight between Ed Asner and Christopher Plummer in “Up”? With Yuki as Doug?

I was thinking more like the final fight in Rashomon between the bandit and the samurai. You can be the wife, TQ. 

What Fest is this Validation Day for Greg?

[Greg]

Would you believe Malta?

[Drunk Monk]

Malta! So awesome. Why on earth didn't you say that in the first place? That makes this so much better. Fingers crossed!

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Malta! So awesome. Why on earth didn't you say that in the first place? That makes this so much better. Fingers crossed!

I hope they don't end up being a...Mal-Tease.

My vengeance is complete.

[Greg]

Validated but not accepted.

They definitely want me to screen the film as part of their online festival.

The only problem is they want to do this in August. Which would make it the world premiere and break the promise I made to Warsaw, that Warsaw would have at the bare minimum the European premiere. I'm going to decline their invite to be in the online festival. Hopefully, they will still accept me for the physical version.

You're the reason Jean de Valleta weeps.

[Greg]

Oh, Film Festivals, you task me. YOU TASK ME. I was hoping to get a notification next week but upon checking Film Freeway, I see that the Austin Revolution Film Festival pushed back their notification ten days. I wonder what's happening in Texas to cause them to rethink? Now, I won't have any notifications until the 20th.

I had a lot of hope for TIFF based solely on misplaced optimism and the fact they looked at the film twice. But I noticed the gap between notification and festival is only 10 days. That's not enough time, i think, to get all the promotional material together for festival brochures. I have it that they have already talked to the people they want in the festival. But, I'm still fifty one days out from that validation day. Damn you HOPE!

The TIFF festival will go on. They already have a plan in place which includes drive-ins, online and in person screenings. They've also even announced about fifty films they will be screening.

Yes, I'm way out here in the weeds staring at my navel.

[Greg]

Conflicts.

One of the film festivals I withdrew from because of scheduling conflicts with Warsaw just accepted me into their festival. I wonder how that works?

As for Malta, they haven't finalized their selections for the physical festival but I'm still under consideration.

[Greg]

Surprise validation update. I wasn't expecting to hear from the Austin Revolution FF until Friday but they got the jump and told me that Stro wasn't accepted into their program. They actually sent me two emails an hour apart to really drive the message home.

I will have a Validation announcement tomorrow from the Burbank FF. They are the nice people that mistakenly accepted my back in May and then rescinded the invite. It's going to be a fun Monday. And that will be it until August for scheduled Validation days. Still a chance for surprise Validation Days, though.

[Greg]

Happy Validation Day! I'm waiting on you Burbank FF. I'll be distracting myself by driving five cats over to Fresno.

[Greg]

The Validation day came and went without a notification. I guessing I'm sending out an email to see what is going on. I wouldn't be surprised if they are still determining how they are going to deal with the movie theater shut downs. Or they want to reject and just forgot to send out the note.

Yes, I'm a unicorn chock full of optimism

[Greg]

Let the confusion reign! I think maybe I was validated by one festival and then I was definitely validated by a festival I'm not in.

I sent a letter off to Burbank FF to say that the notification day had come and gone without the aforementioned validation. I didn't receive a response to that letter but late in the day Tuesday I received a letter from the Burbank FF that seemed to indicate that I had been accepted and this letter was the follow-up to that letter and I shouldn't use the link in the previous letter to send in my film but I would get another letter with the proper link. The only letter I had received prior to that one was the one that said I had been accepted by mistake to the Burbank Festival and that was back in May.

The way I'm looking at this is the letter I received yesterday was the follow up to the letter accepting me into the festival I received back in May, the one that was subsequently rejected.

I have another letter out to Burbank asking them to clarify the situation.

All that being said, it seems like their won't be a physical festival but it will all be done online, which is kind of a bummer. But I think that's to be expected with all the US Festivals at this point.

Meanwhile, I received an acceptance letter from the Lift-Off festival in London which also told me where I can upload my film for their online festival. The only problem, I withdrew from this festival when I learned it would conflict with the premiere status of Warsaw. And it became an online festival as well.

The problem with an online Festival as opposed to a physical Festival is scope. If you have a physical festival only people in the local area of the festival can see it. Which is a good thing. It makes it special. Whereas the online festival can be seen by anybody that can access the URL. You can't limit it to one city or state. Sure, once I get passed my premiere status releases, I'm not going to care as much. Until then, it's a problem.

Plus, the online Festival is kind of a money grab. The Online festivals can program a lot more films because they aren't limited by venues and times. Anyone can watch the film at any time and the festival gets paid. The more films, the more potential for profit. Which is why I've been accepted into some of these festivals.

[Drunk Monk]

I've been wondering about how the online fests might work. There are online tournaments, or the attempt for them - competitors pay a fee to upload their vid. Seems like a blatant cash grab. Sure, pay me and I'll tell you which is the best of you. I'll even give you a nice trophy or medal or something. I toyed with the idea of doing something akin to this for WildAid (given the charity nature, that might work, however until covid settles enough for TC to stabilize, no project like this would move forward). 

Still got fingers crossed for the enthusiastic unicorn. Go Stro!