FilmFreeway Anmeldelser 75

Rejected our new festival for no reason despite us having a strong track record of other such film festivals in other cities.

I fear FilmFreeway is a scam. I received a random $99 foo from them this month even though i have not submitted a film through them for over three years. Of course there is no contact number to resolve what may be an oversight, but could be a grift.

I submitted to several legitimate film festivals, then had been receiving lots of prompts and didn't check as well as I could have – I've been listed as a semi-finalist in two festivals that don't appear to actually exist at all.

This site is a scam, it has a lot of fake festivals and is taking a lot of money from people.

UPDATE: The Film Freeway site got back to me, they have removed the two festivals that were scams and given the entry fees I paid as credit to apply for other festivals on their site. Please spend time doing a bit of extra research to ensure the festival you are submitting to is valid – one of the ones I submitted to had a website with winners listed (but not active links, the films were possibly made up) and an Instagram page which matched the style of the website and information on Film Freeway. The giveaway was that on the FilmFreeway site, there were lots of reviews from people who had been listed as "semi finalist" but no evidence of an actual event, or promotion of winners.

I recently had an unexpected and disappointing experience with the platform. When I tried to pay for one submission, all the other submissions in my cart were charged simultaneously. I had planned to spend $30, but instead, $270 was taken from my account without giving me the chance to review or confirm what I was paying for. This made me feel like the platform decided on my behalf, which was very frustrating.

When I reached out, I was told that this happened because I had other tabs of the site open. However, this behavior is not something I’ve encountered on other platforms, and it seems like a major flaw in the system.

As a student from Russia living in the U.S. without financial support from my family, this unexpected charge was a significant blow to my budget—$270 is what I would normally live on for an entire month. I only wanted to participate in one affordable screenwriting competition, but this experience left me feeling disappointed and financially stressed. I hope the platform can address this issue to avoid similar situations for others in the future.

Terrible experience with some of the festivals we submitted to, whereby we had no communication let alone response once paid up. Need to be very wary when using Film Freeway.

Why do the media not expose this unashamed scam between film festivals and their host site Filmfreeway . This company should be sent to trial .

I got all the Filmfreeway money I spent on fake festivals back in the form of credit. I changed my 1 star to 3. Below my initial review:

"As a first time short film maker I completely trusted this site since at least 2 local film festivals told me to go here. In my enthousiasm I payed hundreds of euros to hoax festivals. The worst part is that FILMFREEWAY actually promotes them by sending you emails with reduction codes! Never again!"

A terrible site, overflooded by unserious "festivals" and scam artists. Poor tech, terrible support and absolute waste of ALL parties time.

The platform is very nice and easy to edit your movie. Only this! There are a lot of fake Festivals all over the world; in South America, in East Europe , etc. I have experienced fake festivals: 2 of them, one in La Paz, Bolivia and another one in Belgrade, Serbia. The festival in Bolivia had a fake web page: one page ONLY, with submission form and nothing else. The director of the festival had a family name from Eastern Europe. The festival has 30 categories Best short film, Best actor, Best- you name it...
The Film festival in Belgrade had a foreign director of the festival, (won't give names). I am Serbian, so I wrote in Serbian. She answered me in English. I was in Semifinals with my script. The person who won wasn't even in Semifinals! The fee was 20€ with a discount.

There are very few festivals on FilmFreeway that are worth your time and effort; I spent about a $1000 USD in total and nothing good has come of any of it! The festivals are haphazardly put together, a lot of woke festivals where you have to meet every DEI marker and because I rely on good work, not those markers, I don't believe my work is viewed. I receive continuous spam in my email from garbage festivals that are just wanting my money, so much spam that it's too much to even comb through to see if there are legit festivals that would be worth my money. JUST PASS, don't waste your money!

Look no further. If you're looking for comprehensive coverage and script analysis, FilmFreeway has you covered. From prompt turnaround to updates on the stage of the competition, to the powerful one on one Live Notes Consultation with Bob McCullough, FilmFreeway has it all.

I would highly recommend taking advantage of all the services provided.

This site is indispensable for many video art open calls for festivals and exhibitions. Most festivals require their site for applying to their festival. However, FilmFreeway, very occasionally, inadvertently posts scams. When alerted, they will take them down.

IMDb recently wrote this year that they were forced to "de-listed 42 international festivals in the past few years"...."‘Scammers’ are believed to set up fake festivals, upload them to portals such as FilmFreeway and take small submission fees for filmmakers to submit their work. But the ‘scammers’ allegedly never watch the films and there is no proof the festivals even exist."

I was recently accepted to a film festival, ECRÃ advertised as live/in person, but they showed all video artwork "online" only (with no excuse...it was well after COVID).

Another one this year was the BuenosAires Indie Film Festival - buenosairesindiefilmfestival.com. They don't show the work at all, neither online nor live. They have a website with no named judges or no past winners. They take the money for a supposed prize - all without any sort of public viewing. There is no web presence on Google other than their spotty 2-page website. Film Freeway eventually took this site down, and I was refunded my fee.

its maybe good, just register with your alternative email which you don't use, or just create a new email for submissions and avoid spams emails.

Filmfreeway is a great way to find festivals and contests and is a one stop shop for the whole procedure. I have entered many festivals through Filmfreeway leading to major successes with two of my short films and three of my scripts.

Started out a great site and alternative to WithoutAbox. However the site seems to have turned into a list of spam festivals that are virtual and all they appear to do is collect your money. People need to do more research on their own and submit directly to festivals if they can. Film Freeway can crack down on the useless virtual festivals if they want but they choose not to.

Some festivals to which I submitted my film appear to be illegitimate or fraudulent. For instance, Prague Shorts Shot, as listed on FilmFreeway, claims to have been active for two years, but their website is only four months old, and they have never screened any films; instead, they've manipulated images from another film festival and incorporated their logo. I uncovered these original images, presented them to FilmFreeway, and received a credit to my account in lieu of a refund, with the service fee I initially paid retained. This credit is now irrelevant to me, as I do not intend to use FilmFreeway again. Instead of offering advantages over direct festival applications, this platform appears to profit from questionable festivals. I urge you not to support this unethical website. Conduct thorough research, select reputable film festivals, and apply directly to them.

They charge you 60 dollars for a submission to a festival and they don't even provide feedback. Like why am I paying you for? They should at least give you an answer.

To get ahead of FilmFreeway on this, who seem to be waging a war against people who speak up - my name is Cadance Bell, an author & filmmaker from Australia who made the grave mistake of using the service in 2020.

Since that time I have received many hundreds of spam emails for film festivals - most of which are scams or a notch above.

I never requested to be signed up to any email lists and I never imagined that a company would divulge my sensitive & private contact details in this way.

If you are a professional in the industry and want your identity and communications protected; avoid FilmFreeway.

Sad to say that I was naïve enough to believe this was a legit website... the obvious bots giving fake feedback was enough to fool me. I can't get my money back but I can stop you wasting yours.

Here's what will happen if you submit: Nobody will read your work, they'll just reject it or give you a meaningless title like 'Selected' or 'Quarter Finalist' which means precisely nothing. They advertise services like script reading which never arrive.... most don't even have real contact details or websites you can go to. I dread to think how many people have fallen victim to this. Will be reporting to the cyber fraud division of the police, although I doubt they'll do anything... don't make the same mistake I did!

I am a documentarian and use FilmFreeway. I find it easy to use and to keep track of important festivals.
I have been selected for 3 festivals on here this year with my 2nd feature.