Darling! Submissions for Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival 2018 are now open!

star jar 300Welcome back to Q&A Wednesday! Today’s question is super important, filmmakers:

 

Q: Hey, Rabbit Heart – How come you’re charging for submissions now? I thought you were all about accessibility and freedom to create art without a budget.

 

A: Yes, it’s true – we’re charging a little bitty submission fee this year ($5) on FilmFreeway. At the same time, it’s still absolutely free to submit your film to Rabbit Heart directly through the website. So if the fee is a stretch* get that film ready and choose Submissions from the dropdown menu on www.rabbitheartpoetry.com. We gotcha.

I really wrung my hands over the decision to charge a fee. As the festival director, it’s huge to me that filmmakers need not spend a lot of cash to get their art out into the world. A girl’s gotta eat, y’all. And pay rent n’ stuff. When we started this festival business, it was in the mindset that even if you just borrow a phone from a friend and then edit your footage at the library, you should be able to make a poetryfilm. Good art =/= big budget. And so free submissions really falls in line with the Rabbit Heart philosophy. Which is why submissions directly through the Doublebunny website are still unqualifiedly free.

Here’s the scoop: we love FilmFreeway. FilmFreeway has been 95% fantastic for Rabbit Heart, especially in terms of reaching far and wide (6 continents worth of subs since we started accepting films through them!) Hearts and stars, y’all.

That last little 5%, tho’ – it’s films that people submitted with complete disregard for festival  guidelines. With a $0 submission fee, folks are submitting films that are completely divorced from poetryfilm, and in droves (we’re turning down twice the number of films we’re accepting). We’ve received scads of not just overlength films, but  feature-length films, children’s programming, aerobics instructional videos, and pornography.** All of which I have to wade through to find the legitimate entries (because holy carp, I do not want to have an intern stumble onto the racy business x.x) Of interest, direct subs to the website might be a touch overtime, but they’re pretty much always on target – if you’re on the R<3 website, you’ve very probably read the rules, and aren’t just shopping for a (free) place to send your film.

So, very basically, the fee on FilmFreeway is there to make sure that the subs we’re getting are actually relevant to the festival. I really hate sending out disqualification notes. It totally makes me sad (and in some cases, super awkward. See second starred item).

And, you know, if we get a lot of subs through FilmFreeway, that’ll all get to go back into festival prizes. So, hey, win-win \o/

***

 

big picture72*Honey, believe me, I understand operating on a budget.

**LOTS of pornography. Enough porn that we briefly considered doing an intimate toy party fundraiser, or an adults-only Dirty Losers showcase. Briefly considered. But overwhelmingly, the lighting just wasn’t that good. Pro tip: you can’t shoot porn in the dark. Three lightbulbs, people. Three lightbulbs. & maybe a bounce.