Film Festivals Editing and Proofreading Services

A film is submitted, accepted, and then withdrawn from the programme in week four because it screened at a regional festival eleven months earlier. The filmmaker did not lie; they read "premiere status" and assumed it meant the country. Two thousand people had already seen the announcement, and the festival's own rules were the reason nobody caught it.

We edit what film festivals produce — submission rules and eligibility criteria, premiere status definitions, selection and notification communications, programme notes and catalogue text, filmmaker and industry guest information, jury and award terms, sponsor and funder reporting, and the correspondence that manages rejections and withdrawals. Our editors work on rules that thousands of people read quickly.

The submission rules are the document that determines who applies and who is later disqualified, and their failure is an eligibility clause that assumes a shared vocabulary. Filmmakers submit to fifty festivals and each one means something slightly different by the same word. We work through these so eligibility is expressed in dates and facts — completion date, running time including or excluding credits, and the exact territory and time period a premiere requirement covers — since "recent work" and "premiere" are the two phrases that generate every dispute; so premiere status is defined by what counts as a public screening, with online availability, private industry screenings and other festivals treated explicitly, given that these are the cases filmmakers genuinely do not know how to classify; so the language and subtitle requirements state the format, the timing of when they must be supplied and what happens if they are late; so the fee structure, waivers and what a fee does not buy are stated, because the accusation that festivals monetise rejection is answered by openness rather than by silence; so the selection timeline gives notification dates for both acceptances and rejections, as filmmakers plan around them and silence is read as contempt; so the rights the festival takes are specified — the screening, the excerpt for promotion, any archive copy, and for how long; so withdrawal and its consequences are covered; and so the rules say who to write to with a question. Rules written this way get better submissions and fewer disputes.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including rules, selection material and filmmaker correspondence. We are editors rather than programmers or lawyers, and we offer no view on eligibility, selection or rights. What we can do is make the rules mean one thing to fifty readers.