Adcritic & Creativity magazine hosts an annual film festival called the No Spot film festival. This is the third year for the festival which in my opinion was designed to showcase the filmmaking skills of Ad industry creatives aspiring to directorial success. Now I want to be really careful here because I entered that contest last year ($195 entry fee) and I absolutely love how Creativity magazine covers the industry. But I have to call them out on this. I looked at the line up of Directors for this year’s contest (2006) and 7 out of the 10 finalist are: Spike Jonze, Neil Blomkamp, Curious Pictures, Gwyneth Paltrow, Charlie White, Happy and Mary Wigmore. WTF? My issue is that Its hard enough for young directors to get noticed without refinancing their grandmother’s house to make an ill-advised indy film. Now the festivals originally designed for them are being taken over by professionals who certainly don’t need the publicity and can get into the elite festivals with ease. At the end of the day Its all about money to these businesses. I get that, but what they’re doing is just wrong. Tell people that professionals are allowed to enter before you take $200 dollars from them. How many young directors do they think would enter then? I dissuaded one director this year from entering because of the steep entry fee and the ‘shadyness’ of the festival and looking at that list of finalist I’m glad I did. I highly doubt Spike Jonze even paid the entry fee. They probably paid him to enter.

What does the Adholes community think about this?

The No Spot Finalist: Click to Open Web Page