Rules – Devon Film Festival

As we wrap up the 1st week of the 1st Annual Devon Film Festival I’m thankful we gave ourselves this soft launch period. There were many bugs, a few kinks, an occasional stutter and one massive epileptic fit (which luckily occurred behind the scenes) but all told we are about to close our submission window with great success!

A few of the judges were so excited with the preliminary list they started watching, “The Kingdom,” and I look forward to their scoring come Monday.

The list of submissions for judging will be complete tomorrow 25-07-2021 at 13:05 GMT. There can be no substitutions or additions after this time.

A few words on scoring:

If you have not read, Make it Personal or Make it Factual I highly suggest you do so. It is lazy to say, “I liked a film therefore it the best film.” Each numerical score will require a brief statement regarding your thoughts on the film and the festival founder reserves the right to void fraudulent scoring.

Scoring must be done through the online submission form. You will receive a link to this form once the submission window has closed.

All judges on this panel, including the luddites, know how to use the internet so there will be no exceptions to this rule.

Welcome to the Devon Film Festival.

It can be said, and probably has, that rules ruin the fun. But the fun here is about watching and discussing movies so we are going to have a few rules.

Participants are welcome to watch films, and judge films based on the criteria below but they do not have voting rights. If you would like to become a judge please contact us.

Judges (or groups of judges) please submit three(3) films for review per genre. Please submit your films (title and year of release) to the festival Whatsapp group or festival email below:

submissions@devonfilmfestival.co.uk

Due date for submissions is 25 July 2021

Once all the submissions have been received we will begin the watching parties. It is recommended that you watch films again even if you have seen them before.

For the category of Action film your submissions can fall into any of the Action sub-genres, e.g. action-comedy, action sci-fi, action thriller etc… However the primary genre must be Action – a comedy with a fight scene does not an Action film make.

Your submissions must be films released from 1980 to present.

In the spirit of the changing the industry they need not be released to theatres (e.g. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon) but they cannot be your homemade version of Star Wars or Tik Tok stitches.

Future genres may have additional rules.

Judges must watch the film in order to judge it.

In the event there are duplicate submissions the Judge who submitted last may opt for an alternate.

Additional Common Sense Rules:

No chatting during films (this should be obvious)
- If you are watching alone we do not condone talking to yourself but we cannot stop you.
No punching, kicking, biting or causing harm to participants or judges
There will be no nominations for:
- Twilight films
- 50 Shades Films
- Grimsby
No cheating; we’re not sure how you cheat at a film festival but if you figure it out, don’t do it.

Film Scoring System

Films will be scored using a 10 point system.

9-10 – Technically excellent and immensely enjoyable. This is a film I would watch again and proudly recommend to friends.
7-8 – Technically good, no major issues. I enjoyed the film and may recommend it.
5-6 – Technically ok, a few issues here and there. I could tell a friend who might like this specific type of action movie.
3-4 – Quiet a few technical problems. Nothing really exciting or original. Wouldn’t recommend but it didn’t offend me.
1-2 – Rubbish. It displeases me.