What actually gets a film rejected

One of the most emotionally loaded moments in a filmmaker’s journey is the rejection email.

Just a polite variation of “We regret to inform you…” — and for many filmmakers, the immediate internal translation is brutal:

“My film wasn’t good enough.”

That conclusion is understandable.

It’s also wrong.

Film festival programming is less like grading a test and more like assembling a complex puzzle under constraints most filmmakers never see.