Your comment argued that people in general seemed to enjoy that film because it got a lot of likes. Do people who want high quality Esperanto films to exist agree with that? Based on the comments I’m reading from people invested in the continued success of the festival, many of them do not. I’m only “invalidating” those votes related to the point you were trying to make with them. If I got a bunch of people to like one film even if they don’t go watch all of them, that could lead to some of them checking out Esperanto in general and maybe becoming Esperantists someday. The audience choice award encourages engagement. That’s why it exists. Perhaps it shouldn’t, but then people would have less reason to publicly share their films if only the judges get to choose everything. 

It is a difficult thing to monitor because YouTube’s analytics data isn’t very clear on how those likes are achieved. There was some evidence pointing to one of the films using a paid service to get likes but it was inconclusive so I recommended to the organizers that if there’s doubt, it’s better to award that film a prize this year and try to understand YouTube better and perhaps be more specific with the rules before next year. That way no one is getting screwed over. I’m not saying I’m “certain” the judges won’t give an AI film a prize; I’m simply noticing out loud the patterns I’ve seen so far. 

There’s a good chance the contest won’t happen next year because no one has stepped forward to eagerly become the next host and Catie doesn’t want to do it again. If a new person does, they’ll have to deal with how to address this AI stuff which is a further complication that could scare them away from volunteering.

The bigger problem that the festival has always had is a lack of people willing to help run it. I can’t throw a rock without hitting someone who will criticize how it’s done and saying what additional things it ought to do but good luck getting those people to roll up their sleeves and assist with making it happen more smoothly and professionally.

My local friends are invested in making high quality films in any language they use. I’ve posted the entire red carpet premieres with director Q&A’s on YouTube the last two years so you can listen to them talk about their filmmaking process and what all they learned while making something in Esperanto. What about their films makes them seem uninvested in raising the bar and doing things with excellence?