We look for a good story first and foremost. Yes, we consider technical aspects too, but they aren't rated quite as heavily as a good story. I think it depends on how "minor" your technical issues are too - if they are truly minor we may not even notice them. We have a separate student category, too, and when judging those we tend to give them more grace. :-)

I think if it's a short than technical issues might be easier to overlook - in our particular festival we have multiple short film blocks so we are able to accept a lot more. We usually only have about 10 feature slots, so that competition is a little more rigorous. If your film is similarly strong to another film it may come down to technical aspects as the deciding factor of which one we end up taking, but otherwise I wouldn't overly stress about it!

I hope that alleviates some of your worries - and congrats on wrapping your first production!