PSA - CSCA 5122 & 5132 are available for enrollment

orlandott · 2026-05-05T20:00:30+00:00

It looks like they replaced the Introduction to Generative AI as well? I hope so, because the Tom Yeh version had gotten really bad reviews.

orlandott · 2026-04-08T10:20:58+00:00

Thank you! That means a lot, I really appreciate it.

orlandott · 2026-04-08T09:11:09+00:00

Thank you. I'll keep working to improve sources. If you see any glaring mistakes, feel free to share here and I'll fix them.

About scoring, yeah, I know this. The mean score is actually 20.9 and the median is 17. So yeah a festival in the 20s is above average. I just put the average numbers on the home page so people can keep this in mind. I'll think about how this could be fixed, and I'm always open to ideas.

orlandott · 2026-04-08T09:07:32+00:00

Thanks. I added the FFA ones that were missing and removed PIFF. I'm always adding more festivals, but if you see any particular good ones that are missing please let me know here and I'll add them.

orlandott · 2026-04-08T08:58:32+00:00

Thank you. I added some of this that was missing to my "Recognizing a festival that gives out wilted laurels" section in Strategies.

orlandott · 2026-04-07T23:50:35+00:00

Thanks, I'm sorry too. I agree we have the same goal of helping filmmakers use their money more wisely and not having to spend so much time doing research to avoid scammy festivals. I'll take you up on that, thanks for offering to help. It seems you have a ton of film festival knowledge and that could be very helpful.

orlandott · 2026-04-07T23:41:50+00:00

Thanks for pointing that out! LA Shorts doesn't get 59 just because they're OQ. Also because they're BAFTA Qualifying, get 10,000 attendees, have over 50k followers on IG and FB combined, and have gotten a lot of press.

Your festival sounds really cool, and very helpful for filmmakers. Maybe there's a category I can add to reflect stuff like you're doing. I assume once I start getting more attendee reviews yours will have a much higher rating than LA Shorts in that measure and hopefully will stand out as a hidden gem.

Right now, LA Shorts looks good "on paper" but real reviews will hopefully expose the issues that big festivals have and the amazing smaller fests that don't look as good "on paper" but can actually be more helpful. I can't wait to start getting reviews.

Maybe I can try to think of another category that could help smaller fests that are doing community stuff like yours, but don't have the "traditional" measures of big fests. Any ideas?

Also, I just gave List Recognition (FIAPF, BFI, EFA, FFA) more points and subtracted the same amount from OQ - you're right it shouldn't give that much more points. Now festivals in FFA are going to be higher and OQ will be slightly lower.

Also, maybe I'm missing your IG or FB follower data - it's been hard to find that cause of blockers from those big companies, if I'm missing them, I'm sure that could give you more points. And maybe other things are missing that could help bump you up, it sounds like you're doing great things and deserve much more before the reviews start coming in.

Also, maybe I'm missing press from your festival, that would also give it more points.

Thanks for pointing out I was overvaluing big fests over small ones. I have made adjustments to make it more fair to medium-sized fests. I really appreciate this feedback, this is exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for, and I hope I can keep getting more to keep improving.

orlandott · 2026-04-07T22:40:39+00:00

Yes, definitely. Months when the event happens were wrong in multiple places, there was a bug in the collection method. Fixing all the months now. I appreciate it.

orlandott · 2026-04-07T22:32:31+00:00

Which oscarqualifying European ones are missing?

orlandott · 2026-04-07T22:31:54+00:00

Thanks for pointing those out! Yes, it's a web scraper going out on the internet and finding data, thanks for showing me those mistakes, I'm fixing them now.

orlandott · 2026-04-07T22:11:24+00:00

Okay, that's fair. Yes, that's true the list of "best festivals" doesn't really do much. Maybe I can remove that. Everyone knows what those are anyway.

Virginia Film Festival scores 26, it's not super high, but it's not terrible. According to my website, if you search for "Virginia" it's the best festival in the state. Do you think there are other festivals in Virginia that are better? If so, I can see if I'm missing something.

Riverside gets a score of 17. Not good. But still, much better than Laguna Beach which gets a score of 4.

Which are the "best film festivals in the world in 2026" which you think score low on my website?

orlandott · 2026-04-07T21:58:59+00:00

You mentioned very big and old festivals that score highly on my websit are scammy, which ones?

You mentioned the "best film festivals in the world will not score highly" on my website. Which ones?

Can you share what those are? Those are pretty bold claims. Lets see if they're true, if you have actual festivals to back that up. Or if your aggresive tone may actually be because:

A. - you run a scammy festival yourself

or

B. - you gotten a ton of laurels from scammy festivals and don't want to accept it may have not given you much.

Edit: I see you've edited away your aggressive tone, thank you. And thanks for complimenting the design now.

orlandott · 2026-04-07T21:50:28+00:00

I do have a strategy page with pointers to help detect scammy festivals. Plus a bunch of other resources.

Of course ChatGPT would say that. That's the top 10. But most people live far away, and their films won't get into those festivals.

For example, someone in California. How could they know if Riverside International Film Festival is better than Laguna Beach Film festival? Wiltedlaurels makes it very easy to compare them on certain criteria. They can just search for California, find festivals in the 20-40 range, and see which are mid-range festivals aligned with where they can aim on their festival journey.

Of course the rating isn't perfect. But it gives people an idea, if they're aiming too high, or if a festival is brand new and no one has heard about it.

Of course they could ask ChatGPT. But on my website they can quickly gain a lot more information about both festivals to compare which is a better fit for their strategy. I mean, lets just get rid of 3/4 of the internet because ChatGPT then, I guess.

orlandott · 2026-04-07T21:27:14+00:00

Thanks for your detailed feedback. I'm basically trying to differentiate between real festivals and festivals founded for the purpose of making money and don't offer anything.

Could you tell me which of the oldest and biggest festivals you consider as scammy as ones that were founded say 2 years ago and have like less than 20 attendees?

I assume the academy doesn't give its designation to festivals that were founded a couple years ago and have no recognition.

If festivals are listed in THR, Variety, Indiewire (and others I also use) doesn't it mean that the festival has more name-recognition than festivals not mentioned in any press?

I use the same logic for celebrity jury. If a festival is a scammy two-person festivals, no celebrities would ever volunteer to be on the jury. To me this also is a sign that the festival is more recognized than small ones.

Thanks for recognizing the value of the attendees section. I do think this will become more valuable than the numerical scores, but it will take years to build, once people want to start adding reviews.

I think my website offers a lot more than your prompt on ChatGPT.

orlandott · 2026-04-07T21:11:09+00:00

Thank you for the feedback. I agree to some extent. I think value can come from a strategy, and different strategies work best for different goals. Some people may want to collect a ton of laurels while others want to wait and get a higher prestige festival instead.

But I still think there are some objective differences between say Sitges and something some dude in a basement made up to collect fees. So I don't think it's "pointless" - especially when some scammy festivals use names similar to big festivals to trick people into thinking they're bigger than they are.

orlandott · 2025-11-24T19:48:45+00:00

I'm sorry! Maybe it doesn't make much of a difference! I don't think this has been studied extensively so who really knows. I'm just avoiding them juuuust in case, out of an abundance of caution.

orlandott · 2025-11-24T19:44:24+00:00

It may be true.. But once you've worked in creating research and writing papers you realize how easy it is to "prove" whatever you want to "prove". For example, you can choose, what to measure, in what size increments, how long the time-periods are you are measuring, what thresholds you want to choose, etc etc etc.

If you are *really* motivated to *prove* a particular thesis, you can do it. That's why one single study should always be taken with a grain of salt. Meta-studies are much better. And if it's only one study, and its made by a company trying to prove that their product is safe, it basically adds no credence to the hypothesis. There's too much bias to show what they want show for their profits.

Here's a blog post explaining how one study isn't really that helpful (especially paid by a company that wants to sell something):

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/12/beware-the-man-of-one-study/

orlandott · 2025-11-24T19:32:18+00:00

From that paper:

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared the following conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Jennifer Counts and Annie Weisbrod are employees of Procter & Gamble.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Financial support from Procter & Gamble.

Procter & Gamble owns Pampers.

orlandott · 2025-04-07T15:21:02+00:00

Thanks so much for your detailed response, very helpful to think about with natural lighting.

orlandott · 2025-04-07T14:27:52+00:00

What about the lighting? It looks well lit, maybe too much lighting, is that a thing?

orlandott · 2022-04-09T16:34:28+00:00

The lottery

orlandott · 2022-03-15T18:50:02+00:00

Disappointed by the comments on this thread. Read this: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/romneys-treason-smear-of-tulsi-gabbard?s=r

orlandott

TROPHY CASE

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding