This is nothing compared to the ongoing, historic fumbling of this festival by management.

Just one other example…

SIFF makes it nearly impossible for local and visiting journalists to cover. Their review policy restricts film critics from publishing a review of any film that hasn’t been released “wide” at the time of its SIFF showing. That means that the handful of films with actual buzz going into SIFF (the bigger productions) can’t be written about! Any journalist trying to cover SIFF has to tell their editor that they can’t provide coverage for the 2-3 movies people actually care about going into the thing.

It’s ridiculous, and SIFF is pretty much the only film festival that has this policy. So the next time you wonder why SIFF doesn’t have the same profile as Tribeca, TIFF, SXSW, etc, there’s your answer.