AOF – Action on Film MegaFest

A little bit about myself:

This was my first trip to AOF and below is all based on what I experienced. Also have had many filmmakers telling me the same thing that they’ve experience in the past and this as well.

I’ve been in the film industry for over 22+ years and have also helped in the past, at numerous film festivals including the Cleveland International Film Festival, Ohio Independent Film Festival, Horror Hotel Film Festival and the IndieGathering Film Festival, so I have experience how a festival run and know how to organize one. I also produces two large events here in Cleveland: the Cleveland Asian Festival with 50k+ attendees during one weekend and the One World Day with 30k+ attendees in a day. I’ve also produced some events in LA as well as being part of smaller events in Vegas.

With AOF, I submitted 3 features (during 2020/2021): Wu Xia 2 The Code, Innerself and Wu Lin The Society. I also submitted a short film (in 2020) The Prize, and two trailers: Wu Lin The Society Teaser Trailer and Wu Lin The Society Trailer 2.

That said, here’s my review on AOF

The Sad/Understandable issues: Del and Theresa got very sick, while Theresa  recovered and helped with the festival prior, Del didn’t. At this time, he is in the hospital fighting for his life. Many of the stuff I’m writing below can be due to them being ill but also, I have heard from other filmmakers that while they enjoyed the festival, it always ran very disorganized, particularly this time due them being sick.

The Good:

• People are friendly
• Theaters are nice
• Location is perfect
• Theaters’ staff Katie was very attentive, hats off to her for trying to help getting the screening going.

The Bad

• Lack of detailed schedule to know which film is showing at what theater
• Delays on films being shown, apparently the theater manager said they didn’t get the list of films and the actual films until the weekend before so many films were missing, including The Prize short film (which I knew I sent it in and Theresa confirmed it), the short film was shown finally 2 hours later. (making it really hard to help promote for people to come watch it)
• Someone submitted a series of Zoom Interviews that was originally for streaming view, to me and other filmmakers position, these interviews should not be part of the festival as it is uncut, unedited, and really bad quality (720 blown up on a big screen). And many of the topics were more about the interviewer talking and 20% of interviewee responding. A waste of space and time. One filmmaker that was interviewed keep apologizing to us. The interviews ran over and many people in the audience left (these were people we have invited to watch The Prize).
• From other filmmakers, their films were not shown as the Theater do not have their files, including DCP or Mov files that needed backup to have them shown, so there were delays and also omission.
• The theaters’ monitor screen that would show what’s showing at what theater room never worked, it worked for 5 hours and then it just stopped, making it very hard for filmmakers and audience to know which theater their movie is showing.
• When I heard about them having issues (organizing and such) I offered to help and didn’t hear back.
• Because of the delay and missing movie file from The Prize, I reached out to Katie from the Theater and double checked with her about my other films, sure enough, Wu Lin The Society was missing and the teaser and trailer were giving the wrong file, so I immediately made sure they are readied. BUT, during the showing of the Wu Lin The Society Trailer 2 time slot, they failed to show it, as there was an issue with another theater screening room (apparently the DCP in charge left the theater due to family emergency and forgot to give the dcp access info to other staff members) that everyone was there trying to fix that issue, a short film from a filmmaker was shown 1.5 hours later (supposed to start at 10pm) and my trailer was never shown. Even though they have the file (and we saw it on the screen when they copied it to the mac).
• Due to Covid restriction, the award ceremonies can’t have food available, the organizers didn’t let anyone know until then, so there were a lot of people with empty stomach attending the award ceremony on Friday and Saturday. Friday was 3 hours long while Saturday was over 6 hours (others had said in the past it has gone over 8+ hours). The problem included many guests spoke more than 10 mins each and many award recipient spoke 10+ mins as well, it felt like they just want to hear themselves talking and without considering everyone’s need. Not to mention, ac wasn’t turn all the way up, many wearing suit and black tie outfit in a hot room. I was told that in previous years, it was longer (9+ hours) at least they did this a little bit better, but definitely need more improvement.
• Oh, all my films were nominated (finalist) but yet, only two features were part of the finalist lists and the one feature, two trailers, and a short film is nowhere to be found.
• Also, they put one of my feature film in the wrong year award, while I won it, it just felt weird.
• A member of the festival organizer seems to be getting a tons of awards at a festival that this person is helping organize, it is very much a conflict of interest even if this person paid for all the submission, you shouldn’t win, as I was part of several festivals, I can’t compete or win if I am part of it, so I stepped down and competed, this is just common sense.
• I love Del and Theresa but I think they need help to make this festival better, I wish them the best and hope with these comments above, they get to learn to make a better festival for 2022.