Film Festival Programmers Explain Why Rejection Is Not a Verdict

A festival rejection is not a measure of quality, according to two programmers who decide what audiences see. Rosh Abdelfattah, artistic director of the Rotterdam Arab Film Festival, and Mohamed Mahmoud, president of the Alexandria International Short Film Festival, laid out their reasoning this week at the 13th Sharjah International Film Festival for Children and Youth in the UAE.

The two spoke on a panel titled "Film Festivals Decoded: What Happens After You Press Submit?" and expanded on their views in interviews with Variety. Their central message: programmers sorting through hundreds or thousands of submissions weigh far more than artistic merit.

What actually drives a selection?

For Abdelfattah, the balance of a lineup matters as much as any single film. Rotterdam showcases cinema from across the Arab world, and production volume varies sharply by country.

"If I have a film from Sudan or a film from Egypt and they have the same level of artistic quality, and I have to choose one, I give the film from Sudan the opportunity and the stage," he said. Egypt produces far more films than Sudan.

He estimates that roughly half or more of Rotterdam's program comes through Arab festivals such as Cairo, Red Sea, El Gouna, Marrakech or Amman, with relatively few films sourced from Cannes, Berlin or Venice.

Abdelfattah also resists an increasingly familiar festival aesthetic. Labs, co-production programs and development pipelines have proliferated over the past decade, and he argues films lose individuality as they pass through them. "In each stage, they cut something," he observed. "They lose the personal touch."

Filmmakers must defend their work against that pressure. "You have to be very, very strong to protect your vision," he added. "It can be very difficult."

What mistakes sink submissions?

Mahmoud sees the biggest problem occurring before programmers watch anything. Filmmakers submit without checking whether a festival suits their work.

"A film that explores social issues might be submitted to a festival that focuses primarily on environmental themes or the natural world," he noted. "Why submit a film to a festival that does not align with its subject matter or artistic vision?"

He places distribution alongside the craft itself. "I believe that film distribution has become just as important as editing, cinematography, production and directing," Mahmoud said. Filmmakers should weigh premiere strategy, a festival's programming priorities and its audience rather than submitting everywhere at once.

Basic errors also derail entries. Mahmoud listed the common ones:

• entering the wrong competition
• leaving required information or materials incomplete
• failing to respond to festival requests
• submitting films outside eligibility dates

"Filmmakers should carefully review the festival's rules and requirements before submitting," he urged.

His verdict on the process is blunt. "A film being accepted into a festival does not necessarily mean that it is a good film, nor does it mean that it is the best," Mahmoud stressed. "Conversely, a film being rejected does not mean that it lacks quality or artistic value."

How do juries and audiences see it?

Abdelfattah rejects the idea of a single Arab cinema. "The films from the Maghreb are different from films from Egypt," he said. "We share some values, but we have different kinds of cinema."

Rotterdam's audience is roughly evenly divided between Arab and Dutch viewers, and films do not land identically with each group. At one screening, Abdelfattah heard different halves of the room laugh at different moments during a comedy. "Translating is a difficult art," he said, extending the challenge beyond language to cultural context.

Palestinian-Jordanian filmmaker Darin J. Sallam, director of "Farha" and a member of SIFF's narrative feature jury this year, confirmed that selection is personal. "Evaluating films is ultimately a subjective process shaped by individual perspectives and sensibilities," she said.

She judges by what survives the screening. "It's about how these ideas were treated by their filmmakers and how they made us feel as jury members, and which characters and stories stayed with us when we woke up the day after," Sallam explained. "For me, the success of the film is related to how the film lives in people's minds and hearts after the film is over."

Mahmoud wants festivals to go further, connecting young filmmakers with established directors and producers through workshops and masterclasses. "This allows young filmmakers to learn, network, gain inspiration and grow professionally," he said. For filmmakers planning their 2026 submissions, the practical lesson is clear: research the festival first, protect the film's voice, and treat rejection as a mismatch rather than a judgment.