By FIW staff
Based on publicly available information and industry records reviewed by Film Industry Watch.

Editor’s note

The analysis focuses on structural questions: transparency, perceived conflicts of interest, unequal access, submission economics, development pipelines, and the concentration of cultural authority in a highly subjective field.
This article examines publicly documented professional overlaps between film festival programming roles and work in film distribution, sales, acquisitions, or festival strategy. No unlawful conduct is alleged. The article does not claim that any individual or organisation acted improperly, influenced a selection for personal benefit, or breached any specific rule.

The quiet power of selection

In the film world, power rarely announces itself as power.

It appears instead as taste. As expertise. As “curation.” As a programmer’s instinct for what feels fresh, urgent, cinematic, formally daring, politically necessary, emotionally true, or simply “right” for a festival.

Unlike law, medicine, engineering, or accounting, the arts do not operate through fixed standards of proof. There is no objective instrument that can determine whether one short film is better than another, whether one emerging director deserves a premiere more than another, or whether one film should be placed in Locarno, Venice, Clermont-Ferrand, Glasgow, Toronto, or nowhere at all.

A film is selected because someone, or some group of people, decides that it matters.

That is precisely what makes festival programming so powerful. The programmer does not merely choose films. The programmer helps manufacture cultural legitimacy. A festival selection can turn an unknown filmmaker into a name. It can unlock public funding, sales interest, press attention, agents, labs, residencies, juries, awards, and future invitations. It can become the first credential in a career-long chain of institutional validation.

For short films, the stakes can be even sharper. There is often no commercial market in the conventional sense. A short film’s value is created almost entirely through festival circulation. The difference between being selected and not being selected can be the difference between a film becoming visible or disappearing completely.

This is why the question of who selects films, who advises filmmakers on how to enter the system, and who commercially benefits from navigating that system is not a small administrative matter. It goes to the heart of how artistic careers are made.

A review by Film Industry Watch of publicly available information identified 11 high-confidence, dateable cases over the last 15 years in which individuals with documented festival programming or selection authority also owned, founded, or worked for distribution, sales, acquisitions, or festival-strategy companies.

The strongest concentration appears in the international short-film circuit, with overlaps connected to festivals and institutions including Go Short – International Short Film Festival Nijmegen, Glasgow Short Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival, Venice International Film Festival, Reykjavik International Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, Vilnius International Film Festival / Kino Pavasaris, IndieLisboa, Hot Docs, Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, and others.

The companies involved include Square Eyes, Varicoloured, Sudu Connexion, La Ola Cine, Ouat Media, VAIVEM, Kino Pavasaris Distribution, We Are Parable, and Avila.

The issue is not that people in the film industry have multiple jobs. They often do. The issue is what happens when the same small group of people operate on both sides of a system where access itself has market value.

Taste, access, and the problem of subjective power

In most cultural institutions, power is protected by the language of subjectivity.

A programmer can say, sincerely, that a film was selected because it was strong. A rejected filmmaker can rarely prove otherwise. A festival can say, accurately, that there were thousands of submissions and only a handful of slots. A selection committee can insist, fairly, that programming is not a mathematical process.

All of that may be true.

But it also creates a structural problem. When decisions are subjective, opaque, and career-defining, trust depends less on whether wrongdoing can be proven and more on whether the system appears insulated from private advantage.

In the arts, conflicts of interest do not always look like direct corruption. They often look like proximity. Familiarity. Shared language. Mutual recognition. People who know what festivals want because they work for festivals. People who know which films are likely to travel because they have helped select similar films. People whose advice carries weight because they are embedded in the same institutions that confer prestige.

This is not necessarily sinister. It is often how cultural fields function. But it is also how power reproduces itself.

The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu famously described cultural fields as spaces where symbolic capital — prestige, recognition, legitimacy, institutional approval — can become a form of power. In the film festival world, symbolic capital is not abstract. A Cannes, Venice, Locarno, Berlinale, Clermont-Ferrand, Sundance, Toronto, or Rotterdam selection can become a currency. It can determine who receives funding, who gets represented, who is invited to labs, who sits on juries, who is later asked to advise others, and who becomes part of the next selection committee.

The danger is circularity.

Festivals create prestige. Prestige creates professional authority. Professional authority creates consultancy, distribution, sales, and strategy opportunities. Those opportunities deepen proximity to filmmakers and institutions. That proximity can then produce more prestige.

No single step in that chain needs to be improper for the overall structure to become exclusionary.

The festival as gate, marketplace, and credentialing machine

Film festivals often describe themselves as platforms for discovery. That description is not wrong, but it is incomplete.

Major festivals are also gatekeeping institutions. They create scarcity. They decide which films are worth attention. They translate aesthetic judgment into industry opportunity. They do not merely reflect taste; they shape taste.

This is especially true in short films, where traditional commercial pathways are limited. A short filmmaker usually does not have theatrical box office, streamer competition, or major sales revenue to rely on. Instead, the film’s life is constructed through festivals. The festival circuit becomes the marketplace, the press strategy, the reputation system, and the industry calling card all at once.

That is why distribution and festival-strategy companies matter. In the short-film world, “distribution” often does not mean mass public distribution. It means festival positioning. It means knowing where to submit, when to submit, how to frame a film, which premiere status matters, which festivals talk to each other, which programmers trust which companies, and which selections can lead to the next.

A company that handles festival distribution is therefore not merely sending files through FilmFreeway. It is selling navigation through a prestige economy.

If the people selling that navigation are also programmers, former programmers, selection committee members, festival advisors, or closely connected curators, the potential advantage is obvious. They possess insider knowledge of the very system their clients are trying to enter.

Again, that does not prove misconduct. It does not mean a represented film was selected unfairly. It does not mean a programmer intervened in favour of a client. But it does raise a governance question that the industry has not taken seriously enough:

Can a person credibly serve as both a gatekeeper and a commercial guide to the gate without clear, public safeguards?

The submission-fee economy: who pays to be considered?

There is another financial layer that is often left out of discussions about festival fairness: submission fees.

For thousands of filmmakers, especially emerging filmmakers, the festival circuit is not free. A filmmaker may pay $30, $50, $80, or more to submit a single film to a single festival. Multiply that across dozens of festivals and the cost of visibility becomes substantial, particularly for filmmakers working without institutional backing, producers, labs, sales agents, or national funding.

This creates a blunt economic question:

Who pays to knock on the door, and who is already inside the room?

If a festival receives thousands of paid submissions, but a meaningful portion of selected films arrive through trusted companies, industry contacts, programmer recommendations, labs, markets, internal scouting, or informal professional channels, the submission-fee model becomes ethically complicated.

The concern is not simply that some films may have better access. The concern is that unconnected filmmakers may be paying into a system whose real pathways of selection are not fully visible to them.

This is especially sensitive when programmers also work for distribution or festival-strategy companies. If represented films benefit from direct relationships, fee waivers, private invitations, industry-market channels, or informal recommendation routes, while ordinary filmmakers pay standard submission fees and enter through open calls, then the issue is no longer only symbolic. It becomes financial.

The question is not whether every represented film bypasses submission fees. The question is whether festivals publicly explain:

• how many selected films came through open submissions;
• how many came through programmers, sales agents, distributors, labs, markets, or invitations;
• whether represented films paid the same submission fees as everyone else;
• whether programmers’ own companies, employers, or close professional networks had films under consideration;
• and whether fee-paying filmmakers are being given a realistic picture of the selection pathway.

For many filmmakers, festival submission fees are not trivial. They are a tax on hope. They pay because festivals present themselves as open discovery platforms. If the most meaningful access is mediated through insiders, then transparency around submission economics becomes essential.

A fair system can still have scouting, invitations, distributors, sales agents, and open submissions. But it should not blur those pathways while charging outsiders for the belief that the door is equally open.

The blind-submission myth: who actually watches the cold films?

There is another uncomfortable reality behind the submission-fee economy: many open-call submissions are not first watched by the senior programmers whose names give the festival its authority.

At major festivals, the first filter is often handled by preselectors, seasonal screeners, junior staff, interns, volunteers, or temporary readers. This is not unusual. Large festivals receive thousands of submissions, and no small programming team can watch everything from start to finish.

But it creates a two-tier credibility problem.

The unrepresented filmmaker may pay a submission fee believing their film is being considered by the festival’s core curatorial team. In practice, their film may first pass through an anonymous early filter, often made up of people with limited authority, limited time, and little public accountability.

By contrast, films arriving through trusted distributors, sales agents, programmer recommendations, development labs, industry markets, or personal networks may enter the conversation much closer to the senior level. They may not need to fight through the same cold-submission bottleneck. They may already carry signals of legitimacy before they are watched: a known sales agent, a familiar producer, a respected lab, a previous festival connection, or a recommendation from someone inside the circuit.

This does not mean that cold submissions are never selected. They are. Nor does it mean that represented films are selected unfairly. Many represented films are strong.

The issue is whether festivals are honest enough about the different pathways through which films are actually considered.

If one filmmaker pays $60 or $80 to enter through an open-call system screened initially by junior or temporary viewers, while another film reaches senior programmers through a trusted industry channel, the process may be formally open but substantively unequal.

That inequality becomes especially sensitive when some of the senior figures in the ecosystem also work for, own, or advise companies that help films travel through it.

In that case, the question is not simply, “Was my film watched?”

The question becomes:

Was it watched by the same level of person, through the same pathway, under the same conditions, and with the same chance of being taken seriously?

Without that answer, “open submissions” can become a comforting phrase that hides a much more stratified reality.

The lab-to-festival pipeline: gatekeeping before submission

The blurred line between programming and distribution often begins long before a film is submitted.

In today’s festival ecosystem, many films pass through development labs, talent campuses, pitching forums, short-film markets, residencies, script workshops, rough-cut labs, industry platforms, and mentoring schemes before they ever reach a festival selection committee.

These spaces are often presented as support structures. And sometimes they are. Labs can help filmmakers improve their work, find collaborators, gain confidence, and access international networks.

But labs are also part of the gatekeeping system.

They create early visibility. They identify “promising” filmmakers. They allow programmers, distributors, producers, sales agents, funders, and curators to encounter projects before the public does. They generate soft endorsements. A film that has passed through the right lab may arrive at a festival not as an unknown submission, but as a project already marked by institutional recognition.

This matters because many of the same cultural intermediaries move between festivals, labs, juries, markets, distribution companies, and advisory roles.

A programmer may meet a filmmaker in a lab. A distributor may encounter a project in a pitching forum. A festival advisor may mentor a filmmaker at one institution and later encounter the completed film in another. A company may pick up a project after it has already been validated by a development network in which festival insiders participate.

Again, this does not prove improper conduct. Development support is not inherently suspicious. But it does show that the festival selection process is often not a single moment of judgment. It is a chain of recognitions.

A film can be noticed, mentored, discussed, recommended, developed, packaged, represented, and then selected. By the time the public sees the festival lineup, the film may already have passed through several layers of insider validation.

This is what makes the phrase “open submission” incomplete. The formal submission may be open. The real process of becoming visible may not be.

The circular validation pipeline

The logic often works like this:

A filmmaker is selected for a lab because they are promising. They become more promising because they were selected for the lab. A distributor takes interest because the project has lab validation. A festival takes interest because the film is represented or already institutionally visible. The festival selection then confirms that the earlier gatekeepers were right. The filmmaker becomes part of the next network.

This is how prestige reproduces itself in the arts. Not necessarily through conspiracy, but through repetition.

Eleven documented overlaps

Film Industry Watch reviewed publicly available biographies, festival pages, company pages, industry profiles, catalogues, interviews, and professional records. The review identified 11 cases where people with festival programming or selection authority also held roles in distribution, sales, acquisitions, or festival strategy companies.

The strongest cases are those in which the overlap sits in the same ecosystem: short-film programming alongside short-film festival distribution; regional programming alongside regional sales; or festival selection authority alongside a company whose business depends on navigating festival circulation.

Wouter Jansen and Square Eyes

One of the clearest examples is Wouter Jansen, founder of Square Eyes, a sales and festival distribution company. Public bios identify him as the former head of film programming at Go Short – International Short Film Festival Nijmegen, an Oscar-qualifying short-film festival, during its first 10 editions. Square Eyes states that it was founded in 2013, originally as Some Shorts, before later rebranding.

The significance of the case lies in the overlap between senior programming authority at a major short-film festival and the creation of a company built around sales and festival distribution in that same field.

There is no allegation here that any selection was improper. The issue is structural. A person who has helped define the taste and programming identity of a major short-film festival is also able to convert that experience into commercial expertise for filmmakers trying to circulate through the festival world.

That is not inherently wrong. In fact, it may make him highly effective at his work. But it also shows how cultural authority can become market power.

Sanne Jehoul and Square Eyes

Sanne Jehoul presents another important example. Public materials identify her as co-director or programme director of Glasgow Short Film Festival during the period from 2020 to 2024. LinkedIn and public bios also place her at Square Eyes during overlapping years, where she worked across the company’s short-film slate and festival strategy.

This is one of the more direct structural overlaps because both roles relate to short films and festival circulation. Glasgow Short Film Festival is a significant short-film event, and Square Eyes is a recognised company in short-film sales and festival distribution.

The issue is not whether any particular film benefited. The issue is that the same person was publicly associated with programming authority and festival distribution work in the same specialised ecosystem.

When filmmakers pay companies for festival strategy, what they are partly paying for is knowledge of taste, timing, positioning, and relationships. When that knowledge comes from someone simultaneously embedded in festival programming, the perception issue is unavoidable.

Enrico Vannucci, Carla Vulpiani, and Varicoloured

The Varicoloured case is among the most consequential in the European short-film context.

Enrico Vannucci and Carla Vulpiani co-founded Varicoloured in 2018. Public sources describe Varicoloured as a short-film distribution and sales company focused on festival circulation. Vannucci has been publicly associated with short-film advisory or programming roles connected to Venice and Locarno, including work as a short-film advisor at Venice from 2014 to 2020 and later selection committee work for Pardi di Domani at Locarno. Vulpiani has been publicly described as a Venice / Orizzonti short-film advisor since 2021, while also remaining associated with Varicoloured as co-founder and sales agent.

This is the kind of overlap that deserves serious institutional attention because it sits precisely at the point where symbolic and commercial capital meet. Venice and Locarno are not minor showcases. They are prestige-generating institutions. A short film connected to such festivals can gain enormous value from selection, even if no direct revenue follows.

A company that distributes short films in the festival world benefits from knowing how that world works. If its founders also hold advisory or selection roles inside top festivals, the question is not whether they are ethical people. The question is whether the system provides enough transparency, recusal, and separation to preserve public trust.

In the reviewed materials, the dual roles appear publicly disclosed. What is much harder to locate is public information explaining how festivals manage such overlaps when represented films, former clients, close collaborators, or company-linked projects are under consideration.

That gap matters.

Claire Diao and Sudu Connexion

Claire Diao is publicly identified as a programmer, critic, distributor, and founder of Sudu Connexion, a company focused on African film sales and distribution. Public sources also describe her selection or programming roles connected to institutions including Clermont-Ferrand, FESPACO, Directors’ Fortnight-related structures, and, more recently, Toronto International Film Festival, where she is listed as International Programmer for Africa and the Middle East.

Here the overlap is not simply “short films.” It concerns regional cultural authority. A programmer responsible for a specific region can help shape how that region is seen by major international audiences. A distributor working with films from that region participates in the market life of the same cultural field.

That does not imply improper conduct. But it does raise a sophisticated conflict question: when one person is both a market actor and a curator of the region, how are boundaries maintained? If the same person helps determine which African or Middle Eastern films enter elite festival spaces while also operating in the sales and distribution ecosystem around African cinema, the potential for perceived conflict is not theoretical.

It is built into the structure.

Pedro Emilio Segura Bernal and La Ola Cine

Pedro Emilio Segura Bernal is publicly connected to programming work at festivals and initiatives including Black Canvas, Reykjavik International Film Festival, Berlin Critics’ Week, Ambulante, and other platforms. He is also publicly described as co-founder or co-director of La Ola Cine, with company activity documented from the mid-2010s.

This again places one person in both the programming and circulation sides of the festival ecosystem. In fields where discovery, recommendation, and selection are deeply relational, such overlap matters. Programmers know which works are gaining attention, which filmmakers are emerging, which aesthetics are fashionable, and which institutions are receptive. A distribution company can benefit from precisely that form of knowledge.

The relevant concern is not that the same person necessarily misused a role. It is that the ecosystem allows a small number of cultural intermediaries to accumulate multiple forms of leverage: curatorial authority, market intelligence, filmmaker relationships, and institutional access.

Susana Santos Rodrigues and VAIVEM

Susana Santos Rodrigues is publicly identified as a co-director and programming selection committee member at IndieLisboa, as well as a programmer or advisor connected to other festivals and industry contexts. She is also publicly connected to VAIVEM, a distribution company founded in 2013.

This case is significant because the festival authority is senior and multi-institutional. A person who co-directs or helps shape festival programming possesses more than taste. They possess agenda-setting capacity. They can influence what kinds of cinema are elevated, which filmmakers are introduced into professional networks, and which works receive institutional legitimacy.

When that authority coexists with distribution activity, the question becomes broader than one festival or one company. It becomes about the accumulation of cultural power across roles.

Again, this article makes no allegation of wrongdoing. It asks whether public governance standards have kept pace with the multi-role reality of the festival sector.

Dovilė Grigaliūnaitė and Kino Pavasaris Distribution

Dovilė Grigaliūnaitė represents a different model. Public materials identify her as Director of Programming at Vilnius International Film Festival and Head of Acquisitions at Kino Pavasaris Distribution. Public interviews about Kino Pavasaris Distribution describe a model in which the same team works across festival and distribution functions.

This is one of the clearest examples of institutional transparency. The overlap is not hidden behind separate boutique activity; it appears to be part of the operating model.

That transparency is meaningful. It allows outsiders to understand the structure. But transparency is not the same as separation. If the same team is involved in festival programming and distribution, the key governance question remains: how are acquisitions, programming choices, commercial priorities, and curatorial decisions separated in practice?

The difference is that this model at least makes the overlap visible. In an industry where many conflicts are informal, visibility itself is an improvement.

Kelly Lui and Ouat Media

Kelly Lui is publicly identified as a shorts programmer at Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival and as a distribution coordinator at Ouat Media, a company specialising in worldwide short-film sales.

This appears to be a lower-level overlap than some of the senior programming cases. Nonetheless, it belongs in the discussion because the format alignment is direct: shorts programming and short-film sales.

In the short-film ecosystem, even coordinator-level roles can matter because the field is unusually network-dependent. Programmers, distributors, sales agents, festival staff, and filmmakers often meet repeatedly across the same markets, juries, labs, and festivals. The concern is cumulative rather than individual: a system where many people hold overlapping roles gradually normalises blurred boundaries.

Carmen Thompson and We Are Parable

Carmen Thompson is publicly identified as Head of Distribution & Special Projects at We Are Parable and as an International Features Programmer at Hot Docs. Public materials also associate her with prior programming work at Sheffield DocFest and Red Sea.

This is a more indirect case because We Are Parable appears to operate more as an exhibition and distribution company rather than a specialist festival-sales agency. Her current programming role is in documentary features, not necessarily the broader short-film festival pipeline.

Still, the example is relevant because it shows that the overlap is not limited to shorts. Documentary festivals, especially major ones, also confer significant legitimacy. A Hot Docs programming role carries cultural and market weight. Distribution and exhibition work in the same ecosystem may not create the same level of direct concern as a short-film festival-strategy company, but it still raises questions about transparency and recusal.

Niels Putman and Avila

Niels Putman is publicly described as a programmer, critic, curator, and film distributor at Avila, a Belgian cinema distribution and VOD platform. Public bios connect him to programming or curatorial work at Fantoche, Film Fest Gent, Leuven International Short Film Festival, and other events.

This is one of the softer cases because Avila appears to be a distribution and VOD platform rather than a pure festival-strategy company. The directness of the overlap is therefore lower than in cases involving companies whose business depends specifically on festival submissions and sales.

But it still illustrates the broader pattern: the same people who help define cultural taste also participate in the market structures through which films circulate.

Why “everyone knows everyone” is not an answer

The film industry often dismisses these questions with a familiar response: the sector is small, everyone knows everyone, people need to make a living, and expertise naturally travels between festivals, sales, criticism, distribution, labs, and teaching.

There is truth in that. But it is not an answer.

Small fields need stronger conflict rules, not weaker ones. In a small field, informal relationships matter more, not less. If everyone knows everyone, then transparency becomes more important, not less important. If programmers must also work as consultants, distributors, or sales agents to survive financially, then institutions need clearer recusal policies, not vague trust in professional goodwill.

The problem is not that people have expertise. The problem is that expertise can become a private asset in a public-facing cultural system.

A festival programmer learns which kinds of films travel. They know which themes are overexposed and which are rising. They know how premiere status is interpreted. They know which festivals care about formal experimentation, political urgency, regional representation, emerging voices, institutional pedigree, or previous festival validation. They know which films are likely to be taken seriously by juries and which ones will die in the submission pile.

That knowledge has commercial value.

When a programmer then works in festival distribution or strategy, the filmmaker is not merely buying administrative labour. They are buying proximity to the codes of selection.

In other fields, this would immediately raise questions. If a grant evaluator also ran a paid consultancy helping applicants apply to the same kind of grant, the concern would be obvious. If a university admissions officer also operated a private admissions service using insider knowledge of selection practices, the conflict would be obvious. If a public procurement official also advised private bidders, the conflict would be obvious.

In the arts, the same issue is often softened by the language of taste.

But taste is exactly where the power is.

Other subjective fields manage conflicts. Film can too.

The common defence is that film is too subjective, too personal, and too network-based to regulate neatly.

But other subjective fields face similar problems and still attempt governance.

Literary prizes depend on taste. Architectural competitions depend on aesthetic and professional judgment. Art prizes, academic fellowships, publishing awards, cultural grants, and design competitions all require subjective evaluation. Yet many such processes still recognise that subjectivity makes conflicts more dangerous, not less.

Common safeguards include:

• jurors declaring professional relationships;
• jurors recusing themselves from work by students, clients, collaborators, or close associates;
• restrictions on recent professional contact;
• published jury lists;
• conflict declarations;
• independent administrators;
• written scoring procedures;
• and, in some cases, anonymised first-round review.

In academia, medicine, public funding, and many professional review systems, conflict-of-interest declarations are not optional etiquette. They are formal documents. Reviewers are often required to sign or complete COI forms before evaluating submissions, grant applications, papers, clinical materials, procurement bids, or funding applications.

The film festival world appears far less standardised. Some festivals may have internal policies, but many do not publish them, and it is often unclear whether programmers, advisors, preselectors, screeners, and jurors are required to sign formal declarations covering distribution ties, consultancy work, lab relationships, paid advisory roles, recent collaborations, students, clients, employers, or represented films.

That gap is striking.

Film festivals make career-defining decisions in a subjective field where personal taste, reputation, and professional proximity matter enormously. If anything, that should require more formal conflict declarations, not fewer.

Film festivals should not be exempt from governance simply because the industry is informal.

If anything, the informality of the festival world makes stronger governance more necessary.

The special problem of arts funding and festival legitimacy

The problem becomes even more serious when public funding is involved.

Many films circulating through top festivals have received public support. Many festivals themselves receive public money, municipal support, national film agency funding, European cultural funding, or institutional subsidies. The justification for that support is usually public interest: cultural diversity, emerging voices, artistic risk, national cinema, regional representation, freedom of expression, or access to culture.

But if the pathway to visibility is shaped by informal networks, repeated insiders, and people who operate commercially around the same selection systems, then public cultural money may end up reinforcing closed circuits.

This is not a claim about one person or one company. It is a system-level concern.

A filmmaker without access to the right distributor, the right sales agent, the right programmer, the right lab, the right mentor, or the right informal recommendation may technically be allowed to submit. But formal openness is not the same as real access.

A festival may receive thousands of submissions from around the world. In theory, anyone can apply. In practice, the films that arrive with the right signals — known producers, lab history, previous festival selections, trusted representatives, familiar programmers, visible institutions — may begin the process with an advantage that is difficult to quantify and almost impossible to challenge.

That is how soft power works in the arts. It does not need to say no directly. It simply recognises some people faster than others.

The governance gap: disclosure without explanation

One of the most important findings in the reviewed material is that many dual roles are publicly disclosed. They appear in bios, jury pages, festival pages, company pages, industry profiles, or LinkedIn entries.

That is good. It is better than concealment.

But disclosure alone is not governance.

A bio saying that someone is both a programmer and a distributor tells the public that an overlap exists. It does not explain what happens when that overlap becomes operationally relevant.

The missing questions are practical:

• If a film represented by a programmer’s company is submitted to a festival where that programmer works, is the programmer recused?

• If the filmmaker was previously a client, collaborator, colleague, student, mentee, or lab participant, is that relationship declared?

• If a programmer advises a company informally, does the festival know?

• If a programmer works for a distribution company handling films in the same format, territory, or circuit, are they excluded from certain decisions?

• Are recusals recorded?

• Are they disclosed publicly?

• Is there an internal conflict register?

• Do festivals distinguish between direct financial interest, professional proximity, recent collaboration, and general acquaintance?

• Who enforces the rule?

• What happens if the same person is not the final decision-maker but still participates in discussion, recommendation, preselection, scouting, or internal advocacy?

These are not aggressive questions. They are basic governance questions.

The fact that they are difficult to answer from public materials is itself significant.

Why recusal is harder than it sounds

Some festivals may have internal safeguards. They may require programmers to step aside when conflicts arise. They may divide submissions by region. They may prevent programmers from voting on films connected to them. They may have internal declarations of interest.

But in the festival world, influence does not operate only through final votes.

A programmer can influence a process by recommending a film, framing a discussion, identifying a filmmaker as important, passing along a screener, discouraging a selection, validating a project’s reputation, or simply lending credibility to a film through prior association. In subjective fields, soft influence is often more important than formal authority.

That is why conflict rules borrowed from more bureaucratic fields may not be enough.

In cinema, a conflict of interest is not only “I have a financial stake in this film.” It can also be:

• “I represent films in this circuit.”

• “I advise filmmakers on how to enter this festival world.”

• “I work with a company that benefits from festival prestige.”

• “I have professional relationships with filmmakers whose careers may later benefit my company.”

• “I help define the taste environment in which my commercial activity operates.”

These are harder to regulate, but they are not imaginary.

The short-film circuit as a prestige economy

The short-film ecosystem deserves special scrutiny because it is one of the purest examples of a prestige economy.

Feature films can sometimes survive through sales, platforms, national release, reviews, or audience demand. Short films usually cannot. Their value is overwhelmingly symbolic. They matter because festivals say they matter.

That makes festival distribution companies unusually important. A good festival distributor can shape the entire life of a short film: where it premieres, how it is positioned, which festivals see it first, which programmers are contacted, which awards become possible, and how the film is remembered.

For emerging filmmakers, this can be the first serious step into the industry. A short film’s festival run may influence whether a filmmaker gets into labs, finds producers, receives development funding, is invited to pitch, or is considered for a debut feature.

In that context, the overlap between programmers and distributors is not a niche ethical concern. It affects the credibility of the career pipeline itself.

If the same ecosystem repeatedly rewards those already connected to programmers, sales agents, labs, and recurring institutions, then the festival world risks becoming less a discovery machine than a recognition machine: it recognises those already close enough to be recognised.

Public trust and the perception of fairness

Institutions often underestimate perception.

They may believe that because their internal process is ethical, the public should trust it. But trust in cultural institutions does not work that way. It depends on whether outsiders can see enough of the process to believe that decisions are made fairly.

Filmmakers rarely receive meaningful explanations for rejection. They may spend months preparing submissions, paying fees, crafting festival strategies, and waiting for decisions. When they later discover that some programmers also work in distribution, sales, or festival-strategy roles, the perception problem is obvious.

The question becomes: did my film lose because it was weaker, or because the system already knew which films it wanted to see?

Most of the time, that question cannot be answered. That is exactly why transparent safeguards matter.

A fair process must not only be fair internally. It must be legible externally.

The FIW Standard for Festival Transparency

The solution is not to ban every programmer from ever working in distribution, sales, criticism, consulting, teaching, or acquisitions. That would be unrealistic and probably harmful. The industry relies on people who move between roles. But festivals and publicly funded institutions should adopt clearer standards.

Film Industry Watch proposes the following minimum transparency framework. These standards would protect filmmakers, festivals, funders, and programmers alike. They would not eliminate subjectivity. They would make subjectivity more accountable.

Active or historical? Why the timing matters

One possible criticism of any long-range review is that older examples may no longer reflect the current ecosystem.

That is why timing matters.

In this review, several of the overlaps are not merely historical. A number appear to be active or recently active in the 2023–2026 period, including cases involving Varicoloured, Square Eyes, Sudu Connexion, La Ola Cine, VAIVEM, Kino Pavasaris Distribution, Ouat Media, We Are Parable, and Avila.

The issue therefore cannot be dismissed as a relic of an earlier, looser period of festival culture. The overlap between programming authority and distribution or festival-strategy work appears to remain part of the contemporary festival ecosystem.

That makes the governance question urgent.

A system problem, not a morality play

It would be easy to turn this issue into a list of names and insinuations. That would miss the point.

The stronger argument is not that individual programmers are corrupt. The stronger argument is that the film festival ecosystem has allowed cultural authority, market activity, and institutional legitimacy to become too closely intertwined without sufficient public explanation.

Most people named in this article appear to disclose their roles publicly. Many are respected professionals. Some may follow internal recusal rules that are not publicly visible. Some overlaps may be harmless in practice. Some may even benefit filmmakers by bringing expertise into under-resourced parts of the industry.

But systems should not depend on personal virtue.

A healthy cultural ecosystem does not ask outsiders to simply trust that insiders are managing conflicts properly. It creates rules, publishes them, and allows the public to understand how decisions are protected from private advantage.

That is especially important in the arts, where subjective judgment is unavoidable. The more subjective the decision, the stronger the need for procedural transparency.

The deeper question: who gets to become visible?

Every festival selection answers a hidden question: who deserves to be seen?

In a fair cultural system, that question should be answered through artistic judgment, diversity of perspective, and openness to discovery. But when selection power overlaps with commercial guidance, the answer can begin to tilt toward those who already know how to move through the system.

That is the real danger. Not a single scandal. Not one smoking gun. Not one programmer. Not one company.

The danger is a prestige economy where insiders do not need to conspire because the structure already works in their favour.

The films that travel are the films that are legible to the people who select. The filmmakers who advance are the ones who learn the codes. The companies that succeed are the ones closest to the gate. The programmers who gain authority can later sell that authority as expertise. And the whole system can continue to describe itself as open because technically anyone can submit.

This is how inequality survives in cultural fields. Not through explicit exclusion, but through accumulated proximity.

Conclusion: disclosure is not enough

The reviewed cases show that overlaps between festival programming and distribution or festival-strategy work are not isolated anomalies. They appear across multiple festivals, countries, and formats, with particular concentration in the short-film world.

Some overlaps are direct and high-risk. Others are more indirect. Some are openly acknowledged. Others are visible only by piecing together biographies, company pages, festival catalogues, and industry profiles.

The common thread is not illegality. It is governance.

Film festivals occupy a powerful position in the cultural economy. They do not merely screen films. They create value, legitimacy, careers, reputations, and markets. When the people involved in those decisions also participate commercially in the same ecosystem, the public deserves more than biographical disclosure.

It deserves rules.

Until festivals publish clear conflict-of-interest policies, signed COI declarations, recusal procedures, submission-pathway data, screener transparency, fee-waiver transparency, and explanations of how programmer-distributor overlaps are managed, the central concern will remain:

Not that the system is necessarily corrupt.

But that it is too opaque to prove that it is fair.

Call for information

Film Industry Watch is continuing to examine the relationship between festival programming, distribution, sales, festival strategy, submission fees, lab pipelines, screener practices, and conflict-of-interest safeguards.

Filmmakers, producers, programmers, screeners, festival workers, distributors, and industry professionals are invited to share documented experiences, including:

• films represented by companies linked to festival programmers;
• submission-fee disparities or fee-waiver practices;
• examples of films reaching senior programmers through non-open-call pathways;
• lab-to-festival pipelines involving the same individuals or institutions;
• undisclosed professional relationships between programmers, distributors, producers, mentors, or sales agents;
• internal festival conflict-of-interest policies;
• screener, preselector, intern, or volunteer viewing practices;
• correspondence, screenshots, catalogues, contracts, public bios, fee receipts, waiver evidence, or other verifiable material.

FIW welcomes both named and confidential submissions. Anonymous claims should be supported by documents wherever possible. FIW will not publish unsupported allegations as fact and will seek comment where appropriate.

Right of reply

The individuals, festivals, companies, and organisations mentioned in this article are invited to respond. Film Industry Watch will publish or reflect any substantive response where appropriate.

The post Open Submissions, Closed Networks? Festival Programmers, Distribution Companies, and the Blurred Line Between Access and Influence first appeared on Film Industry Watch.

Film Industry Watch recently received the following account from a producer responding to our reporting on how public film funding in Europe is actually decided.

It is one testimony, not a court ruling. But it is also the kind of testimony we keep hearing, from different countries, in different forms, with the same basic architecture underneath: the same names, the same insiders, the same production companies, the same festivals, the same boards, and the same contempt for anyone who asks how the machine actually works.

According to the producer, the experience began in Cannes around nine years ago, after the release of an independent film in New Zealand. That release made them eligible to join a producers program. What followed, they say, was not an introduction to a merit-based cultural system, but to something far more revealing.

“In the daily round table conversations with the industry it soon became clear: indie film uses schemes. That’s what they actually teach you and call it.”

That line is worth pausing on. Publicly, European film funding is sold as cultural stewardship, support for talent, and the protection of artistic diversity. Privately, what many filmmakers encounter is something else: an insider structure dressed up as public service.

The producer says the atmosphere in Cannes was unmistakable.

“What struck me was the fact, everyone knew eachother. Like true buddies sharing a secret.”

That is a familiar description. One of the recurring problems in European film culture is that a closed circle is endlessly rebranded as an “ecosystem.” A network of recurring decision-makers is presented as a community. Structural concentration is reframed as professional trust.

And if you point out that the same people seem to rotate between funding bodies, festivals, production companies, juries, labs, and advisory positions, you are treated not as someone asking an obvious public-interest question, but as someone violating the etiquette of the room.

That is precisely what the producer describes. According to the email, things became tense when they asked why funding seemed to keep going to the same production companies, including companies connected to people sitting on boards and festivals.

“It became weird when I started asking questions about how funding always went to the same production companies that also sit in boards, festivals and are often producers them selves.”

The response, they say, was not transparency. It was deferral. A short, vague answer, followed by a suggestion that the matter be discussed privately at a Dutch Film Fund drinks event later that week.

“A fluffy 30 second answer ended by stating we should talk about this separately on the Dutch FilmFund drinks night.”

That detail says plenty on its own. Public money. Public institutions. Public-interest questions. Private drinks.

According to the producer, when they arrived at the event, they were not on the guest list and were treated like people trying to crash an important industry gathering. The same person who was supposed to explain the details allegedly passed by the entrance, did not acknowledge them, and offered no real answer once inside.

“But if I wanted I could come in and drink a free Heineken dutch beer.”

The image is almost too perfect: not an explanation, not accountability, not openness, just a free beer and a social brush-off. Later, the producer says, when they tried again to start the conversation, the woman in question “rolled her eyes and walked away.”

Then comes the central allegation in the email: that behind the soft language of industry development lies a much narrower production bottleneck.

“It’s like an oldfashion guild: you need to be able to work with one of the 3 production companies before applying for funding. If they don’t go along with it, no funding.”

That is the heart of it. If true, it means the issue is not merely favoritism at the margins. It means access itself is structured through a narrow gate. You are not really applying into an open field. You are being filtered through a small number of approved channels.

The producer goes further:

“The funding can only go through these companies, so they decide what is being produced.”

And then further still:

“The money is simply being shared between these companies and they roll the dice who is to win a price at what event.”

That is the producer’s allegation, and it should be read as such. But it lands because it fits a broader pattern many filmmakers already recognize: when funding, prestige, festival circulation, and institutional reputation all pass through overlapping networks, the claim that outcomes are purely artistic becomes harder and harder to take seriously.

The email also argues that the system’s influence does not stop at production.

“Next to that they fully control what’s playing in the film theaters since they do the funding. Hence we all get to see the same films in the whole of Europe.”

Again, the language is blunt. But the underlying point is hard to dismiss. If the same ecosystem shapes development, production, festival legitimacy, and distribution pathways, then what audiences see is not simply “the best work.” It is often the work that passed through the approved loop.

That has cultural consequences. The public is told it is being offered diversity, while in practice it is often being handed variation within a controlled range. Different countries, similar aesthetics. Different languages, similar ideological packaging. Endless talk of risk-taking from institutions built to minimize actual risk.

The producer’s description of how young talent is absorbed into this structure is particularly bleak.

“If you are talented you might end up at one of these 3 companies as a junior, sucked dry for great ideas and once your puppy trained and know the system you might be eligible to become a producer after 10 – 15 years and share in the revenue. A groom system at best.”

It is ugly language, but it captures a reality many emerging filmmakers describe more politely: semi-permanent apprenticeship, slow permission, endless gatekeeping, and a career ladder that often seems to reward compliance as much as talent. Public funding is meant to widen access. Too often, it appears to formalize dependence.

The producer ultimately decided to step back from the system altogether.

“So, after that experience we were taking 10 steps back from the industry.”

Instead of continuing to chase institutional approval, they say they turned toward direct audience access.

“Luckily YouTube is a great way to play your material we recently found out.”

After ten years behind a paywall, they put their film online. Their conclusion is striking not because it is idealistic, but because it is disillusioned.

“We decided that filmmaking is a passion and will never pay for our mortgage.”

That sentence alone says more about the actual economics of “supported cinema” than most industry panels do in an hour.

The email ends with the line that probably explains why so many institutions fear independent distribution, direct access, and voices that refuse to play along:

“I will never try and get funding anymore. I’m not a beggar that can’t choose. I’m a chooser that refuses to beg.”

There it is. The real insult to the system is not criticism. It is refusal.

Because systems like this do not merely run on money. They run on prestige hunger, dependency, and the belief that legitimacy lives inside the maze. The lab. The market badge. The drinks list. The closed-door panel. The nod from the people who already know each other.

The moment filmmakers stop believing that, the spell starts to weaken.

Not every funded film is corrupt. Not every producer inside the system is compromised. Not every institution operates in exactly the same way. But the pattern is now too familiar, and the testimonies too consistent, to dismiss as bitterness or misunderstanding.

Across Europe, the public is told it is funding artistic openness. Too often, it seems to be funding managed circulation within a narrow class of insiders.

The public pays for pluralism. It keeps getting repetition.

If you have seen similar patterns in film funds, festival programs, training labs, or public funding bodies, contact Film Industry Watch confidentially.

The post Another Producer Describes the Same Closed Loop in European Film Funding“Everyone knew each other. Like true buddies sharing a secret.” first appeared on Film Industry Watch.

The Israeli film industry likes to talk about diversity, bold voices and creative risk. On paper, it is a vibrant scene. In reality, it is a tiny, self-reinforcing circuit of insiders who teach one another, fund one another, program one another, and then review one another’s work in the press.

Two recent reviews in the mainstream outlet Ynet, both written by the same critic and both praising films by his own colleagues at Tel Aviv University’s film department, reveal just how tight and self-referential that loop has become.

This is not an isolated anecdote. It fits neatly into decades-long pattern that FIW has already documented in detail in our report “ISRAEL: Decades Long Alleged Corruption at the Rabinowitz & Gesher Film Funds”: alleged revolving doors, readers who are also beneficiaries rotating between the two, overlapping festival juries and filmmakers, and public money circulating inside the same small circle of people. What we’re seeing now with academic critics and their colleagues is simply another branch of the same tree.

Case 1: “Nana Dauri” – the review that quietly admits the conflict, but only at the end of the review

The first example is “Nana Dauri” (“נאנדאורי”), directed by Eti Tsiko. Tsiko is a faculty member at the Steve Tisch School of Film and Television at Tel Aviv University. The critic who reviewed her film on Ynet, Shmulik Duvdevani, is also a faculty member at that same film school. He gives the film a glowing four-star review.

Buried towards the end of the piece he adds a casual aside: a brief “גילוי נאות” (“disclosure”) that they are colleagues at the university. For most readers, it’s a throwaway line. For anyone who cares about governance, it’s a red flag. A meaningful disclosure would be:

• placed at the top of the article, not hidden in the body towards the end of the review and
• ideally explaining why the critic chose to review a colleague’s film in the first place.

That doesn’t happen here. The conflict is “technically” acknowledged, but practically neutralized. Worse, this is not the only overlap. According to the Jerusalem Film Festival’s own publications, Tsiko also serves on the festival’s International Programming Committee. In other words, she is a gatekeeper at one of Israel’s major festivals, where her own films (in plural) compete and win.

Taken together – the hidden-in-plain-sight disclosure, the shared academic affiliation, the glowing review, and the programming role at the same festival where the film is rewarded – the structure is hard to ignore. This is not an open field, it’s a closed loop.

Case 2: “Kvish HaSArgeL” – when there isn’t even a disclosure

If the first case could be dismissed as a one-off lapse, the second one makes that impossible. On 2 February 2025, Ynet published another raving, four-star review by the same critic, Shmulik Duvdevani. This time, the subject was “Kvish HaSargel” (“כביש הסרגל”), a feature by Maya Dreifuss. Dreifuss is also a filmmaker and also a faculty member in the same Tel Aviv University film department. In this review, there is no disclosure at all. No mention of the fact that critic and director share the same institutional home. No hint that the review is of a colleague’s film. To the reader, it appears as purely independent judgment. To anyone looking at the structure, it is anything but.

When a critic reviews one colleague and buries the conflict in the end of the text, then reviews another colleague from the same department with no disclosure whatsoever – and both reviews are emphatically positive – what you have is not a coincidence. You have a pattern. And that pattern sits in a broader ecosystem FIW has already chronicled: a system where the same small number of people cycle through roles as project readers, fund beneficiaries, festival jurors, programmers, union heads who receive funding as directors, fund CEOs handing money to business partners, and now academic reviewers. It is an ecosystem designed to reward people already inside it.

The Israeli Film Club, Where Only Members are allowed In

From funds to festivals to film schools, the Israeli film industry operates as one small club. In our long-form investigation “ISRAEL: Decades Long Alleged Corruption at the Rabinowitz & Gesher Film Funds”, FIW documented:

• alleged revolving doors between film funds and the Israeli Film Council,
• readers who simultaneously evaluated scripts and received financing from the same funds,
• festival jurors whose own films were in competition at those festivals,
• fund CEOs and artistic directors allegedly intervening in funding rounds,
• and a disproportionate share of public money flowing to a small cluster of producers and companies.
• That report showed how public film funds can become self-serving machines: a handful of decision-makers allegedly shaping what gets made, who gets financed, and who gets shut out – year after year.
  
  Now add to this:
• university departments where key faculty direct films,
• critics at major outlets who are drawn from the same departments,
• faculty who sit on festival programming or guest roles,
• and those festivals serving as the main platform for “serious” Israeli cinema.

What we see now with Tel Aviv University, Ynet, and the Jerusalem Film Festival is the same logic in a different corner of the system. The critic doesn’t just happen to like two films. He is embedded in the same institutional network as their directors. One of those directors is also a programmer at a major festival. That festival, like others, has a documented history of overlapping jurors and filmmakers, including one who has been mentioned on the site multiple times in relation to other conflicts of interests. The funds feeding the industry have documented allegations of revolving doors between evaluators and beneficiaries.

At some point, we should stop calling this “unfortunate optics” and start calling it what it structurally is: a closed, self-congratulatory circle of a small group constantly validating, rewarding and amplifying one another, while presenting the result as objective merit and open competition.

What this means for anyone outside the circle

For filmmakers who did not study in the “right” school (there are only two of them), did not pass through the “right” labs, did not work for the funds, did not intern at the festivals, and do not share offices or corridors with the critics – in other words, not part of the circle – the message is clear: you are not really part of Israeli cinema’s inner ring. If you are an outsider – someone who didn’t pass through this network of film schools, funds, festivals, and media – your chances of breaking in are tiny. You are competing not just with other films, but with an entire web of institutional loyalties and mutual dependencies. And as our readers from Israel have told us repeatedly, this does not just shape who gets reviews or festival slots – it shapes who gets money, who gets distribution, who gets prizes, and ultimately, who gets to have a career.

Why disclosure and recusal are the absolute minimum

This is why disclosure is not a technicality. It is the bare minimum of honesty. A critic must tell readers when:

• they review a colleague’s work,
• they share an employer or department,
• they’ve worked with the filmmaker in another capacity.

A festival must tell audiences when:

• programmers have films in competition,
• jurors are connected to participating films,
• funders and decision-makers hold overlapping institutional roles.

Public funds must be transparent about:

• who reads,
• who decides,
• who sits on councils,
• and who receives the money.

Israel’s film ecosystem consistently fails on multiple points. The two Ynet reviews are simply the most visible, easy-to-understand examples.

Israel’s film institutions could take immediate steps to restore trust:

• Require prominent disclosures in all reviews where critic and filmmaker share an institutional home.
• Prohibit festival programmers from participating in competitions where their own films are present, or require full removal and transparent recusal.
• Publish the names and roles of festival committees, funds’ readers, and council members, along with their industry connections.
• Establish term limits and cooling-off periods for key roles in film funds and councils, as FIW has already recommended in relation to the Rabinowitz and Gesher funds.
• Treat conflicts of interest as a design problem, not an inconvenience.

None of this would prevent good films from being made. It would simply let audiences believe that when a film is praised or funded, it is because of what is on the screen – not who the director shares a coffee machine, a classroom, or a committee with.

Right of Reply

Tel Aviv University, Ynet, the Jerusalem Film Festival, the Rabinowitz Foundation, the Gesher Fund, and the individuals named in this article are invited to respond. FIW will publish clarifications or statements in full or in relevant part. All information in this report is based solely on publicly available records and materials submitted by readers. No allegation of unlawful conduct is made. All parties are presumed to have acted in good faith unless proven otherwise.

Share Information Securely – Confidential Submissions Are Welcome

FIW relies on filmmakers, insiders, students, and cultural workers who are willing to share what institutions prefer to keep quiet. If you have information about:

• undisclosed overlaps,
• film fund practices,
• festival juries and programming,
• academic–industry ties,
• or any other structural issues in Israeli cinema,
  

we encourage you to contact us – anonymously if necessary. We do not collect IP addresses or technical identifiers. You can submit securely at: https://filmindustrywatch.org/contact/

The post Friends Reviewing Friends: Conflicts of Interest in Israeli press & Cinema first appeared on Film Industry Watch.