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.

Publicly claiming that the magazine was created in order to foster “a broader discourse about the art form”, it prominently features films by distribution company Square Eyes which is also mentioned on this website.

For instance, about 50% of the films that the company had picked up for distribution in 2021 and 2022 are featured on the site, some of the films multiple times, and often in “Top 3 of the year…” articles, touting the films as some of the best short films of the year.

There are thousands of short films that are made every year and statistically this is of course impossible, indicating for a statistically significant bias towards films distributed by Square Eyes. The owner of the company, along with other familiar names, are all featured in the online magazine, interviewing each other.

In addition, there are eight short films which are featured on the website for which ‘New Europe Sales’ is doing sales, while Square Eyes is doing “festival strategy” / distribution. These numbers represent almost half of the films that New Europe Sales had worked on during this time:

I Am Afraid to Forget Your Face (Square Eyes & New Europe Sales)
Dustin (Square Eyes & New Europe Sales)
Noir-Soleil (Square Eyes & New Europe Sales)
Warsha (Square Eyes & New Europe Sales)
Sierra (Square Eyes & New Europe Sales)
On Xerxes’ Throne (Square Eyes & New Europe Sales)
In addition to:
Nest (New Europe Sales)
The Water Murmurs (New Europe Sales)

This is, again, highly unusual and a statistical abnormality, indicating that the magazine is not simply writing about short films, but is engaged in some sort of focused promotional activity of films by certain (in this case two) companies.

“Festival strategy” is euphemism for sending out emails to programmers in various festivals to ensure that they actually watch the films so they might be included in their lineup.

Note that there is a direct financial incentive for sales companies to have their films featured on such “magazine” – these articles can then be sent to potential buyers to increase the value of these films, and the potential that they will be picked up for distribution, as they serve as some sort of a “stamp of approval” by supposedly “industry experts.” The “magazine”, on the face of it is “impartial”, servers as sorts of an advertisement, without a full disclosure that it is one. This is especially concerning as many of these films feature on the “best of the year” articles.

This is an example for the subversive use of power/knowledge as described here. In essence, this is a manipulation of knowledge and information for personal gain, and for cementing already established centers of power. The magazine states that it was established by film programmers for high profile European festivals, some of them are mentioned here. One of which, Locarno, is a festival known in the industry to strongly favour films by friends and associates, regardless for their artistic merit. The festival doesn’t even bother to provide a tracking number for submissions and does not bother sending out rejection emails.

In other words, this dishonest control of power/knowledge is practiced by non other than festival programmers themselves, who are fully aware of their actions and their implications. The reason that they are able to do so, openly, is that over the years nepotism, favoritism and conflict of interests within the very insular industry has been completely normalized, which leads to the concentration of power and influence as described here and here.

According to the magazine “Talking Shorts was founded in 2020 by Anne Gaschütz, Daniel Hadenius-Ebner, Emilia Mazik, Niels Putman and Enrico Vannucci.” Enrico is mentioned on our website in relation to another issue involving festival programmers operating a sales agency. As mentioned above, Square Eyes which is already also mentioned on this website, in relation to one of their (now former) employees working as a programmer for the Glasgow Short Film Festival.

This adds to the growing body of evidence indicating that the integrity of the European film industry is being undermined by a select few. These individuals are exploiting their roles within film festivals and organizations for unethical purposes, aiming to increase their own influence and that of their allies within the industry, for personal gain.

Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, they are financing their activities with public funds from European taxpayers.

“Since 2023, Talking Shorts is the official outlet of the European Network for Film Discourse (The END)—which consists of six unique and diverse European film festivals: Filmfest Dresden (DE), Vienna Shorts (AT), Lago Film Fest (IT), FeKK – Ljubljana International Short Film Festival (SI), Kortfilmfestival Leuven (BE) and Vilnius International Short Film Festival (LT)—and is funded by the Creative Europe MEDIA Programme of the European Union.”

We will now be investigating selections in these festivals and how they correlate to films distributed by companies, and individuals, mentioned on the page.

This article will be updated soon with more statistics and information, meanwhile below is a table demonstrating a small portions of the evidence.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Please note that this article is not meant to be an ad hominem attack on any specific person. The individuals mentioned and their positions in various organizations are used as examples for the way that the film industry operates. The positions, roles and professional relationship between individuals are public information. Sources are provided throughout the website. If you would like to report any inaccuracy please do not hesitate to contact us. Our aim is to improve and democratize the film industry by analyzing the way its institutions are set-up. In order to do so, we must list those organizations and the people who work for them or with them, and their relationship with each other. Also, to be clear, there are certainly much bigger fish in the swamp than the individuals listed below but we publish information which is available to us and which was brough to our attention. If you can disclose further information about other individuals or organizations, please contact us.

Is the Integrity of the European Film Industry Compromised?

Square Eyes:

New Europe Sales:

The post Talking Shorts online Magazine, EU Funded, a Tool for Self Promotion? first appeared on Film Industry Watch.

The agency’s distributed short films have consistently garnered awards and cash prizes at the festival. Notably, in 2022, the Square Eyes film “Handbook” won the prestigious Bill Douglas Award for International Short Film, which includes a £1,000 cash prize. Depending on the agreement with the film’s producer, this prize money may have been shared with the distribution company. Pavel Mozhar, the director of “Handbook,” then joined the festival jury in 2023. That year, the Bill Douglas Award, along with its £1,000 cash prize, went to “45th Parallel,” another film distributed by Square Eyes. Additionally, at the 2022 festival, the jury’s Special Mention, a secondary prize, was awarded to “Sierra,” also a film from the agency’s portfolio.

In in a different but related case, in 2022, Mandy Fleifel, a filmmaker whose work is represented by Square Eyes Sales, served on the jury at Vienna Shorts. During this event, the film “And Then They Burn the Sea” by Majid Al-Remaihi, also represented by Square Eyes Sales, received an award. This situation presents a potential conflict of interest, as a juror was affiliated with the same agency that represents one of the award-winning films. This overlap might raise questions about the impartiality of the judging process, since a juror had a professional connection to one of the awarded filmmakers. [1,2,3,4]

These situations further exemplifies the entrenched issue of nepotism within the film industry. It highlights a scenario where individuals hold multiple influential roles, leading to a consolidation of power. This concentration of authority in the hands of a few creates significant barriers for newcomers, especially those lacking industry connections, making it exceedingly difficult for them to gain entry into the industry.

UPDATE 11/1/2024: Within less than a month of publishing this report, an announcement on social media indicated that Sanne Jehoul will part ways with Square Eyes. We extend our best wishes and good luck to her in her future endeavors.

For further reading: Nepotism at TIFF, Wim Vanacker, Ben Vandendaele – NISI MASA conflicts of interests, Revolving doors at the Israeli film funds, Conflict of Interest Taints 2019 Cannes Palme d’Or Award, Dominique Welinski

SOURCES:

https://squareeyesfilm.com/shorts-categories/narrative-2022/

https://squareeyesfilm.com/shorts-categories/documentary-2022/

https://www.screen.scot/news/2021/02/glasgow-short-film-festival-returns-for-its-14th-edition

https://glasgowshort.org/shows/flores-del-otro-patio/

https://glasgowshort.org/shows/the-fruit-tree/

https://glasgowshort.org/shows/neighbour-abdi/

https://glasgowshort.org/shows/abyss/

https://glasgowshort.org/latest/news/announcing-the-gsff22-award-winners/

https://glasgowshort.org/latest/news/gsff23-award-winners/

[1] https://squareeyesfilm.com/shorts/3logicalexits/

[2] https://www.viennashorts.com/en/news/das-sind-unsere-juries

[3] https://www.viennashorts.com/en/festival/festival-archive/2022

[4] https://squareeyesfilm.com/shorts/andthentheyburnthesea/

The post Dual Role as Glasgow Short Film Festival Programmer & at a Short Films Distribution Company first appeared on Film Industry Watch.