Rejection Revisited – Newport Beach Film Festival Doesn’t Want “My Kind”

This my friend, is something hilariously ironic or just plain funny and fucked up shit, but it makes you go, “Hmmmm…..?”

I just got off the phone with the volunteer coordinator for the Newport Beach Film Festival. The number is 949-387-3489. You know, this is the festival that rejected my film, “Broken Hearts Club,” right? Well. At the time when I was waiting for an answer about the festival I went to the official website and signed up to be a volunteer. I figured, what the hell? Truthfully, I had no intentions of following up to do volunteer work. I’ve done my time volunteering for film festivals and award shows, thank you very much. But then again, one never knows how one might feel in the future, right?

But on with the story…

So I get a call from the volunteer coordinator. It seems my “reputation” proceeds me. She confirms that I am signed up for a volunteer orientation for March 28th. But then she promptly says that she doesn’t think that I am “…the right kind of person we want to have as a volunteer.”

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

If you know me, then you know there is NO way I am letting that slide. I asked her, “What makes you believe that?”

She stutters for a second. Gathers her thoughts and then says, “Well, it because of certain comments we’ve read. I don’t think you represent the kind of person we want interacting with patrons.”

I knew exactly about what she was referring. “Fair enough,” I said. We hung up. Now, don’t get me wrong. She was very polite and she didn’t try to bullshit me with bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo. The fact is, she told the truth! But–

 WHAT. THE. FUCK?

What makes her think that because I blog about my personal distaste with how most film festivals are run on my blog, that I’ll turn into a raving unprofessional malcontent as I am ushering some audience members to their assigned seats? Oh, and is it not human to be at least a tad bitter about not being accepted into a film festival, hence, my previous blog? I guess she didn’t want an angry black man roaming through Newport Beach bitching about the scam that most film festivals are all about.

But that makes me wonder: are filmmakers now supposed to suck it up after each rejection notice and make a concerted effort not to bad-mouth a festival — or any festival — despite feeling abandoned by all festivals? Shit, here we thought we needed to worry about governmental Big Brother policies, when it’s film festivals we need to worry about. 

And her phone call made me think, “I’ve bad-mouthed Sundance plenty in the last few years. Am I on some kind of Festival Black List?” Is this indicative of typical festival politics and of what I’ve chirped about all along, i.e. “We don’t like him, thus we don’t like his film.”

It’s funny, but scary. What happened to the First Amendment? Is bad-mouthing a festival like crying “fire” in a crowded movie theater? Hmmm. movie theater…? Could there be something behind the reason why a “movie theater” has been used in that analogy for so long?

Thank you very much for rejecting me twice, Newport Beach Film Festival. Thank you for proving my point beyond a reasonable doubt. If I am on your “bad list” then rest assured, you are most certainly on mine as well. It’s on! And note:  I play by an entirely different set of rules.

All this time I was wondering if anyone was reading my blogs, turns out, someone was.