Just to clear up that point, festivals often invite writers solely for their coverage of the event. No juries or panels are needed and many papers, websites and blogs accept such invites. They don’t guarantee *positive* coverage, of course, but flights and hotel are often, regularly and routinely provided to and accepted by publications and some level of coverage is expected.

The question of how festivals interact with journalists is a legitimate one. Couching it around Wells is neither smart nor the way to initiate a real conversation. Wells’ issues are beyond the bigger issue and the list of places where he is quietly persona non grata is long.

The issue of legitimacy and accepting travel from festivals is going to become more significant as the economy continues to worsen. Major papers now accept free lunches when they never did before. Junket and festival expenses are not far behind.

In my opinion, if you are a guest, you should act like a guest. You don’t shit on the floor or chase housekeepers down the hallway. But you also have the freedom to review movies as you so wish, unless there is some other agreement on the table.

I am an advisor to the Bermuda Film Festival. I stopped covering it in any real way when I took on that role. But each year we invite both journalists and talent, looking forward to their participation, whatever press comes of it, and their personal word of mouth. The festival works very hard to make sure that people are well taken care of while on the island. Most are good about it, some are great, and there are always a few complainers. But we’ve never had a public attack over wi-fi, which is always iffy even in Bermuda’s best hotels, or anything else except one or two slaps at programming in the early years. In the end, the measure of the positive energy from any guest is the memory of that person and what they brought to the party. No one - except our publicist - is counting words.

This issue, for me, extends to other non-festival work. Do I interview someone if I don’t like their movie? Am I obliged to tell them? Do I lie? Where is that line? All hard and compelling questions that we all wrestle with.

What I don’t do is to slap them in the face and post a blog entry about how much I enjoyed it. That is not journalism. It is not even gossip. It is bad behavior, however you slice it.

This is the closest I have come to a “Jeff Wells issue” in years, but because you, Karina, made it about something bigger, I felt compelled to comment. In WebLand, piggybacking real ideas on controversial eye-catchers is a bad habit – which I have certainly indulged in – that is catching on in Traditional Media. And we should all cut it out.

Those are valid questions, and ones I’ve been pondering of late too. I’ve always seen it as, if a festival brings you out as press, without any other responsibility such as being a panelist or juror, they may not expect you to say something nice, but they expect you to say something. I find it hard to fathom that any festival would have me or anyone else from the press out for a vacation opportunity, without some other responsibility. Then again, I’m not a big name in press (I can imagine someone like Ebert getting a couple vacation style invites, but he can give press just by being mentioned; no one would bat an eye if they saw “Mark Bell, formerly of Film Threat” so my perspective is going to be different).

When it’s been to speak on a panel, I know that my presence is helping a festival out with an event, and therefore my responsibility, and value, to the festival is to speak on that panel no matter what. At the same time, I’ve personally never been able to justify a trip solely for a panel, and would cover the festival as I would had I gone on my own dime, which is to say, I’d be seeing movies, reviewing them and then blogging about the events and adventures I’d enjoyed along the way. While I do not think a festival, upon inviting me out for a panel, expects me to go beyond the panel, I don’t think I’d be wrong to assume they HOPE I do, to bring that extra coverage out. In many ways, to cover the festival beyond the business arrangement of a panel invite is a way of saying “thank you for thinking of me in the first place.” It’s not required, but it is good manners.

At the same time, when I was with Film Threat, there was as much value to my own site in me seeing and reviewing films, and commenting on a festival, as there was for the festival itself. Very symbiotic that way: I need interesting content for the site, the festival needs to be seen as interesting content, so both sides benefit. As long as both sides realize that any coverage will be honest and possibly as negative as it could wind up being glowing, then it all seems to make sense to me.

When a festival has brought me out as a juror, however, it is extremely hard to cover it as press as well. Mainly because, as a juror, you just cannot offer your opinion on films you’re judging during the festival, and it even feels impolite to say what you thought after the fact. Then coverage becomes more about atmosphere, and while there is value in that, I know if I’m a juror than my responsibility, first and foremost, is to see all the films I’m judging and then come up, with the help of the other jurors, with a winner.

I can happily say, however, that my coverage of festivals has been the same whether I had a paid invite or covered on my own dime (save the juror situations), and I think that there’s a value in consistency. At the same time, that consistency almost creates an unspoken business agreement between a festival and the press they’re inviting; if you deliver a certain level of coverage, a festival that invites you, while they may not come out and state that they expect that same level of coverage, they’ve got to be thinking it. Again, the value for a non-juror / non-panelist press is their coverage. This is why we have to keep submitting proof of our coverage of a festival every time we try to get a press badge.

In the end, too, it is important to remember that the ones who benefit the most from all of this are the filmmakers. If a festival can load their event with press, filmmakers get a better shot at having their films covered by somebody. On top of that, if a festival gets enough press, they can justify existing to the people pulling the purse-strings, which feeds the filmmaking community by keeping one more theatrical / public-screening festival option around for another year. And if we follow that line of “who benefits” further, film press, at least on the level that I’ve known it, would not have a job if there weren’t films to see and festivals to cover. In that way, you’re doing for yourself while you’re doing for others, and maybe the business arrangement that you’re striking, on a grander scale, is with the overall ecology of the filmmaking community.

On that grander notion, maybe that’s why folks have been so incensed with Wells. In his way, he thumbed his nose at the entire community but not attending that panel. He let the filmmakers down, and he upset the balance a bit. Plus, disappointment is a powerful feeling, and there are many of us out there that feel that Wells is a brilliant writer and just get let down by his behavior, time and time again. To that notion, in the end, I can only say to them, and myself… focus on doing your job to the best of your ability. That’s all you can ever really control anyway.

Boy, this went on far longer then I had planned…

To be fair, our other panelists are not film critics and received the same accommodations. For myself the answer is no, but do expectations change if a panelist also is a member of the media?

For our fest, we invite the panelists to be on the panel and to share their experiences. I personally helped create the film critic panel for two reasons: I wanted to hear from these people and learn from their experiences, and I wanted Univ of MS journalism students to have the opportunity to learn more about the field. Giancarlo Eposito was also on the panel and I highly doubt he will be reporting on the event. (smile)

But you have posed an interesting question Karina!

This is the problem with most film entertainment websites is an entitlement complex. These guys believe they are part of the industry, rather than the sad little starfuckers they’ve become. Wells bailing on a festival due to no WiFi is like an musician cancelling a gig because he didn’t get a bowl of green m&m’s that was listed in his rider.

It’s a sad, megolomaniacal display, just like Faraci’s idiotic taped rant they posted and then mysteriously deleted over at Slashfilm.

These guys aren’t journalists, they are attention seekers. And like all spoilled children, when no one takes them seriously and gives them positive attention they act like assholes forcing people to take notice.

Such sad little men. Amusing, but only in the most morbid of ways.

This post wasn’t intended as a mean-spirited critique of any individual and their choices (including Jeff, who started this whole thing out of a place of professional integrity, and even if it went too far, by his own admission, I respect that). I was hoping we could have an honest conversation about why film festivals fly out guests, what they want in return, and what our responsibilities are if we accept such invitations. If you take an invitation with the understanding that you’ll be taking a weekend off at the festival’s expense, is that different from taking a resort junket at a studio’s expense? What are they buying, and what are we selling?

I don’t know the answer to these questions, but my hope was that we could have some conversations around them in a detached, professional manner. The fact is, a newspaper probably wouldn’t allow their full time reporter to take the OFF offer as it was described in the comments here … but, we’re moving into a world where full time newspaper reporters are extinct, so I think it might be time to reevaluate those rules. In any case, I’m learning a lot about the sensitive spots of these issues from the comments and private emails I’ve received. And I love to learn.

Yes, Wells mentioned the festival numerous times on his site — but only peripherally, via Memphis sightseeing, or by talking about what he ate for lunch and how much more interesting that was then the movies playing at the festival he did NOT see. I suppose that is publicity, but it’s not the right kind of publicity - and certainly not “reporting” on the festival itself.

That said, I myself did not go to Oxford with the intention of covering it; like Scott, I was there to participate. Your post did seem highly critical of the critics who were in attendance, whether you meant to be so or not.

I made a mistake but it was a mistake born not of rage or avarice but a kind of deflation of the soul.

“Deflation of the soul,” over not having wi-fi in a hotel room?????

What a colossal idiot!

Snider and Weinberg (and James for that matter) were there representing themselves, as film critics who freelance for several different websites, and not Cinematical. But because we dig the fine folks over at OFF, like we did last year, we dished out a preview piece and will post a recap tomorrow. We do the same for a few other smaller festivals throughout the year. Cinematical was not “covering” this festival; I just wanted that to be made clear.

Basically, I was invited to be on the panel, meet some people, see some films, and (of course) hang with some friends. In other words (and Melanie was actually the first one to recommend this), I was looking at this as a “non-work” festival. Unlike Sundance, SXSW, and other festivals, I wasn’t running from movie to movie to laptop to food, and it was one amazing change for me.

Of course I am (and always was) planning to do a re-cap of the weekend at Cinematical, but truth be told: I hadn’t watched enough films yet and I was catching up on flicks today.

But, again, I do think you make a good point. If press coverage for OFF is a factor in this whole discussion — and I’d agree that it is — then you’ve every right to look past Snider’s and Wells’ post and wonder “So … where’s the rest?”

Now whether or not this incident deserves this much exposure: that’s another question altogether. Snider might have gotten himself carried away by all of this. Personally, I don’t think this had any effect of my opinion of Welles’ work as a blogger which by what I’ve read is daft and far too self-serving.

While I totally agree with the pot-calling-kettle-black finger pointing that went on in terms of who was actually “working” at the festival is appropriate, Jeff has fully earned this comeuppance due to his simply awful behavior at festivals over the years.

The guy displays some freakish, sociopathic behavior and treats most everyone working for festivals badly. It makes us writers ALL look bad when we’re at a fest he’s at and volunteers and PR people are busily avoiding him or spinning the latest yarn about whatever various issue he’s having that day.

Obviously, I can’t speak for Snider, Yamato or Weinberg (or the other “cool kidz” as Jeff described them) but I know that when I’m at a festival to do reviews and whatnot, I work my ass off. FT tries to cover EVERY movie at any festival we attend.

Meanwhile, Jeff posts hissy fits, reviews of the area, coverage of his lunch and various quibbles about the festival or people at said festival throughout his mostly comped trips to fests. He even took the time to insult the filmmakers AND programmers at Oxford by saying the movies weren’t worth his time.

It’s honestly quite annoying, shocking and frustrating that Jeff keeps getting invited places when for the life of me, I can’t see what he does at these events that would merit him being there. I do like Jeff’s site when he’s on topic, but he’s an embarrassment when you take him places.

I’m just wondering where that coverage is. I don’t see it. I went looking for it and can’t find it. Maybe it’s coming, but it’s now Monday, and the festival is over, and it just seems weird that Wells is able to hijack the entire conversation because nobody else has written about anything.