Who’s Watching? is a recurring series on For Immediate Release. We spend so much time wondering what film programmers are looking for — this is where I turn the camera around.

Emily is a person who lights up every room they enter. I had the pleasure of spending a beautiful week with them in Wisconsin when we both attended the Rockwood Documentary Leaders Fellowship retreat, a very rare gathering where we all left feeling genuinely hopeful about the people in this industry.

A note before we begin: Emily took their time with these answers, and kept apologizing for it. This is my official reminder — to Emily and to everyone I’ve reached out to — that this is supposed to be fun. Take your time. Come back to it when you’re ready to sit with it for thirty minutes and actually enjoy it.

The film that made me want to work in festivals was… less about one film, and more about this idea of curation. In the early days of my public media career, I screened countless submissions and ultimately helped select a slate of films for WORLD Channel’s inaugural season of Doc World. Putting together a program is a lot like making a playlist – you’re thinking about all the ways these individual films speak to each other, and speak together, and how they capture something about a particular moment. I fell in love with that, and festivals felt like a natural extension of that creative process.

If I could only program one genre for the rest of my life…

It’s gunna be nonfiction! There’s just something about the genre that feels especially creative. When you have less control over the story, what might happen, or even the resources to make the film happen, those limitations can actually make the process more creative.

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The filmmaker I'd most want to have a drink with after their Q&A (dead or alive) is…

Oh no, believe it or not, I get starstruck pretty easily, and I’d much prefer a serendipitous introduction or catching up with a film friend between screenings.

Deep in selection season, the film that makes it all worth it is the one that… makes me forget how many films I’ve watched at that point in the season! It’s usually something creative in form, personal or raw in approach, and ultimately, simply a great story. Those are the films I get most excited to talk about with my fellow programmers and screening committee members.

The best audience reaction I've ever witnessed at a screening was…

My favorite audience reactions are the ones where you can see growth happening in real time – when perspectives start to widen, biases get challenged, and a Q&A naturally turns into a discussion (and less of a volley). When that happens with care and good intentions, it really gets to the heart of why I think this work is so important.

What do filmmakers misunderstand most about how festival programming works?

Honestly, I don’t think anyone really knows how it works ;). Over the last year or so, I’ve learned firsthand while producing my first independent doc and submitting to festivals. I thought I knew all the right strategies: know your audience, take a tiered approach, use your network & connections, etc. And then I learned very quickly that it truly is as subjective as I’ve been telling filmmakers.

Is there a film you rejected that still haunts you?

Not really! But there are definitely a few films that have turned down my invitations for one reason or another. When that happens, I try to remember my own advice: it’s not personal. There are a million reasons why a film gets selected (or not) and the same is true when a filmmaker turns down a festival.

I knew I was in the right job when… I started paying attention to what happened after the film ended. The film is the catalyst, but the festival is a place where different people and communities come together to witness the art and share an experience. It’s a place where impact starts to happen. Hearing that a filmmaker met someone who helped move their project forward, or seeing an audience member connect with a film in a meaningful way, that’s what gives me life. I find so much joy in playing a small role in curating a space and building a community that makes those connections possible.

Anything you’d like filmmakers — or FIR readers — to know?

Don’t skip the karaoke after after party [sic]!

Emily Abi-Kheirs (she/they) is a nonfiction programmer and independent producer based in the Greater Boston area. She serves as Programming Manager at GBH, a renowned public broadcaster and the largest producer of PBS content, and as Program Director at Salem Film Fest, an independent documentary festival in Massachusetts. Beginning her career at WORLD Channel and later Women Make Movies, Emily is committed to amplifying historically excluded voices through film programming and distribution. They have been recognized as a leader in the documentary field by the Rockwood Leadership Institute (2024) and DOC NYC (2022).

Follow Emily on Instagram @emm_ak or connect on LinkedIn

p.s. — I also make hats for film people. Shop at filmllc.co

If you want to go deeper on how to navigate the festival world — strategy, submissions, programming decisions, all of it — I’m writing a guide. Pre-order it here.

Who’s Watching? is a recurring series on For Immediate Release. We spend so much time wondering what film programmers are looking for — this is where I turn the camera around.

His name is Rodolfo Castillo-Morales, but everybody calls him Fito. I met him at the 2025 Guadalajara International Film Festival, where I was an industry guest at the DocuLab he helped build. FICG has one of the most genuinely engaged audiences I’ve encountered at a film festival — almost everything was sold out. The kind of turnout that makes you remember why any of this matters. That doesn’t happen by accident. It takes years of thoughtful programming and a real belief in the audience. Gracias, Fito!

The film that made me want to work in festivals was… Los Ladrones Viejos (The Old Thieves: The Legends from Artegio) by Everardo González.

If I could only program one genre for the rest of my life… creative documentary

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The filmmaker I'd most want to have a drink with after their Q&A (dead or alive) is… Andrei Tarkovsky

Deep in selection season, the film that makes it all worth it is the one that… surprises you, which you didn’t have in mind, and it appears to move you beyond the boundaries of what you’ve been watching and resignifies the way you relate to the theme and documentary cinema itself, being either a very simple or quite complicated narrative.

The best audience reaction I've ever witnessed at a screening was… a screening in Cuba; they were talking to the characters, laughing and singing along with the soundtrack.

What do filmmakers misunderstand most about how festival programming works?

Almost everything. I think there’s a big gap that comes from the formative stages and education in filmmaking, because normally the focus is on the creative side. There are very few informative programmes to close the gap and get to know how the programmers and curators face and organise the programmes, style, narrative, ideas, etc.

Is there a film you rejected that still haunts you?

Yes, many… but not in a bad way, because in a way, our task is to say no, but I’ve always recognised the effort behind a film; more than a film, it’s the process that haunts me.

I knew I was in the right job when… I saw an old lady who had never watched a documentary in a cinema cry with joy because of a film that we programmed.

Anything you’d like filmmakers — or FIR readers — to know?

Support the small cinemas, watch local and regional films, attend film festivals and open up your mind to different expressions, countries and cultures, because cinema (especially documentary cinema) is the window to understand our present, and will preserve the memory of our time in the future.

Rodolfo Castillo-Morales
Rodolfo Castillo-Morales is a Mexican filmmaker and programmer. He has participated in several fiction and short films as well as produced, written, directed, and photographed documentary features and series, working with broadcasters and producers from Mexico, Spain, Serbia, El Salvador, Argentina, Japan, and more. He was a programmer at Mexico City’s documentary film festival DocsMX, co-creator of Plataforma MX, a specialized workshop for Mexican filmmakers, with DocsMX, as well as the general coordinator of DocsLab. He was the Programming Director of the Guadalajara International Film Festival (FICG) and the Guadalajara Cinematheque, as well as general coordinator of DocuLab: documentary laboratory. He’s filming his fourth feature and is in post-production on a short film.

Follow Rodolfo on Instagram @fito_castillo_morales_7 or connect on LinkedIn

p.s. — I also make hats for film people. Shop at filmllc.co

If you want to go deeper on how to navigate the festival world — strategy, submissions, programming decisions, all of it — I’m writing a guide. Pre-order it here.

Who’s Watching? is a recurring series on For Immediate Release. We spend so much time wondering what film programmers are looking for — this is where I turn the camera around.

I met Zuri in New Orleans; we worked together on multiple projects, the latest being House of Tulip (streaming on TIME Magazine), where we spent almost a year together following our protagonists as cinematographer and producer.

The film that made me want to work in festivals was… Moonlight

If I could only program one genre for the rest of my life… it would be comedy!

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The filmmaker I'd most want to have a drink with after their Q&A is… Bradford Young

Deep in selection season, the film that makes it all worth it is the one that… breaks filmmaking convention and defies expectations, while remaining authentic, raw and compelling.

The best audience reaction I've ever witnessed at a screening was… Aunties watching Horror.

What do filmmakers misunderstand most about how festival programming works? That rejection from a particular film festival isn’t necessarily a rejection of the film; it doesn’t reflect failure; sometimes a film simply isn’t a good fit and nothing more.

Is there a film you rejected that still haunts you? No, because for me a rejection doesn’t mean a film wasn’t good. I’m always excited to see a film, accepted or rejected, go on to find its audience. Every film deserves a home.

I knew I was in the right job when… I moderated my very first Q&A. It's now one of the best parts of the job: making meaningful connections and finding lifelong collaborations

Zuri Obi
Zuri is a Haitian-American artist, born and raised in the American South, with deep cultural roots in magical realism. As a Cinematographer, her lens has been graced by the likes of Soledad O’Brien, Solange, Lucky Daye and Lizzo. As a Producer, her projects have screened at notable film festivals, including Sundance, and won top awards at the New Orleans Film Festival, AFI, and BlackStar. Zuri is also a Film Programmer whose curatorial values are rooted in narrative justice.

Follow Zuri on Instagram @video.zoe or connect on LinkedIn

p.s. — I also make hats for film people. Shop at filmllc.co

If you want to go deeper on how to navigate the festival world — strategy, submissions, programming decisions, all of it — I’m writing a guide. Pre-order it here.

on july 3, i opened my first solo photography show.

it’s called boyz — the erotics of exile. i borrowed that phrase from Magdalena Zaborowska’s book on James Baldwin’s years in Istanbul, where he lived in my old neighborhood of Rumeli Hisarı. Baldwin, a Black gay American, found a kind of freedom in Turkey that he couldn’t find at home. i’m a queer Turk who had to leave home to find mine. the same two countries, opposite directions — that mirror is the whole show.

it’s a over a decade of photographs of the men i’ve felt most intimate and safe with: a wall full of polaroids, large-format 35mm prints, and cell phone imagery, shot across years i never planned to exhibit. friends, lovers, boyfriends, comrades, strangers i knew for a day. some of them are gone now. the pictures stayed.

for most of my life i was afraid of men — these are the ones who taught me boys could be tender and loving. i’ve had a camera in my hands since my early twenties, mostly as a way to get close to people while hiding a little behind it. i think i am done hiding.

by the end of the opening there were roses on the floor beneath the portraits. people i’d just met, leaving flowers for men they’ve never met. i’m still thinking about it.

i’ve spent sixteen years helping other people’s work find an audience — programming festivals, running press, building film culture across istanbul, new orleans, and los angeles. boyz is the first time i put my own work in a room, under my own name, with my own two hands, with no gallery and no institution behind me. it’s terrifying. it’s also the entire point.

if you’re in LA, the show is on view by appointment through july 30. i’d love to show it to you myself.

what's been keeping me company.

reading Floodlines by Saleem Haddad, and just read Water on Fire by Tarek El-Ariss. i keep reaching for writers trying to hold home and exile in the same breath — the ache of a place that won’t have you and won’t fully let you go. both got under my skin. if you’re looking for a local bookstore to buy them, i got mine from Ojalá in Highland Park!

watching Athens, Return to the Acropolis, it’s an episode of the 1983 TV series Capitali culturali d'Europa, commissioned to director Theo Angelopoulos and shot in 35mm. it reminded me that documentary is poetry. i’ve never set foot in athens, yet i’m homesick for her.

the guide.

some of you pre-ordered How Film Festivals Actually Work: Read Before You Submit back when i said late june. it’s taking longer because i’d rather it be right than early — it’s coming august 15. to everyone who put money down before it existed: thank you. you’ll be the first to get it.

the hats.

a couple of years ago, i had a merch idea for a friend’s project: a directed by hat. they ordered a sample, but decided not to do merch after all. i’ve been wearing that sample for two years; it became my favorite hat, and people kept stopping me to ask about it. so i polished the design and finally made some — because we’re all, in the end, directing our own lives, and you might as well have a hat that says so. i am sewing an evil eye bead by hand to each of them. for extra protection. it’s shipping now.

more programmer questionnaires and festival deep dives are on the way.

thank you for still being here.

zaf

If you want to go deeper on how to navigate the festival world — strategy, submissions, programming decisions, all of it — I’m writing a guide. Pre-order it here. Half off until launch!

Who’s Watching? is a recurring series on For Immediate Release. We spend so much time wondering what film programmers are looking for — this is where I turn the camera around.

I emailed the New Orleans Film Festival in the summer of 2016, before I even lived there — I was visiting the city for the first time and wanted to meet the people behind it. Clint wrote back. A year later, after I moved to New Orleans, he offered me a job. We worked together for four and a half years. He is one of the most thoughtful people I have worked alongside — a Southern gentleman in the truest sense, not the performative kind, the real deal. Genuine, measured, deeply invested in doing this work right. I have watched him agonize over programming decisions with more care than most people bring to anything. So when he says rejection isn’t personal, I promise you — he means it.

The film that made me want to work in festivals was…

There was a string of films that I saw in my early 20s that really cemented my love for cinema and piqued my interest in pursuing it as a career. I was working as a journalist when I came across documentaries like Sherman’s March, Hands on a Hardbody, and the 7Up Series that made me fall in love with nonfiction filmmaking. I found myself documenting stories myself and pushing my editor to include more video components to our reporting (I mean, how can you write an article about a skateboarding bulldog, which I did, and NOT have accompanying video footage?). At the same time, I was spending more and more time volunteering at film festivals and at the nonprofit cinema in my community. When the opportunity for a full-time job in film presented itself, I left journalism and never looked back.

If I could only program one genre for the rest of my life… I’m partial to Narrative Shorts, maybe because I love a challenge, and this category is the most grueling due to the sheer volume of shorts that are submitted each year. But despite the work—or maybe because of it—I find it to be the most rewarding. In the past 16 years, I’ve watched over 10,000 narrative shorts for NOFF, and I’m still not over the joy of coming across a short that really moves me or surprises me.

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The filmmaker I'd most want to have a drink with after their Q&A (dead or alive) is… I’m actually not into meeting celebrities or big-time directors. As wild as it might be to have tea with Hitchcock, I’d honestly rather spend the time catching up with a filmmaker friend I don’t get to see enough anyway. Someone like Angela Tucker or Zandashé Brown — I don’t see them enough as it is, and I never tire of conversations with them.

Deep in selection season, the film that makes it all worth it is the one that… is not afraid to be vulnerable.

The best audience reaction I've ever witnessed at a screening was… when people clap when they see their friend’s name in the credits. It’s always heartwarming to see community support for a film, and not just for above-the-line talent but for the costumers, line producers, gaffers, and all the talent that goes into a film behind the scenes.

What do filmmakers misunderstand most about how festival programming works? There’s a prevailing assumption out there that if your film gets selected, it means that the programmers love it, and if it gets rejected, it means they hate it — and the reality is (obviously) so much more nuanced than that. As programmers, we fall in love with so many films each year, and our team spends countless hours in meetings fighting over which ones to give a slot to. Cutting films we love is painful, and I wish there was a way to communicate, in a way that would be honestly received, how we can love a film but also not be able to invite it in. Even personalized rejection notices fail to do this properly, and it’s one of the downsides of this binary in/out gatekeeping structure that seems inherent to this process. Not getting selected doesn’t mean your film isn’t good or that it didn’t make an impact on the programmers; just that there were more compelling reasons that other films were selected-- and oftentimes, those reasons can have more to do with the festival itself and their priorities than whether the programmers “like” the film, something that is often irrelevant in the programming process.

Is there a film you rejected that still haunts you?

Oh gosh, that list is impossibly long—and it grows every year. There are no right or wrong choices in programming. It’s entirely subjective, which makes it doubly hard to assess whether you’ve made the right decision about something. Early in my career, I often deferred to others to make final decisions, and I still carry lots of regret about not standing up for films I believed in at the time. Confidence in this field (at least for me) took a long time to build, and I still constantly doubt myself and my decisions. But I don’t make decisions in a vacuum, and I surround myself with a team of people who help make programming decisions collectively. Still, we all walk away from every programming meeting upset about a film we’re advocating for that doesn’t make the cut. I’m constantly strategizing about how best to craft an argument for a programming meeting to convince my team, but on the flip side, they regularly remind me of my own blind spots and biases. It’s not easy, and you have to trust the process you’ve built to make good programming choices that you can stand by and be proud of. Before the pandemic, I lost a friendship over a programming decision I made, and I’ve struggled with how to reconcile that for years. I supported the decision that we made about the film, but those kinds of difficult decisions and complicated repercussions come with the territory of programming.

I knew I was in the right job when… lol I still question whether I’m the right person for this job! After 17 years, I do still enjoy it, and I’ve been so rewarded by the relationships I’ve made — with both filmmakers and programming colleagues— and I think that I’ve become very adept at managing this kind of process and a team of 15 programmers. But... as a white man in film programming, I recognize that my perspective is one that is already too dominant in this space, and I’m doing what I can to ensure that a more diverse pool of programmers will take over and eventually supplant my voice in the landscape.

Anything you’d like to add for filmmakers to know?

There’s a lot wrong with film festivals today, from the way filmmakers are compensated to how films are selected, but the one thing I’d encourage filmmakers to do if they want to see changes is to speak up and make their voices heard. Email festival organizers, comment on social media threads — the landscape will only change if there are requests (and pressures) for it to do so. And festivals need to be reminded of what’s working and what’s not for the communities they serve.

Clint Bowie is the Artistic Director of the New Orleans Film Society, where he manages the curation of the organization’s year-round programming, including the Academy Award–qualifying New Orleans Film Festival, the New Orleans French Film Festival, and the organization’s artist development programs. He has served on review committees for ITVS, Creative Capital, the National Endowment for the Arts, United States Artists, FilmNorth, and Latino Public Broadcasting, and has spoken on panels organized by Sundance Institute, Firelight Media, and the Center for Asian American Media. He is currently on the Advisory Board for the Overlook Film Festival and was previously a board member for Film Festival Alliance.

For more about the New Orleans Film Festival, visit neworleansfilmsociety.org

If you want to go deeper on how to navigate the festival world — strategy, submissions, programming decisions, all of it — I’m writing a guide. Pre-order it here.

Who’s Watching? is a recurring series on For Immediate Release. We spend so much time wondering what film programmers are looking for — this is where I turn the camera around.

Bedatri Datta Choudhury is a human jewel; she has good taste, she has good words, and a better heart. I am so glad she said yes to my intrusive questions. Thank you, Bedatri!

The film that made me want to work in festivals was… Goodbye, Lenin! (2003). I watched it in a film festival in Calcutta, where I grew up, and realised that it was someone’s job to decide what films get played at these festivals. I immediately declared to my mum, “I just want someone to pay me to watch movies.”

If I could only program one genre for the rest of my life… Hybrid documentaries, films that blur the binaries of fiction and non-fiction.

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The filmmaker I'd most want to have a drink with after their Q&A (dead or alive) is… Forough Farrokhzad, and share a pack of Bahman. Easier and more approachable, Garrett Bradley and Hong Sang-soo.

Deep in selection season, the film that makes it all worth it is the one that… makes me deeply question my biases and question things I take for granted. The best films make me uncomfortable in the many hyphens I define my identity.

The best audience reaction I've ever witnessed at a screening was… the filmmaker needed a translator, so the Q&A couldn’t accommodate all the questions. They made me do a Q&A outside the theater on the sidewalk.

What do filmmakers misunderstand most about how festival programming works? That a rejection is a comment on the quality of the film. It often is, but not always. There are so many films we love that we end up saying no to because of budget, diversity goals, thematic cohesion, and a number of other reasons.

Is there a film you rejected that still haunts you? So many! Everyday!

I knew I was in the right job when… I first heard an audience member say “mm hmm” in response to a question I asked. Also, the first time I saw a screening I programmed had a rush line. So much of programming happens inside our heads, so it’s truly deeply validating to see others take an interest, spend time, and money to watch films that you feel deeply for.

Anything you’d like to add for filmmakers to know?

Negotiate, ask for a waiver, ask for a fee, ask for an extension. But also accept that everyone is running on a tight budget. Film festivals are nothing without your films.

Bedatri Datta Choudhury
Born and raised in India, Bedatri is a culture journalist and film festival programmer based in New York City.

Follow Bedatri on Instagram @bedatridc

If you want to go deeper on how to navigate the festival world — strategy, submissions, programming decisions, all of it — I’m writing a guide. Pre-order it here.

Who’s Watching? is a recurring series on For Immediate Release. We spend so much time wondering what film programmers are looking for — this is where I turn the camera around.

I had the pleasure of working with Jon at the New Orleans Film Festival for several years. He then led programming at the Atlanta Film Festival and is now based in Boston, where he is a senior programmer at the Coolidge Theater. Jon has exquisite taste and a keen eye for the whimsical. So you’re in for a ride — let’s begin.

The film that made me want to work in festivals was…

The start of my real obsession with movies is actually strangely linked to British period pieces. Films like Peter Watkins’ Culloden and Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo’s Winstanley and Peter Greenaway’s The Draughtman’s Contract, and Sally Potter’s Orlando, really opened my eyes to what was possible when reimagining a somewhat dusty genre, and made me realize that films could do and be basically anything. That made me want to keep getting deeper into cinema, and I’ve been trying ever since. I have to mention Claire Denis’ L’intrus and Philippe Grandrieux’s Sombre as well.

If I could only program one genre for the rest of my life… I’d have to go with cult films. When I started programming for a theater in Salem, MA, our first signature program was a late-night cult series. There’s so much room to consider and argue about what a cult film even is. As a programmer, I find the idea of a film that’s completed and sort of made over again by its audience to be a thrilling one. And cult screening events are always the most fun!

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The filmmaker I'd most want to have a drink with after their Q&A (dead or alive) is… For some reason, I feel like I’d get along well with Béla Tarr; I think we share a certain look-on-the-dark-side attitude. That or Hayao Miyazaki, or really any animator; I just think they’re all such deep thinkers. Must be all that time alone.

Deep in selection season, the film that makes it all worth it is the one that… Comes as a surprise. I know “surprise us!” is a very tired and too-cute piece of advice that programmers love to throw out, but here’s what I mean: when I’m booting up a screener for a film that I’ve heard about from programmer friends, or is from filmmakers that I already know do interesting work, there’s a certain expectation in place, right? And that can kind of take some of the stakes out of the process of experiencing the work in real time, and relating to it and figuring out what the film is doing. Whereas if I get to watch a film that hasn’t really screened anywhere and doesn’t have any familiar names in it, there’s risk - is this film going to be tiresome or unpleasant or pointless or disrespectful of the time I’m taking with it? A film that comes out of nowhere and (against the odds, frankly) impresses me is always going to be more exciting than something I more or less already know is going to be “quality.” And that excitement about a discovery is something that I love communicating to an audience. I’ve been lucky to present a handful of films like that at every festival edition I’ve programmed. And while other films in those programs may be just as strong, the surprises will always be a little more special to me.

The best audience reaction I've ever witnessed at a screening was… Well, we had a good number of walkouts during one of those “special” films recently. Good! A festival film should ask a little more from the viewer.

What do filmmakers misunderstand most about how festival programming works? Another not-new insight, but I think the subjective nature of programming decisions can’t be restated often enough. A festival doesn’t exist to pick the “best” of anything, and even if they try, they mostly fail at that. I think festivals actually play into this more than they should, by putting “Best” in the names of their awards and crowing about how selective their programming is. The more I work in programming, the more I think this rhetoric of quality is pretty anti-art. Art is freedom, and the constraint to make “good” work, or films that are “worthy” of programming, defeats the purpose, which is artists doing absolutely whatever they want to do.

Is there a film you rejected that still haunts you? Normally, I’d have to hedge here, but since I’m out of the fest world for now, I can explicitly say that that film for me is EDDIE GLUM, and you can watch the whole thing on YouTube. Still not sure whether I made the right call or not, I hope someone else will watch it and tell me.

I knew I was in the right job when… I feel that way whenever I meet a filmmaker who’s having a good time at a fest I programmed! And whenever I’m in the depths of selection season, watching like 8 straight hours of films, and suddenly notice that I’m having a good time.

Anything you’d like to add for filmmakers to know?

If you’re ever in doubt about whether to submit to a particular festival, send them an email introducing yourself and your film, and make it personal (i.e., not a generic e-blast). If they can’t answer an email in 2 weeks, don’t submit!

Jon Kieran was born and raised in Essex County, Massachusetts, and is currently back in his New England homeland after a decade-plus working with film organizations in New Orleans, Georgia, Florida, and elsewhere. Most recently, Jon led a team of 14 programmers as the head of Programming at the Atlanta Film Society. Collectively, they watched an average of 6,000 submitted films a year, programming 4 editions of the Atlanta Film Festival. When he is not at work or trying to get through his watchlist, he likes reading science fiction novels and learning about short-lived emo bands from the 80s.

Follow Jon on Instagram @jonathan.kieran, connect on Letterboxd or LinkedIn.

If you want to go deeper on how to navigate the festival world — strategy, submissions, programming decisions, all of it — I’m writing a guide. Pre-order it here.

The censorship loophole didn’t close all at once.

In 2017, a Turkish short was pulled from the !f program under pressure from the Ministry of Culture. Its director was threatened. We did not make the reason public at the time for their safety. The Last Schnitzel, a short sci-fi comedy, was the first time I realized that the loophole was closing, and fast. !f you want to see why they would ban a short sci-fi comedy from screening at a festival, it’s streaming on IndieFlix.

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In 2018, CGV Mars Entertainment Group — the Korean-owned conglomerate that had acquired AFM Cinemas over successive years and with it the rights to the festival brand — quietly dismissed Serra and Pelin. No justification. No transition. The entire team was replaced from top to bottom.

A group of filmmakers, musicians, artists, and writers who called themselves “!f People” launched a petition. They asked CGV Mars to hand the festival over to a foundation that could protect its spirit. CGV Mars issued a statement saying they would preserve the !f spirit. They then copied the language of the petition and put it on the festival’s website as a manifesto.

The festival ran one more edition under new management in 2019. It was unsuccessful. Then the pandemic arrived, and the festival — which had spent a decade pioneering online screening technology — used none of it. The last public statement from the official !f account was made on January 21, 2021. The festival has not happened since.

The spirit outlived the institution. The institution could not be revived without the people who built it.

Now here’s the part that is almost too on-the-nose to be real.

In November 2024, MUBI — the streaming platform founded by a Turkish entrepreneur, the same company that had been !f’s technology partner for its pioneering live-streaming project years earlier — planned a film festival in Istanbul. The opening film was Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, starring Daniel Craig.

Hours before the festival was set to begin — it was sold out — local authorities sent a notification banning the film. The reason given: “provocative content that would endanger public peace.”

MUBI cancelled the entire festival.

The same city. A different decade. The loophole is closed.

I sat with that for a long time before I knew what to do with it. I now know that oppressive, autocratic, corrupt governments will attack media and censor expression from top to bottom, all the way down to the final loophole. That’s another article. On this one, here’s what I’ve landed on — for filmmakers specifically:

On niche and identity-based festivals: !f programmed dissidence — queer films, Kurdish films, films banned in their own countries, films that documented protests the government wished had never happened. What those films shared was not a label but a refusal. And the audiences that showed up understood that. That’s the spirit worth looking for when you’re choosing where to submit your work. The queer festival circuit — Outfest (rip, but hope it comes back), Inside Out, Frameline, NewFest, KASHISH — is something more than a consolation prize. It is often where your film will have its most meaningful life. And in Turkey, KuirFest in Ankara keeps trying, keeps showing up, in conditions that make !f’s loophole era look easy. That kind of persistence is worth supporting.

On a festival’s identity: !f knew its audience because it spent seventeen years building a conversation with them. That’s why “!f film” became a concept with meaning. When you’re choosing which festivals to submit to, look for that — festivals with a genuine curatorial point of view, not just a submission portal. Those are the places your film will be seen, not just screened.

As a filmmaker, when you attend a smaller festival that’s based on a real spirit and genuine community, you’ll have experiences and conversations and make connections that could be life-changing. Or that will nourish you in ways you can’t imagine. When Adam Curtis visited !f, he said, “What’s happening at this festival really matters,” and that is true.

On programmers: Serra and Pelin built something extraordinary. They also worked within the constraints of a corporate sponsor, navigated acquisitions, and ultimately had no legal protection when the brand rights were taken from them. Programmers you admire are often operating within structures they don’t fully control. That’s worth understanding when you receive a rejection — or an acceptance.

On freedom: !f existed because of a legal loophole. When that loophole matters, it really matters. The political conditions that allow certain films to screen in certain places are not permanent. If you make politically engaged work or work about marginalized communities, the festival circuit is something more than a marketing exercise. Sometimes it’s the only way that the film will be seen. Treat it accordingly.

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I have been living in self-imposed exile for the better part of a decade now — first New Orleans, now Los Angeles. It is the kind of exile James Baldwin might have recognized: not forced out exactly, but unable to fully return either. The city I left behind has become harder to recognize. The Istanbul that filled warehouses every February, that put filmmakers and audiences in the same room and let something happen — I have to work to remember it clearly now.

But I do remember it. And I remember what it felt like to be inside it.

That’s what I want for every filmmaker reading this: not just to get into a festival, but to find the one that makes you feel like you belong somewhere. Those festivals exist. They are worth fighting for. And when they disappear — and some of them will — it matters that we say so.

More soon.

— Zaf

This piece would not exist without the people who built !f and let me be part of it. Serra, Pelin, Onur, Uğur, Mustafa, Candan, Zeki, İmre, Ulaş, İlke, Köken, Ece, İzdeş, Zeynep, Uluç, Dilek, Sinan, Ahmet — and many more !f people I can’t name here but carry with me.

A special thank you to Uğurhan Topçuoğlu, whose 2023 master’s thesis “Community Beyond the Screen: ‘!f People’ of the !f Istanbul Independent Film Festival” was an invaluable companion in writing this. I lived through !f; Uğurhan went back, excavated it, and offered something I couldn’t have written myself. Very !f of them.

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For Immediate Release is a newsletter about the film festival world — from both sides of the table. If this resonated, share it with a filmmaker who needs to read it.

If you want to go deeper on how to navigate the festival world — strategy, submissions, programming decisions, all of it — I’m writing a guide. Pre-order it here.

Who’s Watching? is a recurring series on For Immediate Release. We spend so much time wondering what film programmers (curators) are looking for — this is where I turn the camera around.

Jonathan Ali and I first crossed paths when he joined us at IDA’s Getting Real conference as a programmer in 2022. He is one of the most thoughtful — and candid — programmers I know. When I launched this series, he was one of the first people I thought of. I’m glad he said yes. Let’s begin…

The film that made me want to work in festivals was… Manakamana (Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez, 2013). I was already a few years into the work when I programmed it, but it’s the film that made me want to keep doing what I was doing.

If I could only program one genre for the rest of my life… it would be creative/hybrid/experimental/essayistic documentary.

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The filmmaker I'd most want to have a drink with after their Q&A (dead or alive) is… Alive: Radu Jude. Dead: Perry Henzell.

Deep in submission season, the film that makes it all worth it is the one that… introduces me to an exciting, original, new voice.

The best audience reaction I've ever witnessed at a screening was… at a midnight madness screening in Miami of the Haitian supernatural kidnap-thriller-comedy Kafou (Bruno Mourral, 2017), with a mostly Haitian audience. Insane.

What do filmmakers misunderstand most about how festival programming works? I can’t speak for all festivals and programmers, but for me, the answer is: It’s not personal. And that cuts as many ways as you like.

Is there a film you rejected that still haunts you? No.

I knew I was in the right job when… I still don’t know if this is the “right” job. But I cannot see myself doing anything else—fortunately and unfortunately.

Anything you’d like to add for filmmakers to know? Filmmakers, don’t be afraid to push back against some of the more nefarious practices in film festivals today. Refusal to pay screening fees or offer some form of compensation for your work or stipend to attend the festival, provisional acceptances that demand you don’t give your premiere to another festival until official confirmation/rejection (a relatively recent and especially invidious practice), unreasonable premiere policies—these are unacceptable and should not continue to be normalised.

Yes, the competition for getting selected is great, but any festival that shows interest in your film should be willing to do right by it. You are the reason that festivals exist! Also, don’t be afraid to ask for a submission fee waiver.

Jonathan Ali is a director of programming for Miami’s Third Horizon Film Festival, a platform for critical Caribbean and diaspora cinema. Other festivals he works for or has worked for include Toronto, Locarno, Rotterdam, Sheffield Doc/Fest, London’s Open City Docs, Scotland’s experimental Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, True/False, Tribeca, and his native Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival.

Jonathan has curated programmes, mostly of repertory and contemporary Caribbean cinema, for the British Film Institute, Cinemateca de Bogotá, Stadtkino Basel, FICValdivia festival, and Criterion Channel, where he is a curatorial advisor. His byline has appeared in Documentary and Sight and Sound magazines, among others.

Follow Jonathan on Instagram @jonathanrali

If you want to go deeper on how to navigate the festival world — strategy, submissions, programming decisions, all of it — I’m writing a guide. Pre-order it here.

In February 2002, two 25-year-old women, Serra Ciliv and Pelin Turgut, opened a film festival in Istanbul.

They had no experience running a festival. They had been organizing underground parties — raves, really — under the name OrientNation, bringing together Istanbul’s most audacious cultural figures in unusual venues. When AFM Cinemas, Turkey’s largest theater chain at the time, approached them to create something new, they said yes. The first program guide had a rainbow flag on the cover. The opening film was Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream. He came to Istanbul to present it.

Turkey was in the middle of an economic crisis. Unemployment was high, and the currency had collapsed. People told Serra and Pelin that this is not the time. They did it anyway. They named it !f Istanbul Independent International Film Festival (!f İstanbul Bağımsız Filmler Festivali).

The festival sold 30,000 tickets in its first year.

A conservative newspaper ran a headline about the festival’s opening night: “Perverts in the foyer.” The festival kept going.

I didn’t know then that I was watching the best years.

I found !f as a college student in Istanbul, probably around 2007. I had already had my first film festival experience years earlier — a screening of Almodóvar’s Bad Education in my hometown of Adana that I wrote about in my first post here. The same loophole that let me watch that film as a teenager applied here — festival screenings slipped through Turkey’s censorship laws. So !f screened freely.

And what it screened changed everything for the people in those rooms. Benim Çocuğum (My Child), a Turkish documentary about families of LGBTQ+ children navigating acceptance, directed by Can Candan. #DirenAyol (#ResistAyol), directed by Rüzgâr Buşki — the Gezi Park protests and the Pride Parade of 2013, one of the last years the parade would happen freely in Istanbul. And film after film from around the world that simply could not have been seen any other way: Moonlight, Tangerine, Carol, Weekend, Yallah Underground, In the Last Days of the City by Tamer El Said — banned in Egypt, screened freely in Istanbul. Seventeen years of films that arrived like proof of something.

The festival’s queer film program — called Rainbow Films — was the first of its kind in Turkey. It would take the Istanbul Film Festival, the city’s other major film festival, more than a decade to include something similar.

For a queer person of any age in Turkey, !f was not just a film festival. It was proof that another world was possible. That the films existed. That the people who made them existed. That we existed.

I joined the !f team in 2011 — first as a volunteer, then as a programmer and marketing manager. Twelve people, working in two shipping containers welded together in an L-shape atop a parking lot. I wrote, I programmed, I produced videos, I built the social channels, and I did the voiceover for the radio spots (listen to one below, haha). It was the best film school I never enrolled in.

!f team in front of the container office.

Serra and Pelin were my mentors. The kind you’re lucky to have once in a career.

!f was not a submissions festival — except for the Turkish shorts section, which accepted submissions free of charge — we curated everything proactively. No filmmaker has ever paid !f to consider their work. We traveled to festivals across Europe and the SWANA region looking for work that felt like an !f film. We followed filmmakers we’d shown before. We partnered with the Sundance Institute for a screenwriters lab that brought together emerging writers from Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. We knew what films were in development years before they were finished.

The concept of an “!f film” became a real thing — among the team, among audiences, among filmmakers. Serra said it best in an interview: “We are fortunate that many filmmakers also have the concept of a ‘!f film’ in their minds.” It wasn’t a genre. It was a sensibility. Bold, specific, humanist, politically awake, formally adventurous. Not interested in being comfortable. !f didn’t program identities. It programmed dissidence.

Above: !f’s TV spot in 2014, months after Gezi Park protests, a tear gas fuming faceless suit hits baby chicks on the ground, and they keep chanting “it didn’t hurt.” I still dunno how we managed to air this.

!f also built one of the earliest live-streaming programs in festival history. Through a project called !f², the festival simultaneously screened films in Istanbul and in 40+ cities across Turkey and beyond — Yerevan, Tbilisi, Ramallah, Baku, Lefkoşa/Nicosia, Beirut, Aleppo — with live Q&As broadcast from the Istanbul theater to all locations. The infrastructure partner was MUBI, founded by Turkish entrepreneur Efe Çakarel. This was years before the pandemic made hybrid festivals a norm. !f had already figured it out.

By its peak, the festival reached 80,000 to 100,000 attendees annually. It expanded beyond Istanbul — !f Ankara and !f Izmir ran as four-day satellite editions, bringing the festival to audiences who would otherwise never have access to it. Its Twitter account — which we launched out of curiosity and a desire to have fun, not to promote the festival — grew to over 580,000 followers. At one point, !f had more Twitter followers than the Cannes Film Festival. The last time I checked before I quit Twitter, the account still had over half a million followers. Dormant for years. Half a million people are still following it. Waiting, maybe.

The !f Rainbow Party, held midway through each festival, was the second largest LGBTQ+ event in Istanbul after the Pride festivities in June. Every February, we filled the city. Warehouses, clubs, Babylon old and new. It felt like a counter-Istanbul — the city we wanted, for ten days, every winter.

I didn’t know then that I was watching the best years.

Were you an !f person? I’d love to hear your story — drop it in the comments.

— Read Part 2 here. Thank you for being here. and happy Pride!

For Immediate Release is a newsletter about the film festival world — from both sides of the table. If this resonated, please share it with a filmmaker who needs to read it.

Subscribe now

If you want to go deeper on how to navigate the festival world — strategy, submissions, programming decisions, all of it — I’m writing a guide. Pre-order it here.

None of us knew who Almodóvar was. We had no idea what the film was about.

By the time the credits rolled, half the audience had walked out furious. People were screaming at festival volunteers in the lobby. I was the only one left in the theater.

I sat there in the dark in Adana, Southern Turkey, completely gobsmacked (yes, I learned British English first), I was as ashamed as one would be being the only one who didn’t leave, but I was also thinking: how did this get here?

That question has basically driven my entire career.

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Here’s the thing about film festivals in Turkey at the time: there was a loophole. Every film heading for theatrical release had to pass through the Ministry of Culture — a censorship review that could cut or reject anything deemed a risk to public morals. Homosexual content, explicit sexuality, anything politically dangerous or threatening to the status quo — gone.

But film festivals were exempt. A festival screening plays once or twice, to maybe a few hundred people. The government deemed that negligible. So the films screened freely.

Which is why a 13-year-old queer kid from a machismo & homophobic city in Southern Turkey got to watch Bad Education in a half-empty theater and have his world quietly rearranged.

That was my introduction to what film festivals actually are — not just screening rooms, not just submission portals, but spaces where things can exist that can’t exist anywhere else.

I’ve spent the last 16+ years inside that world.

My journey started as an artist guide for Istanbul Film Festival in 2009, then I did the same for all IKSV festivals throughout college. Post-graduation, I worked at !f Istanbul Independent International Film Festival for seven years, as both marketer and programmer. Four years at the New Orleans Film Festival. Most recently, Director of Marketing, Communications, Design, and Events at the International Documentary Association — supporting filmmakers and film organizations across 88 countries.

On the other side of the table: I associate-produced Ma Belle, My Beauty (Sundance 2021 NEXT Audience Award) and produced House of Tulip (New Orleans Film Festival 2022 Jury Award, 48 festivals and counting + streaming free on TIME).

I’ve sat in programming rooms. I’ve hit submit on FilmFreeway at midnight. I’ve hired publicists and been a publicist. I’ve watched films get rejected for bad reasons, and other ones get in for reasons nobody could fully explain. Including me.

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Now, I’m writing a guide.

How Film Festivals Actually Work: Read Before You Submit — for filmmakers who want an honest, personal, insider look at how this world actually operates. Not a magic formula. Not a Sundance hack. Just everything I’ve seen and learned from both sides of the table, organized into something useful.

How programming decisions actually get made. How to build a real strategy for your specific film. What your submission materials are actually signaling. How to not waste a festival once you’re in. How to survive the emotional ride of the whole thing.

Around 50 pages. Designed PDF. Real case studies, templates, checklists. Delivery: August 2026.

Pre-order now at $25 — goes up to $50 at launch.

Pre-Order Here

But this Substack isn’t just about the guide.

I’ll keep writing here — about festivals, the industry, the strange and beautiful and occasionally maddening experience of making films and trying to get them seen. Interviews with programmers. A recurring questionnaire I’m pretty excited about. Films I’m watching. Stories I probably shouldn’t share but will anyway.

Subscribe. It’s free. The pre-order is optional. The stories are coming either way.

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Welcome to For Immediate Release. More soon. Glad you're here.

— Zaf