Discussion on the DVXFest submission acceptance policy

I think anyone who gets offended should be banned. :nads:
What ever happened to, "sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me' ???

Lighten up people! The internet is NOTORIOUS for messages being misinterpreted. It happens everyday on this forum. I think this goes for films too, especially when they're online, it makes it easier to lose the message or intent. These are people from all over the world, and have very different viewpoints and different definitions about what is 'right' or 'wrong', then YOU go and judge their work based on your own moral code and get your panties in a bunch. It's just NOT WORTH IT.

Imagine how much longer the review process would take if the mods had to look for 'offensive content', debate it...etc. x 50+ entries! I don't want to wait the few days it takes now, let alone the week+ that process would take.
 
Jason Ramsey said:
sorry ramasaur... I know it looks like that was directed at you now... it wasn't was to another member who now deleted their posts....

I've edited it out, so it doesn't look like I was yelling at you :)

later,
jason
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oh haha, well my post wasn't much anyways. Thanks for letting me know.
 
Without knowing what the film was, it's hard to comment. Are we saying the film in question had a racist/sexist/anythingist offensive title? Or was it just politically incorrect somehow?

I'd like to see it if possible.
 
lol. I'm really curious now. Of course I know the final thing will be trash, but consider me suckered.

I'm dead against censorship but this is your forum guys, and I've seen people banned for less. If it's a personal attack on a forum member I'd remove it, but if its a general social brushoff I'd say let the public decide.

its a real grey area, most festivals don't have to deal with this simply because they all have a selection process. But of course that goes against what this fest is about. Perhaps if you stick with that policy then you should be allowing 'anything' through as long as it fits the rules, otherwise the 'we will screen every film submitted' part of the fest could become blurry as time goes on.
 
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Re titles and cultural significance: (as in flid just being a nonsense word to most here) The title "Spicula" is offensive as "Spic" is the Mexican equavalient in the U.S. for the "N-word" so it's not the same as Blackula. It's Equivalent woul be "Nigula". We did include though despite the title and even though it just showed a guy jumping over the border and biting people on the neck and running off going aye yi yi yi yi - the equivalent of a a black guy running around going ugabooga. Despite the title and content, we included it for all the reasons you mentioned. We would let the voice of the members make itself known as to whether or not they were offended and to what degree.

The answer varied. From the one member, a Mexican American (legal) Immigrant, who was highly and very personally offended, to a number of others that were less personally, but socially offended and thought the film should absolutely not have ever been allowed, to those that didn't get what the big fuss was over.

The decision was only made to pull the film AFTER its makers abandoned its thread and showed no interest in participating in a discussion of their film. If they don't care about it enough to hang around, why continue to screen such a contentious downer. The principle of no censorship served no purpose at that point, so might as well stop offending people.

It's not like the film has a life of its own and gets some benefit from being screened. Only the filmmakers benefit from having it screened, and if they don't care enough to hang out and get feedback, then why keep it.
 
I never saw the thread or the film. I really have no desire to. This is not my site. I am a guest here. I do not have a problem letting the mods make a call on something like this. If it ever came down to something other than socially acceptable material being culled from the herd, I think that this community would make its displeasure known. Who would stick around if it was something other than enforcing acceptable social behavior.
 
I think that's fair if they abandoned the thread.

However, there are films on IMDB with the n-word in the title, but that doesn't mean it's ok here.

Flid, certainly in the UK is a very offensive word and I would say more malicious than the entry here because the film's title (kung fu) is making a cheap joke of the disability as well as using the offensive term for the disability (your equivalent may be 'kung fu retard'). But that isn't to say 'spicula' is free from criticism.

I don't envy the decision you're going to have to make. Obviously the film would never make it past any pre-selection in an outside festival simply on quality grounds, but as you don't judge on that basis this decision is more about setting the guidelines for the future, than singling out one short.

The problem with going down the route of censoring is that it's always going to be a subjective decision on what is considered offensive - as your feedback has already shown. If race jokes are offensive, is religion or sexuality? it becomes very grey. What if the title is offensive but the content could somehow reverse it and make some kind of social statement? Then content and title are linked but you arn't allowed to judge on content...so

Not easy. :-/
 
yup. Don't envy the mods. But i do trust them. If I did not or do not, I will take my "buisness" elsewhere. There will always be someone that will not be happy. It's a tough one for sure. But is really censorship? Is it censorship if someone puts hardcore sex in an entry and it is disqualified?
 
Is it censorship if someone puts hardcore sex in an entry and it is disqualified?
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That would be a clear violation of our fest rules (Hard R. if you are unsure ask...).

Regardless... at the end of the day, it's not really censorship, b/c we wouldn't be preventing anyone from making whatever film they want. Just from letting it air on OUR site.

We have no intentions to begin screening films for content or quality in the future. But, if someone now decides to "test" us in the future, they better have a real explanation of their film ready when wee ask them before allowing it to screen. If it's just someone trying to take advantage of the artistic expression that we try to allow in the fests or be hostile towards the site, damage the fests intentionally, etc... then we'll deal with them accordingly. Beyond that, we have no intentions of letting some folks being silly, or the reaction of some folks to it, or some moron in the future who wants to try to take advantage of the fests.... we have no intention of letting any of that effectively destroy the one thing that makes dvxfest unique from pretty much every other fest out there.

later,
Jason
 
in that case, no, because are rules say rated R and lower.
so as a pre existing condition for an optional contest on a privately run site, I'd say no that's not really censorship

Difference is here we didn't have a clear cut rule "don't be a racist asshat" to preclude a movie like this from being seen. I think we've added some kind of, "if you'd get punched in the face for it in public then we reserve the right to not screen it. 99.999% of submitted movies will be screened." That's not a real quote but I THINK that's the basic intent.

In the future, if something like this comes up I THINK (mods correct me if I'm wrong) that we're leaning towards what I quoted above, then instead of immediately throwing the movie in the do not screen bin, would begin a dialogue between the filmmakers and the mods.
Q: "What's the point of your movie?"
A: "I hate Mexicans and I'm just trying to get the word out on how much they suck."
Would probably not screen.

Q: "What's the point of your movie?"
A: "I don't know. It's cool though isn't it?"
Would be a tough call.

Q: "What's the point of your movie?"
*A: "I'm trying to use offensive stereotypes to promote dialogue and point out that, rationally, people have about as much reason to fear immigrants as they do vampires (based on the assumption that vampires are imaginary)."
Would be more likely to screen.

*This political statement is provided for illustrative purposes only within the context of a filmmaker making a statement with his/her film, neither to endorse said point of view, nor to oppose it.
 
dsto said:
But is really censorship?
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We are not capable of performing censorship. Only a government can actually censor.

Look, frankly, we are free to pick and choose and show whatever we want. We're a private site. We can make whatever rules we want, and we're free to change them whenever we want. If we don't show your work, then - big deal, we didn't show it. Post it on youtube or vimeo or exposureroom or host it on your own site, you can get your work seen.

So before anyone accuses us, anytime, now or in the future, of "censorship" -- just be aware that we can't possibly engage in censorship. We cannot prevent your message from being heard.

All we can do is keep our own house in order.

So, acknowledging that we are free to pick and choose -- our policy in the past has always been "we don't screen for content; if our members make it, we'll show it." We have never screened for content before. But it looks like we may have to make some judgement calls in the future.

You know, implicit in that "if our members make it, we'll show it" attitude is an implied promise of mutual respect. If you're a member of the community, then you're a community member -- you participate, you share, and you are making films for the DVXFest because you want to collaborate, participate, share the fun, and for your skills to grow. That's the purpose of the DVXfests! And under that scenario, it seems obvious that you would be making a well-intentioned film, and we (as the community leaders) would want to exhibit your work so that you can receive feedback and grow and the whole thing just goes around.

But the idea someone would enter a purposely skill-less, purposely inflammatory piece of ... work ... (hey, it also has four letters, right?) just for the reason of cheesing off the membership -- that never occurred to us. That's about as anti-community as you can get. And so we got blindsided, and frankly I feel we were taken advantage of. And the filmmaker in question disappeared, never bothered to participate, didn't comment on any other films, and didn't explain or defend his ... work. So by that standard, I think the implicit agreement is violated.

So -- all members should know that there is no empirical authoritarian organization here -- we discuss things, and we get lots of input before making a decision. But my attitude now is -- if someone wants to make something purposely incendiary, purposely to take advantage of our good will, or purposely to put us in a bad spot or a bad light, then that person is breaking the implied promise of respect that we share both ways, and therefore my vote would be that we are under no obligation to screen such a work.
 
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BTW dsto ... Jason and Barry and I all posted about the same time probably not knowing the others posted and all said about the same thing.

Didn't want you to think we were ganging up on you / accusing you of accusing us of censorship. If that makes any sense.
:beer:
 
Oh no. I do not think you guys are "censoring" anyways. I am in total agreement. There has to be some kind guide. And yeah, It seems there has come a time to have a guideline not to be a racist doof. It's a shame.
I saw a sign on a set of stairs(Inside) going down to the lower level of a "5 and dime" type store in Alabama (No offense Dixie boys and girls) that read "Please Do Not Spit On The Stairs"....well some idiots were apparently spitting inside the store on the stairs or they would never have had to make a sign.
 
"So before anyone accuses us, anytime, now or in the future, of "censorship" -- just be aware that we can't possibly engage in censorship. We cannot prevent your message from being heard."
That was my point really. :)
 
In addition. And I really hate to sound like I am just sucking up here. But I really really appreciate that you guys are taking this seriously. For my sake, if that makes any sense.
 
If I really wanted to be offensive, I submit a film shot on the DVX in 60i :)

Joking aside. I'm proud to be part of a community that takes issues like
this so seriously. There are so few festivals out there where enthusiasm
is as important as talent. Here at DVXuser, everyone gets a fair chance
whether you name is Spielberg or Smith.

Regarding the film in question, I haven't seen it, but if I had,
I'm sure I would agree with the moderators. To paraphrase
Justice Stewart's famous line, "I can't define films that
have no place on DVXuser, but I know it when I see it".
 
As I mentioned before, I generally trust the mods to do their best to make the right call in situations like these. If they were to go overboard and start banning entries willy-nilly, then users would eventually go elsewhere. That's clearly not what they're about.
 
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