Festival FAQ

All submissions are processed through FilmFreeway. Visit the individual festival's FilmFreeway page, complete the submission form, upload your screener link or file, and pay the applicable fee. Each of our 13 festivals has its own dedicated page on FilmFreeway under the WRPN.tv network.

Yes! You are welcome to submit your film to any festival within our network that fits its theme or genre. Each submission is evaluated independently by that festival's jury. For example, a documentary could be entered into both the Documentaries Without Borders Film Festival and the Nature Without Borders International Film Festival if it fits both.

Please provide a private streaming link (Vimeo, YouTube unlisted, or similar) through the FilmFreeway submission form. If your link is password-protected, include the password in the designated field. Screeners must remain accessible throughout the judging period. We do not accept physical copies or download-only links.

Yes, you may withdraw at any time directly through your FilmFreeway account. Please be aware that submission fees are only refundable if you withdraw before being officially selected. Once an official selection has been made, no refunds will be issued. This policy exists because all of our pre-selection and awards judges are paid professionals, not unpaid volunteers, and their work begins the moment your submission enters the review process.

The person or company submitting the film guarantees they have full authorization to do so and that they understand and agree to all festival rules and requirements. Our festivals reserve the right to refuse any entry. By submitting, the entrant agrees to protect WRPN.tv, its festivals, and their affiliates from any claims, liabilities, losses, damages, or expenses — including attorney's fees and court costs — arising from any claim involving copyright, trademark, credits, publicity, screening, or loss of or damage to submitted materials.

None of our festivals require premiere status — films that have already screened, streamed, or been submitted elsewhere are always welcome. We evaluate every film purely on its creative merits.

All of our festivals accept films completed within the past six years — a significantly wider window than most festivals offer. We believe great filmmaking doesn't have an expiration date. Older productions are often overlooked simply because they missed the traditional festival circuit, not because of any lack of quality. By opening our doors to a broader timeline, we give deserving work a second chance at recognition — and occasionally, we discover a hidden gem that the industry somehow let slip by. If your film falls outside the six-year window but is exceptional, contact us at info@wrpn.tv — we occasionally make exceptions at the jury's discretion.

No. We are an international network and welcome films in any language. Films not in English must include English subtitles, dubbing, or an English transcript in the screener provided.

Runtime requirements vary by category within each festival. Typical categories include short films (under 40 minutes), feature films (40 minutes and above), documentaries, and episodic content. Refer to the specific FilmFreeway page for exact runtime cutoffs per category. Films of all lengths are welcomed within their appropriate category.

Absolutely. Student films are encouraged and evaluated alongside professional productions. We believe in supporting emerging filmmakers at every stage of their career. Some festivals include a dedicated Student Film category — check the relevant FilmFreeway page to see if one applies.

Fees are set per festival and vary by deadline tier — Early Deadline submissions are the most affordable, while Late and Extended Deadline fees are higher. All current pricing is listed directly on each festival's FilmFreeway page. We recommend submitting early to take advantage of lower rates.

Yes. We periodically offer discount codes through our newsletter, social media, and partner promotions. Special discounts may also be available for filmmakers facing financial hardship — contact us at info@wrpn.tv with a brief description of your situation, your project, and the festival you're submitting to, and we'll do our best to work something out. Please note that full fee waivers are not offered, as we believe it's only fair to those who pay to maintain a consistent standard across all submissions.

Submission fees are only refundable if you withdraw before being officially selected. Once an official selection has been made, no refunds will be issued. This policy exists because all of our pre-selection and awards judges are paid professionals, not unpaid volunteers, and their work begins the moment your submission enters the review process.

Each festival has its own deadline schedule with multiple tiers: Early, Regular, Late, and Extended. Current deadlines are always displayed on the festival's FilmFreeway page. Our network runs festivals throughout the year, so there is almost always a submission window open. Check WRPN.tv for a full calendar of active festivals.

We strongly recommend subscribing to the WRPN.tv mailing list to ensure you receive award notifications, deadline reminders, and exclusive discount offers. Please note that we are not responsible for missed opportunities resulting from failure to receive or read notification emails — so keeping your contact information current and checking your spam folder regularly is essential.

All of our festivals use a merit-based evaluation system rather than a competitive ranking model. Films are never pitted against each other — each entry is screened and scored entirely on its own inherent value. When it's your turn to be evaluated, the judges' sole focus is on your film, not on comparisons with other entries in the queue. This ensures every submission receives the full, undivided attention it deserves.

Typical review time is 4 to 8 weeks after the submission deadline. All decisions are sent via FilmFreeway notification and email. Please check your spam folder if you are expecting a notification. You can also monitor your submission status in your FilmFreeway account dashboard and on the respective festival's main page.

Official selections receive an acceptance email with downloadable Official Selection laurels for use in your promotional materials. Your film will be listed on the festival's Official Selections page on our website and featured in our promotional communications. Selected films are also considered for award categories within the festival. Please note that being officially selected does not automatically mean your film will be screened — live or online. Screening opportunities are determined separately as part of the awards and distribution process.

Categories vary by festival but typically include Best of Festival, Best of Show, Outstanding Excellence, Excellence, Exceptional Merit, Merit, and Kudos. The top honor — Best of Festival — comes with the full treatment: a live screening, an optional online screening, downloadable laurels, a live listing on our website, and a formal presentation to our distribution partners for potential worldwide distribution opportunities.

Judges score entries on a performance scale. Winning entries are recognized across multiple award levels: Best of Festival, Best of Show, two levels of Awards of Excellence, two levels of Awards of Merit, and the Kudos Endeavor Award. Best of Show is granted to the top-scoring entry or entries for each season. Awards of Excellence recognize exceptional artistic and technical achievement, while Awards of Merit and Kudos acknowledge notable work at their respective levels. The total number of entries per deadline cycle determines how many awards are given at each level.

Yes. Judges may award a sub-category prize to a film even if the filmmaker did not specifically submit for that sub-category — if the judges feel the work merits recognition in that area. Conversely, filmmakers who submit only sub-categories without entering a major category may still be accepted if the judges find the submission meritworthy, but they will not be eligible for Best of Show. Entering any category, major or sub, does not guarantee selection or an award.

All of our festivals offer free feedback to filmmakers whose submissions were not selected. Better yet, if you choose to address the issues raised in that feedback, you're welcome to resubmit — free of charge — even in the following season. We believe constructive feedback is one of the most valuable things a festival can offer, and the improvements you make will benefit you not just with us, but when submitting to other festivals as well.

Ten of our 13 festivals are IMDb qualifying. The three exceptions each have their own story: The Hispanic International Film Festival is fully qualified but currently caught in an IMDb administrative mix-up with another festival that was created after ours and went out of business after just one season — IMDb is aware of the situation and it will be resolved in time. DocuVision and Bollywood/USA are both relatively new festivals that have not yet met IMDb's length requirements, but we expect them to qualify as they continue to grow. We are actively working to bring all 13 festivals to full IMDb qualifying status.

We're often asked why we offer award certificates as paid, optional purchases rather than including them automatically with every award. Here's the honest answer.

It's optional, not required.
Your award stands on its own, whether or not you ever purchase a certificate — you are fully entitled to list the award, use the laurels, and promote it in your CV, website, and press materials. For those who want a tangible keepsake or display piece, we offer four options at different price points:

• Soft (digital) copy — $65. A professionally designed, high-resolution digital certificate suitable for printing, framing, or use in press and academic materials.
• Hard copy — $85. A printed certificate will be shipped to you.
• Curved framed copy — $180. The certificate is presented in an elegant, curved acrylic frame.
• Flat framed copy — $200. The certificate is presented in a flat acrylic display frame.

To order, simply email certificate@wrpn.tv with the film's title, award(s) won, festival name, season, director's full name, and a poster (if not already on FilmFreeway). If you're located outside the USA, please include your full address and phone number so we can quote the best UPS mailing rate. Upon receiving your order, we'll send an invoice via PayPal to your email; credit card payments through PayPal are also accepted. We no longer accept checks or money orders. Full ordering details are on our certificates page.

It's not hidden.
The availability and pricing of our certificates are stated openly on our FilmFreeway listing, on our main website, on our dedicated certificates page, and in the notifications we send to winners. We want filmmakers and writers to know up front what is free and what is optional to purchase.

It helps us keep the core benefits free.
WRPN Women's International Film Festival is a business, not a nonprofit. We don't receive grant funding or donations to subsidize our operations. Certificate income helps us partially offset the costs of the many services we provide to filmmakers and writers at no charge, including:

• WRPN screening pages — We build and host dedicated screening pages and streaming for filmmakers and audiences, with no commercials or paid sponsorships cluttering the viewing experience. (wrpn.tv)
• WRPN.tv Screenplayers Wall of Fame — Winning writers are showcased on our Screenplay Writers Wall of Fame, and our designers create and post everything for them at no charge. (wrpn.tv/screenplayers)
• Free resubmission for rejected entries — If a film or screenplay isn't selected, we offer a free resubmission in a future cycle. We don't expect anyone to pay again after a rejection.
• No revenue from live screenings — When we live-screen films, we donate 100% of the box-office proceeds to the Cinema Art Theater in Rehoboth Beach, DE, a nonprofit organization. We still pay full rental rates for the venue rather than receiving discounted or in-kind space.

It supports our paid professional judges.
All of our judges are paid professionals — experienced practitioners who invest real time in watching, evaluating, and providing thoughtful consideration to each submission. We do not rely on unpaid volunteers, because we believe the integrity of the awards depends on fair compensation and professional standards.

The bottom line.
Unlike festivals that monetize ad space, sponsorship overlays, or a cut of ticket sales, we intentionally avoid making money off the films themselves. The trade-off is that supplemental items like certificates, specialty laurels, and certain promotional add-ons bear a greater financial burden, so we can continue offering the core benefits to artists for free. Between paying judges, full-price theater rentals, and design and technical staff for the WRPN.TV platform, free resubmissions for those not selected, and the free online features we provide, our costs are high — and optional certificate sales are one of the ways we avoid raising submission fees or introducing intrusive advertising into your screening pages.

Our festivals fall into two categories. Hybrid festivals combine a live in-person screening at our partner venue, Cinema Art Theater in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, with online streaming on WRPN.tv. Online-only festivals stream exclusively on WRPN.tv with no live component — except in rare cases when a distributor, after viewing a Best of Festival selection on WRPN.tv, requests a live screening to gauge audience reaction before offering a possible distribution deal. This is one of the most important reasons we encourage Best of Festival winners to allow their films to stream on WRPN.tv: a streaming presence is what allows distributors to evaluate your work when a referral goes through, and it's also where they sometimes spot films on their own initiative. Whether hybrid or distributor-requested, our live screenings share a focused purpose — capturing genuine audience response that informs distribution decisions. They are not networking mixers; there are no after-screening parties, seminars, or panels. Video interviews with audience members may be conducted during these events and featured on WRPN.tv.

A note on audience size. Despite the cinema's own promotional efforts — on-screen trailers, website listings, and venue advertising — combined with our own outreach, public turnout is something neither we nor the venue can guarantee or control. We've had screenings range from packed houses to small audiences to, occasionally, zero walk-ins. Live attendance numbers are entirely at the discretion of the public on any given day, and no festival can promise otherwise.

Filmmakers selected for an in-person screening should follow the directions in their award notification email and contact us immediately to receive deliverables information. We are not responsible for missed opportunities resulting from failure to receive or read notification emails, and we reserve the right to cancel a screening due to late delivery or receipt of defective materials.

Absolutely — filmmakers whose films are selected for an in-person screening (whether at one of our hybrid festivals or a distributor-requested screening from an online-only festival) are warmly welcome to attend. That said, we want to set the right expectations: our screening events are purposeful, focused affairs. Their primary goal is to capture genuine audience reactions for our distribution partners, not to serve as networking mixers or industry parties. There are no seminars, panels, or social events attached.

Screening on WRPN.tv is entirely optional and never automatic. Filmmakers who wish to have their films showcased on the platform may be contacted with a separate streaming agreement. Best of Festival winners receive priority consideration for WRPN.tv placement. We respect filmmaker rights and will never broadcast your film without explicit written permission.

Best of Festival winners are eligible to receive submission instructions for our associate distributors — including Worldwide Motion Pictures Corporation, Adler & Associates, CardinalXD, CCS Releasing, and Polaris Pictures for Screenplays. Upon request from the winner, we provide the contact details, format requirements, and referral instructions needed to submit directly to one or more of these distributors. WRPN.tv does not submit films on the filmmaker's behalf, nor are we a party to any distribution agreement — the filmmaker handles the submission themselves using our instructions, and if a distributor expresses interest, they will contact the filmmaker directly. There is no guarantee of a deal, and we have no say or influence over distributor decisions. The value here is access: several of these distributors do not accept unsolicited submissions, so a referral through our festival is genuine industry access that would otherwise be very hard to come by.

No. Participating in any WRPN.tv festival — including virtual screenings — does not affect your copyright or distribution rights in any way. We have no claim to your film's ownership, licensing, or distribution potential. Our mission across all 13 festivals is to help filmmakers get noticed and advance their careers, and that starts with making sure your rights stay exactly where they belong: with you.

Submitting to any WRPN festival does not transfer, assign, or in any way affect your ownership of the film or its rights. You retain full intellectual property rights at all times. We only request a non-exclusive license to screen the film in connection with the festival. Any distribution arrangement requires a separate agreement which you are free to negotiate or decline.

In most cases, yes. We do not require exclusivity for submission. However, if your film is under an exclusive licensing agreement that restricts festival participation, you should review your contract before submitting. We recommend consulting your distributor or attorney if you are unsure. Contact us if you have specific concerns and we can advise on a case-by-case basis.

Partnering with WRPN.tv gives your film a reach that traditional in-person screenings simply can't match. Since COVID permanently shifted audience habits — with in-person festival attendance remaining significantly lower than pre-pandemic levels — virtual screenings have become the smarter path to visibility. Hosting on WRPN.tv puts your film in front of viewers worldwide, not just those who can travel to a venue, and opens doors to consumer markets that live-only festivals can never access. For today's independent filmmaker, global reach isn't a luxury — it's the opportunity.

Not a penny. If you've been invited to stream on WRPN.tv as a result of winning a qualifying award at any of our festivals, there is no cost to you whatsoever. Your invitation is earned — and it comes free of charge.

As long as you'd like. Once your film is live on the platform, there's no expiration date or time limit on your listing. If you ever choose to remove it and later decide to come back, just be aware that a small administrative fee will apply to reinstate it — so we generally recommend leaving it up unless you have a specific reason to take it down.

While it's possible we may introduce fees for new filmmakers joining the platform in the future, anyone already screening with us will never be charged. If your film has been with WRPN.tv from the start, it stays free — for as long as it remains on the platform. We believe in taking care of our alumni, and that commitment doesn't come with an expiration date.

The WRPN.tv Screenplay Competition accepts unproduced and produced feature screenplays (70–145 pages), short screenplays (50 pages and under), teleplays (45–70 pages), webisode pilots (10–20 pages), and novels of any genre. All submissions must be in English and submitted in PDF format through FilmFreeway only. Each submission must include a title page with contact information. A treatment is optional but helpful.

Yes. All scripts and novels must be registered with the WGAw and/or the U.S. Copyright Office prior to submission. This protects your work and is a firm requirement across all our screenplay competitions.

WRPNSC uses a merit-based evaluation system rather than a competitive ranking model — meaning your work is never pitted against other submissions. Each screenplay or novel is read, studied, and scored entirely on its own inherent value. When it's your turn to be evaluated, the judge's sole focus is on your work — not on comparisons with other entries in the queue. This ensures every submission gets the full, undivided attention it deserves. Judging decisions are final and cannot be disputed.

Rather than simply sending a rejection, we tell you why. You'll receive detailed feedback on the reasons for the decision, and you're welcome to revise and resubmit once at no additional fee — either up to 30 days before the last deadline of the current season, or in the following season. We believe in giving writers a real chance to develop their work.

Award levels include Rhodium, Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Honorable Mention. Rhodium Winners — our top honor — can request submission instructions for Polaris Pictures, allowing them to submit their script directly for review and possible optioning. Rhodium Winners also receive placement on the WRPN.tv Screenplay and Novel Winners' Wall where invited producers actively seek projects, plus an official IMDb listing with laurels. Platinum and Gold Winners also receive Winners' Wall placement and IMDb listing. Silver, Bronze, and Honorable Mention recipients receive an official IMDb listing and downloadable laurels for promotional use.

Rhodium Winners can request referral instructions to submit their script directly to Polaris Pictures, a film finance company that reviews winning scripts for potential optioning. Polaris does not accept unsolicited submissions, so this referral is a genuinely valuable gateway — but the filmmaker handles the submission themselves using our instructions; we do not submit on your behalf. There is no guarantee of representation, optioning, or production. Our role is to open the door; the rest is between you and the industry.

Yes, there is no limit to the number of different works you may submit. However, duplicate entries of the same script will be automatically disqualified. Substitutions are accepted up to 30 days before the festival closes — after that point, no substitutions will be accepted.

If you withdraw your submission before being officially selected, you will receive a full refund. If you withdraw after being officially selected, no refund will be issued. This policy exists because all of our judges — both selection and awards — are paid professionals, not unpaid volunteers. Their work begins the moment your script enters the evaluation process.

For online screener embed codes (Vimeo, YouTube), we recommend a minimum resolution of 1080p (1920×1080) and a bitrate sufficient for smooth playback. For file uploads via FilmFreeway, accepted formats include MP4, MOV, and AVI with H.264 encoding. If submitting a DCP for in-person screening purposes, contact us at info@wrpn.tv for delivery instructions.

For FilmFreeway platform issues (login, payment, upload errors), contact FilmFreeway support directly as they manage their own platform. For questions specific to a WRPN festival (eligibility, deadlines, notifications), contact us at info@wrpn.tv. Please include your FilmFreeway submission ID in your email to help us locate your entry quickly.

Minor updates such as screener link changes (if the original expires) can usually be accommodated. Contact us at info@wrpn.tv with your FilmFreeway submission ID and the updated link. Significant changes to the film itself (re-cuts, title changes) should be disclosed as they may affect eligibility. We cannot guarantee updates submitted close to or after the deadline will be reviewed.

We welcome constructive feedback and are always looking for ways to improve the experience for filmmakers. However, we take our reputation seriously and will respond accordingly to reviews that are demonstrably false, mean-spirited, or made in bad faith — such as accusing us of being a scam because you disagreed with a judging decision, leaving a negative review because a notification email went unread without any attempt to contact us first, or expressing displeasure simply because you felt your award level didn't match recognition you've received elsewhere. Filmmakers who engage in this type of bad-faith public conduct will be blacklisted from all WRPN.tv festivals and any associated festivals in our network. If you have a genuine concern, we encourage you to reach out to us directly at info@wrpn.tv — we are always happy to help and will do everything we can to address legitimate issues promptly and fairly.