Contacting the festival
From the private submission page a festival sent you — and from your scorecard — you can write to the festival about your submission. Your message is emailed to the festival with your submission's details attached, and the festival replies by email, to the address it holds for your submission. There is nothing to sign up for and no inbox to check here: the answer comes to your email.
This form reaches the festival, not FilmScorecard. Anything about your entry, its details, the judging or your scorecard is the festival's to answer. For payments, receipts or getting into a scorecard you have bought, see Contacting us.
Where to find it
| Where | What opens |
|---|---|
| The Contact the festival tile on your submission page's overview — Send a message | The form, on My entry — or on My scorecard when you arrived from your results email. See Your submission page. |
| Write to the festival, on the Set by the festival card of the Submission details page | The form, on My entry. See What only the festival can change. |
| Contact the festival, at the foot of your scorecard | The form, on My scorecard, with a note under it about what FilmScorecard handles instead. See Your scorecard. |
When the festival has given FilmScorecard no address for questions, none of these is there. Reply to whoever wrote to you instead.
It works for as long as your submission page opens — after edits have closed too. A submission that was withdrawn or disqualified has no form.
Sending a message
The form opens over the page, headed MESSAGE THE FESTIVAL and Talk to the festival: "Goes to the festival with your submission's details attached. They reply by email."
- Choose what it is about, under WHAT IS IT ABOUT: My entry, My scorecard or Something else — and Awards at a festival that offers award consideration. The hint in the message box changes with your choice, from "For example, a credit to correct or a question about your category" for My entry to "What would you like to ask the festival?" for Something else.
- Write your message. A live
214/2000count sits beside MESSAGE; the box stops taking text at 2,000 characters. - Check what goes with it. A block headed SENT WITH YOUR MESSAGE
lists your submission's title, its
SUB-number, its category or categories with the season — "Narrative Short, Fall 2026 season" — and Replies go to, your address. - Press Send message. It reads Sending while it goes. Until it is done, the form cannot be closed, so you are never left wondering whether it went.
Cancel, the × in the corner and the Escape key close the form without sending anything. Your text is not kept once the form is closed.
Message sent
When it has gone, the form says so:
Message sent
Riverside Shorts Festival will reply by email to [email protected].
Done closes the form. Send another empties the box and opens a fresh message.
- No reply time is promised. How soon an answer comes is up to the festival.
- The reply comes to the address under Replies go to, the one the festival holds for your submission. You cannot change it here; ask the festival — see What only the festival can change.
- Nothing comes back to the page. There is no conversation to open on your submission page; the festival's answer is an ordinary email.
When a message does not send
Your message stays in the box whatever went wrong, so you can try again without retyping it.
| The message | What it means |
|---|---|
| Write your message before sending. | The box is empty. |
| You've sent several messages today. Try again tomorrow. | You have sent five messages about this submission in the last 24 hours — or a lot of messages have come from your connection in the last hour. |
| Your message did not send. This festival has no contact address right now. | The festival removed its address while you had the page open. Until it adds one, no message can go. |
| Your session has ended. Reload the page to sign in again. | Your code or your sign-in has run out since the page opened, or your page can no longer be opened. Reload; if the code box appears, enter your code — see Getting in. |
| Your message did not send. Try again in a moment. | Something went wrong on the way. Press Send message again. |
What the festival sees
- An email, at the address it gave FilmScorecard for questions, saying you sent a message about your film, with your words, the topic, your submission's details and your name as its record has it. Replying to that email writes to you.
- One line on its record of your submission, saying you sent a message and what it was about. The line carries the topic, not what you wrote.
- Its staff can open your page and see the form, but cannot send from it. For them it reads "Preview only. Staff cannot send a message as the filmmaker."
Related guides
- Your submission page — the page the form lives on, and everything else you can do there.
- Your scorecard — the other page it opens from.
- Contacting us — writing to FilmScorecard itself, for anything that is not the festival's to answer.