One film at a time

A festival's season gives you one film at a time, and you finish it before you are given another. From the moment you press Start scoring, that film is the only one your judging home offers you. There is no second film beside it, no "up next", and no way to put it aside and try a different one.

This page covers what the rule is, what your judging home looks like while you are holding a film, and the two ways out of it. Scoring itself is on Scoring a film; why a particular film reached you is on How the judging queue works.

The rule

Start scoring takes the film. Until you have dealt with it, that same film is what your judging home shows you — as the Next submission, with an indigo In progress pill and a Continue scoring button where Start scoring used to be.

Two things follow, and they are the point of the rule:

• No new film is offered while you are holding one. Not on the card, not underneath it, not anywhere on the screen. That includes a film a coordinator has just sent back to you — it goes to the front of the queue and waits there until your hands are free. See A film came back to you.
• Continue scoring puts you back exactly where you were, with every answer, note and mark you had already given still on the card. It gives you a fresh 48 hours at the same time.

This is per festival season, not per account. Judge for three festivals and you may be holding a film at each of them; one festival's film never blocks another festival's queue.

A scorecard sent back to you for changes is not a held film. It sits on your judging home's Returned list, has no 48-hour clock, and never stops you starting a new film. See Scorecards sent back to you.

Two cards on one film is still one film

Some films hand you both a technical review and a creative scorecard. That is one film, so it is within the rule — you can work on both, in either order, and file each on its own.

Filing one of two cards does not release the film. You are still holding the other card, so your judging home still shows that film with Continue scoring, and still offers nothing new. The film leaves you when the last card in your hand is filed.

A film can also give you its two cards one at a time. Unless the festival has switched it off, a film's creative card waits for its technical review to be approved, so a judge who does both is often handed the technical card alone. Filing it finishes the film for now; it comes back into your queue for its creative card once the festival approves the technical review. See When the creative card waits for the technical review.

The two ways out

There is no third option and no "put this down" button. Being held to one film until you finish it or say why you cannot is the whole mechanism — it is what stops a panel starting twenty films and finishing none.

Handing a film back is not always the end of it. If you left it because the film was broken — Skip: technical issue, or a skip or decline whose reason was Screener will not play or Other — a coordinator can fix the problem and hand it back to you, and it arrives at the front of your queue. The three "not me" reasons — a conflict, your expertise, the deadline — end it for good.

Handing a film back: two places, both work

Skip this film on your judging home works on the film you are holding. It sits beside Continue scoring, and pressing it releases your cards and moves you on to a new film, exactly as it does for a film you have not opened. Anything you had typed on the cards is kept. A card you have already filed on the film is withdrawn, whatever your reason, and the dialog's amber warning says so every time:

Anything you have already filed on this film will be withdrawn.

See Skipping a film.

Or hand it back from inside the film. Press Continue scoring and use Skip: technical issue, Decline: conflict or other or Declare a conflict in the top-right corner. These do the same release and additionally work in a season where the festival switched skipping off entirely — a season can forbid discretionary skipping without forbidding you from reporting a broken screener or declaring a conflict. They also withdraw a card you have already filed on the film, whatever the reason, and their dialog says so. See Leaving a film you started.

If you walk away without doing either

Nothing is stuck. Your hold on the film lasts 48 hours from the moment you last picked it up. If you file nothing and hand nothing back:

• After 48 hours the hold lapses, the film goes back into every judge's queue including your own, and everything you typed is kept.
• You are no longer holding anything, so your judging home offers you a new film again.
• The lapsed film can come back around to you later, and Start scoring normally picks your draft up where you left it. Not always: if picking it up again puts you on a different scorecard — another of the film's categories, its other technical checklist, or a scorecard the festival changed meanwhile — your answers to the old scorecard's questions are cleared. See Picking a lapsed film up again.

Nothing counts this down and nothing warns you, on any screen or by email. If a film is going to take you more than two days, that is fine — just expect it to reappear rather than sit waiting.

What the numbers do

The counts on your judging home do not change because you are holding a film. "4 of 28 scored" and "22 left in your queue" mean what they always meant.

One thing looks odd until you know it: the film you are holding is not counted in "left in your queue". It has left the queue — you already have it — so a screen showing a film with 22 left is showing you a 23rd. The film is counted in the "of 28" total, and it moves into "scored" only when you file it. The one exception is a film you filed the technical card on while its creative card waits for you: until the festival approves the technical card it counts as upcoming rather than in the total, then as left in your queue, and it is scored once you file the creative card too.

What this does not change

• You still cannot look ahead, search your queue, or choose a film. The rule tightens what you are offered; it does not add a way to browse. Nothing that decides which film comes next — a film sent back to you, a film the festival wants finished early, or anything else — can put a film in front of the one in your hand. See Which film comes next.
• You still see nothing of any other judge — no name, no score, no average, not even how many judges a film has. A note that arrives with a returned film is from a coordinator, and it names nobody either.
• The 48-hour hold, the "went back to the queue" state and skipping all work exactly as before. See Scoring a film.