Issues your judges raise

A judge who runs into a problem with a film has two ways to tell you, and the Issue tab on the Review Queue is where both arrive:

• Skipped — the judge could not play the screener and handed the film back. Nobody is judging it, and until you do something the film sits with one fewer judge on it than the season asked for. You fix the film and either send it back to the judge or dismiss the matter.
• Reported — the judge pressed Report an issue on their scoring screen and kept the film. They are still on it; they are telling you something is wrong — a broken screener or file, a category or scorecard that does not fit, or anything else. You reply to them, fix what needs fixing, and mark it resolved.

It is the fifth tab on that screen, and the only one whose rows are not scorecards.

This tab's Send back is about a film, not a scorecard. Returning a scorecard a judge filed, so they can change it, is Send back to judge in a scorecard row's menu on the other tabs — see Sending a scorecard back to its judge.

Finding it

Review Queue → Issue. Its address is the queue's own, with the tab named:

/org/<organization>/<festival>/<season>/review-queue?tab=issue

The amber card on your Season overview — "3 issues reported by judges", with the count in amber where other cards carry a mark — lands you here directly, and so does the tab's own amber count in the tab strip. Both count every open row, skipped and reported alike, and so do the "2 issues" clause in the queue's header and the amber count beside Review Queue in the navigation. That amber count is the row's second number: the plain one before it counts scorecards waiting for review, and the two are never added together. See Finding the screen.

The tab switches the moment you press it. The first time you switch to it in a sitting, its rows arrive a moment later, with placeholder rows standing in while they load. After that, switching to it and away from it shows its rows at once, and while you are on it the tab re-reads itself in the background on the queue's own rhythm — about once a minute, and whenever you come back to the browser tab. A problem a judge raises while you are looking appears within a minute, in place; the Waiting column ages by the minute in between. See The list keeps itself up to date.

What reaches this tab, and what never does

Skipped films

Two skip reasons only, and the distinction is deliberate:

The three that never appear are not hidden from you by accident. There is no way to resolve one, and no way to send that film back to that judge — not from this screen, not by editing the address, not at all. Sending a judge back a film they declared a conflict on is the one outcome this screen must never produce.

A Screener will not play entry comes from either place a judge can leave a film: Skip this film on their judging home with that reason picked, or Skip: technical issue from inside the scoring screen. An Other entry can come from the same skip dialog or from Decline: conflict or other on the scoring screen with Other picked. Whichever route it took, it looks the same here.

Every route here withdraws any scorecard the judge had already filed on the film — it stops counting toward the film, whichever place they left from and whichever of the two reasons they gave.

Some skipped rows arrive with no note. The note is required on the judging home's skip dialog and optional on both scoring-screen dialogs, so a row whose Reason cell has nothing under it is a judge who left the box empty. There is nothing you can do about that except ask them.

You are emailed when a judge skips a film for one of these two reasons — see The emails staff are sent — unless the same judge already reported an issue on that film and it is still open, which emailed you once already. The other three reasons send nothing.

Reported issues

Every report reaches this tab, under one of the three reasons the judge's dialog offers:

A report always carries a note: the judge cannot send one without writing at least a few words. A judge has one open report per film at a time — their scoring screen reads "Issue reported" until you mark it resolved, and then they can report again. A report changes nothing about the judging: the judge keeps the film, their scorecard stays theirs, and no other judge is affected. See Reporting an issue for the judge's side.

You are emailed when a judge reports one — see The emails staff are sent.

Who can work here

The same rule as the rest of the Review Queue:

• Everyone who can open the season reads the whole tab — every row, every note, every judge's name, and the panel behind each row. Viewers and programmers included.
• Every button on this tab needs the "Approve scorecards and resolve flags" capability — Send back and Dismiss on a skipped film, Mark resolved and Reply on a report, and the bar for several at once. Festival admins and coordinators have it by default; organization owners and org admins always do. Without it, the buttons are simply not there and the panel's footer says why: "Your role cannot resolve issues. Ask a coordinator or festival admin."
• The screener link in the panel is editable by anyone who can open the season, capability or not. That is the same door the submission's own Information tab has, and it is not narrowed here.
• Judges cannot open this screen at all, so a judge never sees another judge's words — and nothing anywhere tells a judge that another judge reported anything, or how many reports a film has.

Reading a row

Six columns. The list scrolls sideways on a narrow window rather than restacking; the Submission column and the heading row stay put while the rest slides under them.

• Submission — the title, which is a button that opens the issue panel, with the tracking number in monospace underneath.
• Judge — the judge who raised it, with their email in small text below. A judge who has not accepted their invitation yet has no name on record, so their email stands alone. This is plain text, not a link — the judge panel on the other tabs is about scorecards, and an issue has none.
• Reason — a small Skipped or Reported marker, then the reason — Screener will not play or Other on a skipped film, the judge's own pick on a report — over a one-line preview of what the judge wrote. Long notes are cut at about 120 characters with an ellipsis, and line breaks are flattened. The full note is in the panel.
• Reported — the day the judge raised it: Aug 12.
• Waiting — how long it has been waiting: 42m, 14h, 6d. Days never roll into weeks. A settled row's figure stops at the moment you settled it — it is how long the judge waited, not how long ago it happened.
• State — one of four pills, and sometimes a second chip beside it:

Settled rows are drawn quieter than open ones, so a worked-through list still reads at a glance. If you hold the capability, hovering a row turns its row number into a checkbox — see Several at once.

The tab starts on Open

The default view is open issues only. A worklist that accumulates finished items stops being one. The Status filter in the toolbar is how you reach the rest:

Because Open is where the tab starts, the Status trigger only lights up once you move away from it — and Clear filters puts you back on Open.

Searching, filtering and sorting

Every control here applies the moment you set it, over rows already in your browser — nothing reloads.

• The search box matches the submission's title, the judge's name and the tracking number — the same rule as the rest of the queue. It does not search the notes, deliberately: a search for "password" would return rows whose visible text does not contain the word, because the cell shows only a preview.
• Judge — tick as many as you like. The options are the judges who have raised something this season, not the whole roster, and each count is that judge's rows across every state rather than just the ones you are looking at.
• Status — the five above.
• There is no Scorecard filter and no Category filter on this tab. An issue has no scorecard, and narrowing by category would narrow by a fact about the film rather than about the problem.
• Clear filters clears the search, the judge list and the status at once — and the other tabs' filters too, so switching tabs never lands you on a view that is silently narrowed.

Search and Judge are shared with the other four tabs, so a search you set in Pending is still set when you come here.

Every column heading sorts. Reported and Waiting open with the useful end first (newest, longest); Submission, Judge, Reason and State open ascending. State sorts in workflow order — Open, Sent back, Dismissed, Resolved — never alphabetically. The list arrives sorted by Reported, newest first, and the submission title then the judge's name breaks every tie, so the order never shuffles between reloads or refreshes.

The footer names what you are looking at: "3 issues, open, sorted by reported, descending." — or, narrowed, "Showing 1 of 3 issues in Open, filtered, sorted by waiting, descending."

There is no Rows picker and no Load more on this tab. It loads the season's whole set at once. A season with enough issues to need paging has a problem no button solves.

The issue panel

Clicking a title slides in the panel where the work happens. It opens on the click: the frame, the film's title, its tracking number, the state pill and the reason are drawn from the row in the same moment you press, and the rest — the note, the screener link, the "can this film go back" sentence and the buttons — arrives just behind them, with placeholder bars and a lone Close button until it does. Reopening an issue you have already read is instant. Its address is part of the page's, so a panel you have open is a link you can send to a colleague.

It keeps up while it stands open. The record is re-read about once a minute while the browser tab is in front of you, and whenever you come back to it. If a colleague settles the issue while you are reading, the panel turns into the settled view described below without your closing anything.

If the panel cannot show the record, it says so where you are looking, keeping the title, the ✕ and Close:

• "This issue is no longer in the queue." — the row has left the season's list while you had it open. The tab re-reads itself as it happens and the row leaves with it. Close the panel; there is nothing to retry. A settled issue is not a gone one — settling it keeps the row and the panel.
• "This issue could not be loaded.", with a Try again button — the record could not be fetched; nothing is wrong with the issue itself. Press Try again and it loads.

Its header carries the film's title, its tracking number, the state pill and the reason. Below that, in order:

1. What the judge reported. Their name, the date and the elapsed wait — Reported Aug 12 · 6d — and then the note in full, line breaks and all. A row with no note reads "—".

2. The fix. The Screener link for this submission, editable right here, with a Save link button that turns into "Link saved". The field is plain and unlabelled beyond its name — there is no example or hint text in it. This is the same field as the one on the submission's Information tab and it writes to the same place — saving corrects the current cut rather than making a new version of the submission. Fixing the link and closing the matter are separate acts on purpose: a judge may have raised two things, and you very often want the first without the second.

On a screenplay whose script was uploaded as a PDF, there is no field at all. The card reads PDF and, under it, "On file" — judges open the PDF, and nothing in this panel can change it. To replace the PDF with a corrected one, or to swap it for a link, go to the submission's Information tab, under Screener access — the upload button beside PDF link, or Use a link instead. A screenplay holds one or the other, never both, so judges are never left choosing between two versions.

Under it, Open submission takes you to the Submissions screen with that film's panel already open on its Settings tab, for anything bigger than a link — including the Judging card, where a film on hold is set Ready.

FilmFreeway never provides screener passwords. On a festival connected to FilmFreeway, a film the sync brings in with a link hosted somewhere else — a private Vimeo link, say — arrives with no password, and a judge reporting Screener will not play on one is often just missing it. This panel has no password field: press Open submission, switch to the Information tab and fill in Screener password under Screener access. The film's record flags these films with a quiet line — see The Display tab. The sync never changes or clears a password once it is there, and importing the festival's FilmFreeway export again cannot add one: the film is already in the season, so its row is skipped as a duplicate.

3. Can this film go back? On an open skipped film only — a report never handed the film back, so there is nothing to return. One sentence, and it is the sentence the Send back button obeys — see When a film cannot go back. It is re-checked each time the panel re-reads itself, so it can change while you watch. When everything is in order it reads:

Yes. Sending it back puts this film next in this judge's queue.

4. How this was resolved. On a settled row instead of the sentence above: "Sent back Aug 17 by Camille Duarte.", "Dismissed Aug 17." or "Resolved Aug 17.", with your note under it if there was one. The name drops off if that person's account is later removed — the decision stays, the attribution does not have to.

In the footer, the buttons, which depend on the kind of row:

Reply is there only when the judge has an account to write to.

Settling a reported issue

Replying to a report

Reply opens the same Send a message dialog a judge's name opens elsewhere on the queue, addressed to the judge who reported it — with the message already started:

About The Lighthouse Keeper (#PCFF24-142):

Write the rest and press Send. It is an ordinary message in your Inbox conversation with that judge — they read it on their Messages screen and are emailed it, and their answer comes back to your Inbox, not to this panel. See Writing to a judge from the queue. Replying does not settle the report. Closing the dialog leaves the panel where it was.

Marking it resolved

Mark resolved asks first:

Mark this report resolved?

The report leaves the Open list. Nothing is sent to the judge.

with an optional Note for the record, up to 2000 characters, kept on the row for whoever reads it next. Press Mark resolved, or Cancel.

• The judge is told nothing. No email, no notice. If you want them to know, Reply first.
• Their scoring screen goes back to "Report an issue" the next time it loads, so they can report the same film again if something else goes wrong. A second report is a new row; the old one stays as history.
• The row moves to Resolved and leaves the default Open view. The dialog waits for the server and for the tab to re-read itself, so by the time it closes the row has already moved.

Sending a skipped film back

Send back to Dana — named for the judge who raised it — hands the film to that same judge and puts it at the front of their queue.

1. Fix whatever was wrong first. Usually that is the screener link, in the panel; sometimes it is bigger and lives on the submission's own record.
2. Press Send back to Dana. A confirmation opens headed "Send this film back to Dana?"
3. Write what you fixed. This is required. Three characters minimum once spaces are trimmed, 2000 maximum, with a live counter under the box. The box is empty and carries no example — what you write is read by one person, and a film that reappears in a judge's queue with no word about what changed is exactly the state that produces a second complaint.
4. Press Send back. Cancel backs out and changes nothing.

What happens the moment it lands:

• The film returns to that judge's queue, at the front of it — ahead even of a film you have marked Priority. Not interrupting them: a judge who is currently holding a different film keeps that film, and meets the returned one next. It does not wait for a technical review either: on a season where creative judging waits for technical approval, the film you send back is offered to that judge whether or not its technical review has been approved.
• Your note travels with it, on the film's card on their judging home, under the heading "This film is back with you".
• Your name does not. The judge is told the film came back and what changed, never who sent it. See A film came back to you.
• They are emailed, within the hour, by a background sender. The subject names the film and your festival; the body says the film is back and carries your note as "A note from the festival". A judge who has turned message email off still gets this one — it is operational mail about work they have been given.
• A notice lands in their FilmScorecard inbox too — one line saying the film was returned to their queue, with your note under it and the film one click away. This is the one part the judge can switch off: a judge who has turned the in-app returned notice off in their own settings simply does not get the notice. The email, the note on the card and the queue itself are unaffected.
• The row moves to Sent back and leaves the default Open view. The confirmation waits for the server and for the tab to re-read itself, so by the time it closes the row has already moved — and the scorecard tabs are re-read too, since the film is back in judging.
• The judge's own words stay on file. Nothing you do here edits or erases them.

If the same judge raises the same film again, that is a new row. The old one stays as history, and the Status filter shows both — so "have we sent this back before, and what did we say?" is a question with an answer.

Dismissing a skipped film

Dismiss closes the matter without handing anything back. Use it when there is nothing to fix, when you fixed it too late to matter, or when you would rather another judge took the film.

The confirmation is headed "Dismiss this issue?" over the sentence that matters:

The film stays out of this judge's queue and the issue leaves the Open list. Other judges are unaffected.

A note is optional here — nothing is being handed back, so nobody is waiting on an explanation. Anything you write is kept on the row for whoever reads it next.

Three things dismissing does not do:

• It does not give the film back to that judge. They are done with it, for good. That is the whole difference between the two buttons.
• It does not take the film away from anybody else. Every other judge on the season still has it, exactly as before.
• It does not email the judge. There is nothing they are being asked to do.

Several at once

Tick rows and a bar appears at the bottom of the screen, if you hold the capability: the selection count, the line "Resolve every selected issue the same way.", Clear selection, and the verbs that apply to what you ticked — each verb acts only on the rows of its own kind:

The heading row's checkbox ticks every row in view. The count on the bar reads "1 issue selected" or "3 issues selected", whichever kind of row you ticked.

Every button opens a confirmation first, and one note covers the whole selection:

At most 200 go through at once; a bigger selection is refused with "Resolve at most 200 issues at once. Narrow the selection and repeat." A film that cannot go back fails on its own and the rest still land: the dialog says how many were settled and how many were not — "5 issues resolved. 1 could not be, and is still selected." — and the ones that failed stay ticked so you can read why. A film on hold is one of those.

When a film cannot go back

This is about skipped films only. Before you press anything, the panel has already asked whether this film could reach this judge at all. Six answers block it, and on those the Send back button is greyed out and the row wears a Cannot return chip. Five of them mean never:

The sixth is yours to lift:

The Cannot return chip is drawn for the hold too, although the hold is not permanent. Read the panel's sentence rather than the chip: it is the one that says what is in the way.

Three answers mean "not yet", and they do not block anything — the button stays live and the film waits:

The check runs more than once: when the panel is drawn, each time the panel re-reads itself while it stands open, and again at the instant you press the button. If another judge takes the last slot in between — or a colleague puts the film on hold — the confirmation stays open and tells you which of the sentences above is now true, rather than quietly promising the judge a film that will never arrive.

The FilmFreeway sentence

That third "not yet" is about a switch you hold, and it is worth a paragraph.

What it means. The film's current screener link is a filmfreeway.com one, and this judge's FilmFreeway access on this season is off — the switch in the FilmFreeway column of their row on the Judges screen, and on the FilmFreeway card of their panel. FilmScorecard does not offer a judge with that switch off such a film in the ordinary run of the queue — it is absent from it, not ranked last — so they will never simply come across it. A film the FilmFreeway sync brings in with no screener link of its own gets its FilmFreeway page as its link, so it is one of these films until somebody saves a different link.

Two things clear it, and both are yours to do:

• Turn FilmFreeway access on for them. Flip the switch on their row of the Judges screen, or on the FilmFreeway card of their panel; it takes effect the moment it moves. The film is in their queue from their next visit — and so is every other FilmFreeway-only film in their scope, so read what the judge says about themselves first: their panel's FilmFreeway card carries "Judge says: has a FilmFreeway account" or "Judge says: no FilmFreeway account", and a judge with no account cannot open the screener however the switch is set.
• Put the screener somewhere else. The Screener link field in this panel is the whole of it: save a link the judge can open — a private upload, a review link, whatever you use — and the obstacle is gone for them and for every other judge in the same position. The panel re-reads itself as the save lands, and the sentence is replaced by the green one without your reopening anything.

Sending it back is permitted meanwhile, and it does what it says: the film waits in their queue and turns up when one of the two above happens. It is not a wasted press — but a judge whose access stays off and who never gets a new link will never see it.

This changed. The sentence used to read that the judge "has no FilmFreeway account" and that the film would appear "if they add one" — the judge's own tick box was the gate, and nothing on your screens could open it. The gate is now your switch; the judge's own answer is shown to you beside it and decides nothing on its own.

The emails staff are sent

When a judge reports an issue, or skips a film for one of the two reasons this tab takes, the season's staff are emailed: your organization's owners and org admins, and every active member who holds access to that festival or season. A suspended member is not written to.

• Both follow one setting. Each person can turn them off for themselves with the Judge reports a problem with a submission switch on their account's Notifications tab — see Your account settings. With it off, both emails stop for that person, and the report or the skip still arrives on this tab and in every count.
• A skip for any other reason sends nothing — conflict of interest, outside their expertise, or unable to finish in time. Those never reach this tab either.
• A report and then a skip on the same film is one email, not two. If a judge reports an issue and then skips that film, the skip is not emailed while their report is still open — the report's email already told you. The skip still arrives on this tab and in every count. Once you have marked the report resolved, a later skip is emailed as usual.
• An issue you settle before the email goes out is not announced — a report you resolve, or a skipped film you send back or dismiss.

What this tab does not have

• No row menu. Everything a row can do is in the panel its title opens, or on the bar for several at once.
• No reassignment. "Send back" means back to the judge who raised it. There is no way to give the film to somebody else instead — nothing in FilmScorecard assigns films to judges, so there is nothing to hand over. Dismiss, and the film stays available to every other judge on the season.
• No reply from the judge, here. Your note on a sent-back film is one-way, and Reply on a report goes to your Inbox conversation with them — their answer arrives there, not on this tab.
• No notice to a judge when you resolve their report. Reply if you want them to know.
• No way back. Once a row is sent back, dismissed or resolved it stays that way. What you can do is act on the film again — dismiss, then fix the link anyway; or wait for the judge's second word if they send one.
• No moving a film to another category from here. A report that a category does not fit is fixed on the submission — Open submission, then Edit categories on its Information tab.
• No Ready switch. A film on hold is set Ready on the submission's own Settings tab — Open submission takes you there.
• Nothing tells the filmmaker their screener was broken. No email, no note on their record. If the link needs replacing, ask them yourself.
• No FilmFreeway switch. The sentence names the obstacle; turning access on happens on the Judges screen, where every judge's switch is a column — and what each judge says about having an account is on their panel.
• No bell and no feed. The amber counts and the emails are the whole of how an issue announces itself.
• No export.

If something is refused

Refusals inside the panel and its confirmations stay inside them, so nothing you typed is lost.

Saving the screener link answers with the Submissions screen's messages:

A filmmaker saving their submission to their own FilmScorecard account never stops you fixing the link. The record stays yours to edit — see When a filmmaker saves a submission to their account.

Related guides

• Review Queue — the screen this tab lives on, and the four scorecard tabs beside it.
• Scoring a film — Report an issue from the judge's side.
• A film came back to you — what the judge sees after you press Send back. Worth reading once before you press it.
• Skipping a film and Leaving a film you started — the two screens skipped rows are written on.
• Opening a submission — the screener link's own home, and everything else about a submission's record.
• How the judging queue works — why a film reaches a judge at all, which is what the "can this go back" check is asking.
• Judges — the FilmFreeway access switch the third "not yet" sentence is about.
• Submissions — putting a film On hold and setting it Ready again.
• Your account settings — the Judge reports a problem with a submission switch.