Letting submitters fix their own details

A submission's record goes stale between the day it was entered and the day a judge opens it: a tagline nobody wrote, a synopsis with a typo in the first line, a trailer link that has moved, no poster. FilmScorecard gives each submitter a private page for their own submission, which they can edit until the season's selections are announced — including the days before judging starts, which is when it is most useful — and go on reading after that. It opens on an overview of the submission, with pages under it: Submission details, where they edit; Questions for judges; How it's judged, the scorecard every judge fills in for their categories, with no scores on it; and Contact the festival, which emails you. This guide is the host's side of it: what they can change, when the page is open, how the links reach them, where their edits show up on your screens, and the messages they send you.

The submitter's own guide is Your submission page — read it before you send four hundred of these, because it is what they will read afterwards. You can also open their page yourself, signed in and without their code, and read exactly what they read — see Seeing what a submitter sees.

A season can send the links on its own, to each submission within minutes of its arrival once it is in a category, when you choose As each one arrives. That is Inviting submitters; this guide covers the page itself and sending by hand.

What a submitter can change, and what they cannot

Fifteen fields and the poster:

On a screenplay, Trailer shows only when a press kit on one of its categories scores the trailer, or a trailer is already saved.

The title, the categories, the length and the screener are drawn on their page too, in a card headed Set by the festival with a LOCKED pill, beside the date the submission arrived, so a submitter can see that you hold the title and the screener rather than wondering why the fields are missing. The screener is shown as its host and eight dots — vimeo.com/•••••••• — and the password as dots alone; neither value is ever sent to their browser. On a screenplay the card calls them PDF link and PDF password.

The staff-only fields are not on their page at all, locked or otherwise: the personal details, technical specs, background and entry record a FilmFreeway import brings in — see What a FilmFreeway export brings in.

The card offers them a Write to the festival link, which opens Contact the festival with My entry picked — a message emailed to your season's Contact email, on the Season tab's About this season card, or, when that is blank, your organization's support address. If you have set neither, the card has no link. See Messages from filmmakers.

Three differences from your own form are worth knowing:

• Their tagline is capped at 120 characters. Yours is not. You can type 4,000 on the Information tab; if you do, their page shows the count over the limit and refuses to save anything until they shorten the line. If you want a long tagline to survive, do not send that submitter a link.
• They have no way to remove a poster, only to replace one — and their upload has to be at least 1200 by 1800 pixels, which yours does not.
• Their trailer must be a full https:// link. Yours is not checked. An imported link that is not a URL blocks their save until they fix it.

Edits are live on save. There is no review step, no approval and no notification. What a submitter saves is what your coordinators and your judges read from that moment.

Only the fields they touched are written, so an edit you make to a field they did not touch survives their save and theirs survives yours. If you both change the same field, whichever saves last wins — as it does between two coordinators.

When a submission's page is open

Open here means open for edits — the page itself stays readable after it closes; see below. Three things have to be true. All three, at the same moment:

1. The submission is live — neither withdrawn nor disqualified.
2. The season is not Completed or Archived.
3. The season's Selections announced date has not arrived, counted in the season's own time zone: the page closes as that day begins. A season with no Selections announced date stays open while the other two hold.

Judging does not have to have started. A page is open from the moment its submission is imported. Nor does it close when judging does: closing judging, releasing the season's scorecards and releasing one submission's scorecard early all leave the page open.

When the window shuts, the page stays, read-only — unless the submission was withdrawn or disqualified.

• The Selections announced date has arrived, or the season is Completed or Archived. The filmmaker still gets their overview, behind the same code or link as before. Its Submission details tile reads Edits closed on and the date — or Edits are closed, with no date, for a finished season — and no longer opens the form, and their questions can be read but not changed. How it's judged, their scorecard once it is released, and Contact the festival all still work. The links you sent go on working, their code still lets them in, and Email me a new link still sends them one.
• The submission was withdrawn or disqualified. Every address shows Edits are closed — "Edits are closed. The record is final." — with View scorecard under it once its scorecard is released, and nobody is asked for a code. There is no overview behind it and no way to message you from it.

Three consequences:

• A filmmaker can read their scorecard and still fix their page. Once their scorecard is released, their page's top bar carries ← Your scorecard, and the scorecard's Finish your press kit sends them to the page. See Your submission page.
• An edit made after judging closes is saved, but on a season set to Keep its score as judged it moves no points — and every season is, unless somebody changed it. See Freezing the press kit when judging closes.
• Moving a season's Selections announced date later re-opens editing on every page it closed, and so does clearing it. It is a date rather than a recorded event, so pushing it back lets every submitter edit their page again.

There is no coordinator control for this window — no switch, no setting of its own, and no way to close one submission's page while leaving its judging running. The three conditions above are all of it. Your own view of the page follows the same rule: once the window shuts you still read the overview and its pages, read-only as always, and only a withdrawn or disqualified submission shows you "Edits are closed".

Emailing the links

A link reaches a submitter in one of five ways. The first four send the invitation email; the fifth sends a short message with a new link and code:

• The season's automatic send, to each submission within minutes of its arrival once it is in a category, on a season set to As each one arrives — see Inviting submitters.
• Send to N now on Settings → Emails, for every submission in a category that has never had it, whichever way the season is set to send — same guide.
• Email submission links on the Submissions list, for the rows you pick — below. It is there only for the people who can open the season's Settings; see Who can send them.
• The Email button on one submission's Submission link card, on its Settings tab — the same send for one submission, for the same people. See Handing over the link.
• The submitter pressing Email me a new link on their own page.

Every one of them carries a button that signs the filmmaker straight in, the link printed under it, and their access code printed under that.

Email submission links is the one for a resend, a reminder or a handful of people:

1. Open the season's Submissions screen.
2. Tick the rows you want. Selecting rows is covered in Submissions.
3. Press Email submission links in the bar at the bottom.
4. Read the confirmation and press Send links.

The dialog says exactly what it will do:

Email submission page links to 40 submissions?

Each submitter gets a link to their submission page by email. Submissions whose page is closed are skipped, and so, once judging is under way, are those already being scored or missing nothing.

Send links Cancel

Then a message at the bottom of the screen: "Submission links queued for 40 submissions." — and your selection clears.

Who can send them

Emailing submission links takes the same access as the festival's Settings screen: Edit festival settings and team on the festival, together with a role that can change the season. Organization owners and admins and festival admins have it by default; coordinators, programmers and viewers do not, unless somebody has ticked the box for them on Festival access. It is the same rule that already decides who can press Send to N now on Settings → Emails.

Anybody else's bulk bar has no Email submission links button at all — it holds Clear selection and the three status moves, and nothing else. This is new: the button used to be on everybody's bar, and it worked for anybody who could open the Submissions list, viewers included.

One refusal is still possible. If your access changes while you have the list open — somebody takes the box away, or changes your role — the button is still on your screen until you reload, and pressing Send links leaves the dialog open with "You do not have permission to do that." Nothing is queued, nobody is mailed and no access code changes.

What happens when you send

Eight things about the send:

• "Queued", not "sent". The mail leaves from FilmScorecard's background work, which starts immediately when you press Send links and otherwise runs at least once a day. A large send takes minutes, not seconds.
• The count in that message is what you selected, not what went out. Submissions whose page is closed are skipped inside the send, and so are any that have already been emailed since you pressed the button. Once judging is under way, it also skips a submission a judge has already filed a creative scorecard on, and one with nothing missing that counts toward its score — a rule of this button's own: the season's automatic send and Send to N now email both. Forty selected can honestly be eight emails. To send to one of the skipped ones anyway, use that submission's own Email button.
• It is the same email the season sends on its own, in whichever version fits the moment it leaves — before judging starts or while it runs, with something missing or nothing. After judging has closed it says so, and when something is missing it asks for it before selections are announced, naming your Selections announced date when you have set one. A season whose judging has not been opened always gets the before-judging version, whatever its dates say, and if its opening date has already gone by that version names no date — it says "before judging starts" instead. What each version says is in Inviting submitters.
• It counts as that submitter's invitation. A submitter who had never been sent their page is counted as invited once this email leaves, and the season's automatic send and Send to N now will not email them again.
• Each submission's Audit tab shows what this send did for it — Sent, Failed, or Not sent with the reason: "submission page closed", "already being scored" or "nothing missing" — and then, for one that was sent, what the email provider reported: Delivered, Delayed, Bounced or Marked as spam. See Emails on the Audit tab. There is no progress card and no season-wide list of who was skipped. The Sent so far row on Settings → Emails — "112 of 140 submissions have been sent it" — counts submitters sent their page at least once by any route, so it moves when this reaches somebody for the first time and not when it reaches them again.
• It reuses each submitter's link and access code. The code in the email is the one they already hold, and their button in an earlier email and every browser they are already reading in go on working. The send only keeps them working for longer — unless their link has reached its 90-day limit, when this email brings a new link and code — see One link and one code at a time. It confirms because it emails people outside your organization.
• Up to 500 at a time. A larger selection is refused with "The links could not be queued. Nothing was sent." — send it in two goes.
• Sending twice sends twice. This button does not care whether a submitter has been invited already — automatically, by Send to N now or by an earlier press — and gives no warning: pressing it again on the same rows mails every one of them it would mail again. That is deliberate — somebody pressing it a second time is somebody deciding to remind people.

This button is not held for an unopened season. The season's automatic send holds new arrivals while a season's opening date has passed but nobody has pressed Open judging, and sends them when somebody does — see Inviting submitters. Email submission links does not wait: it sends when you press it.

A failed send says so and sends nothing: "The links could not be queued. Nothing was sent." Press it again.

One bad address does not stop the rest. A submitter whose address the mail service refuses gets nothing, is not counted as invited, and has Failed on their submission's Audit tab; everybody else is mailed as normal. Send to N now on Settings → Emails, or the submission's own Email button, can try them again. A message the mail service accepted and the submitter's mailbox then bounced counts as sent — they stay invited and are not tried again — but their Audit tab shows it Bounced, with the reason.

Handing over the link without emailing it

The Submission link card, the first card on a submission's Settings tab, carries the page's address with a Copy link button that reads Copied once it has. Paste it into a message, read it down the phone, put it on a support thread.

It is always shown, in every state, because the address resolves to the read-only overview once edits close, and to the "Edits are closed" card at worst — there is no moment at which holding it means holding something broken.

The address on the card opens nothing for a filmmaker by itself. The page behind it asks them for the access code, which only ever goes to the address on the submission — and a submitter who has the address but no code can press Email me a new link on that page and have a link and a code sent to themselves — after edits close too, for anything but a withdrawn or disqualified submission. So handing over the address is the whole of what a coordinator needs to do; the rest takes care of itself. That email is the short "Your new link" message, not the invitation, but it still counts as their invitation if they had not had one — so neither the season's automatic send nor Send to N now will email it to them later as well.

Or let FilmScorecard email it for you. The Email button beside Copy link — for the people who can open the season's Settings, as for the bulk send — asks first, naming the address it Sends to, and then sends this one filmmaker the invitation email, with a button that signs them in. It sends even when the bulk send would skip the submission — one a judge is already scoring, or one with nothing missing — because it is a send for one person you chose. It also sends to a submission in no category, which the season's automatic send and Send to N now both wait on. Once a creative scorecard has been filed it goes without the questions panel, which can no longer be used.

It is different when you open it yourself. Signed in with access to this festival, you are admitted on your session, with no code asked for and none consumed, and you read the overview and every page under it as the submitter sees them — read-only, with a Viewing as staff pill in the bar, and with Send message turned off in Contact the festival. (The Filmmaker view switch is the scorecard's alone; this page has none.) That is the whole of Seeing what a submitter sees, including the list of who is and is not let in. It changes nothing for the submitter: no attempt is spent, their code is untouched, and nobody is notified.

What their edits look like on your screens

Nothing is flagged and nothing is queued for you. A submitter's edit is just a changed record: the list, the drawer, the judge's pane and the press-kit card all read the new value from the moment it is saved.

One line records that it happened. On the Information tab of the detail panel, directly under the completeness note, once a submitter has saved their page at least once:

Edited by the submitter on 10 Sep 2026. See what changed

• The date is in the season's time zone, like every other festival date.
• The line itself says nothing about which fields changed — See what changed does. It switches the panel to the Audit tab, where their saves are entries in the submitter's name — "Ana Ruiz edited 2 fields", with Submitter under it — with the time and one line per field: what it said before and what it says now. Saves they make within ten minutes of each other are one entry. Your coordinators' saves are listed there too, under their names, so a field's whole run is in one place. So are the submitter's visits: an entry for each day they opened the page, naming the email they came from when they followed one, and one each time they signed in there with their code. See The Audit tab.
• It only ever appears for a submitter's own save. Your coordinators' edits and an import's writes do not set it, and neither does a submitter pressing Save with nothing changed.
• It is not a prompt. Nothing asks you to review or approve the edit, because it is already live.

There is no column and no filter for it on the submissions list. If you want to know which submissions a submitter has touched, you open them — and the Audit tab tells you what they did there.

The press kit is what this is for

A submitter's Submission details page carries a press-kit checklist beside the form, with a tick or a cross for each of your press-kit items — a row for a field on their page takes them to that field — and the press kit's score, the points filled against the points available, at the top of the press-kit card and on the overview's Submission details tile. A filmmaker who comes from the submission-page email lands on their overview with the press kit put first, when there is one — "Finish your press kit", with how many items are still empty, or "Your press kit is complete". That is the point of the exercise: the items that watch a field fill themselves in as the submitter types, so a press kit that was going to score badly for want of a synopsis can be fixed by the one person who knows what the synopsis should say.

The email lists what is missing too. When anything that counts toward the score is blank, the email lists only the blank fields, each marked Missing — Tagline, Synopsis, the statement and Poster when they are empty, then every other counted field that is blank — as of the moment the email leaves. Nothing is listed as filled in. Those other rows can include a field the submitter cannot edit — a budget, genres, the screener — because it counts and it is empty; they will have to ask you to fill it. See What the filmmaker receives.

Three things carry over from how you built the card — see Building a scorecard:

• Only the items that watch a field are shown to them. The checks a person makes by reading the material are neither listed nor counted on their page, so the figure they see is not the whole press kit — and a press kit made entirely of those draws them no card at all.
• Points and item counts are yours. Their page shows your numbers; nothing is hardcoded and no two festivals show the same figures.
• A submission in two categories that share one press kit sees one card. Two different press kits give them two, each headed with its name.

A press kit item that watches a field the submitter cannot edit is still listed on their page, with its real state, and they can do nothing about it. Genres, completion year, language, the title and the contact email are all yours — so if you are relying on this page to finish a press kit, check what your items actually watch before you send the links.

Opening their page yourself is the quickest way to see that checklist, with their figures rather than yours — see Seeing what a submitter sees.

Editing a press kit mid-season changes what a submitter sees on their next load, as it does for your own staff.

Messages from filmmakers

A filmmaker can write to you from their submission page and from their scorecard, and the message is emailed to you. They reach the form three ways:

• the Contact the festival tile on their overview — "Talk to your festival", with Send a message;
• Write to the festival on the Set by the festival card, on Submission details;
• Contact the festival at the foot of their scorecard.

It goes to the season's Contact email, on the Season tab's About this season card, or, when that is blank, your organization's support address, on Organization settings → Organization profile. With neither set, filmmakers have no way to message you — the tile, the link and the scorecard's button are all left out. The address is read when the email goes, so one you change in the meantime is the one it reaches.

What the filmmaker fills in. A topic — My entry, My scorecard or Something else; the scorecard's button picks My scorecard for them, and Write to the festival picks My entry — and a message of up to 2,000 characters. Under it, Sent with your message shows what goes with it: the film's title, its SUB- number, its categories and season, and Replies go to — the submitter email on the submission. Once it is sent the form says "Message sent" and that you will reply by email to that address. It promises no reply time.

What you receive. One email, labelled Message from a filmmaker, from "the filmmaker's name via FilmScorecard", with the subject "Ana Ruiz sent a message about The Lighthouse Keeper (SUB-40318)" — "A filmmaker" when no name is on the record. It lists the film, its SUB- number, its category or categories, the topic, who it is from with their email, and the season, then the whole message. Reply in your own mail client and the answer goes to the filmmaker, at the submitter email on the submission; the email's Reply by email button does the same. Nothing arrives in FilmScorecard's own inbox.

• The Audit tab records that it happened, not what it said: "messaged the festival · Their entry" — or Their scorecard, Something else — in the submitter's name, under the Details type. The message itself is in the email and on no screen. See The Audit tab.
• Five messages per film in any 24 hours. After that the form answers "You've sent several messages today. Try again tomorrow." and keeps what they wrote. Ten from one network in an hour is a limit too.
• It works after edits close, from the read-only overview and the scorecard. A withdrawn or disqualified submission cannot message you: it has no overview, and its scorecard shows no Contact the festival.
• Your team cannot send one. Opened by staff, the form shows Send message turned off — see Seeing what a submitter sees.
• It is sent even where FilmScorecard has switched off your organization's automatic emails, because a filmmaker asked for it.

What is deliberately not here

• No second automatic email. The season's automatic send reaches each submission once, and does not retry one it could not send; every email after that is somebody pressing Email submission links or a submission's Email button — or Send to N now, for one that never had it — or the submitter asking for a new link. There is no reminder schedule and no "who has not edited yet" list.
• No notification when a submitter edits, in your inbox or by email.
• No approval step. Their save is live; if you disagree with it, edit the record back — the Audit tab shows you what it said before.
• No way to re-open editing for a submission whose window has closed, and no way to close one that is open.
• No list of filmmakers' messages. Each one is an email to your address and a topic on its submission's Audit tab; nothing on your screens shows the message, and nothing replies for you.
• No way to edit their record from their page. Yours is the Information tab; theirs is theirs. Opening their page signed in is a read and nothing more.
• No record of your own reading. The Audit tab lists what a submitter changed, each email sent about the submission, the submitter opening their page and signing in to it, and their messages to you; it does not list you or your team opening their page, or a poster replaced by another file — see What is recorded, and what is not.

Related guides

• Inviting submitters — choosing whether each submitter is sent their page as their submission arrives or only when you press Send to N now, the Sent so far count, and the email itself in each of its versions.
• Your submission page — the submitter's side, in their words: the email, the code, every field, the press-kit card, the poster, and every failure message they can meet.
• Seeing what a submitter sees — opening that page yourself, signed in and without their code: who may, what the Viewing as staff pill means, and everything the page will not let you do.
• Opening a submission — your own copy of the record, the Information tab you edit it on, the Settings tab the Submission link card sits on, and the Audit tab that lists what a submitter changed.
• The tagline, the statement and the poster — the three fields with rules of their own, from your side.
• Festival access — the Edit festival settings and team capability that decides who can email the links.
• Releasing scorecards and Releasing one submission's scorecard — the two releases, neither of which closes these pages.
• Getting into your scorecard — the button and the access code, and the one thing worth knowing before you send links during judging: they are the same ones the results email will carry.