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If a festival invited you to judge

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When a festival is unavailable

Now and then a festival you judge for — or one that has invited you, or one whose call you applied to — becomes unavailable on FilmScorecard. While it is, you cannot work on it: there are no films to score there, its open calls come off the board, and its invitations cannot be accepted.

Nothing you have done is lost, and when the festival is available again everything comes back where it was. FilmScorecard does not say why a festival is unavailable, or for how long — that is a question for the festival.

On your judging home

The festival's card goes grey. In the Your festivals grid it shows the festival's name, its season year, and one line:

This festival is unavailable.

No date line, no pill, no progress bar, and the card cannot be clicked.

Opening the festival shows the same sentence in place of your film. Pick it from the sidebar's Your festivals list or the festival switcher — both still list it, with no count beside it — and where the Next submission card would be there is a grey card reading "This festival is unavailable." There is no Start scoring, Continue scoring or Skip this film.

A few more things follow from it:

  • If it is the festival /judge opens for you — the one you last worked in — that is what you land on. Pick another festival from the switcher.
  • The numbers at the top leave it out. "Scored", "left" and "upcoming", and the pace pill, count only the festivals you can work on.
  • A link to one of its scoring screens — a bookmark, or the page you had open — brings you back to that festival's judging home and its grey card.
  • A film you had already started is not held for you. The usual 48-hour hold keeps running while the festival is unavailable, exactly as if you had stepped away. See One film at a time.
  • Everything you already filed is kept, exactly as it was.

Its open calls

  • Its calls leave the board, from the Open calls, Applied and Past tabs and from their counts — even a call you applied to.
  • A call's page, and your application's, give "page not found" meanwhile, so there is nothing to apply to and no counter to answer.

When the festival is available again its calls come back, and your application with them, in whatever state it was in. See Open calls.

Its invitations

On your Invitations tab the invitation stays Awaiting your answer. Accepting it — Accept invitation, then confirming — leaves the dialog open with:

This invitation is unavailable.

Nothing was written. Decline and Block this festival still work, and the invitation's deadline keeps running. See Your invitations.

The emailed link says the same thing: pressing Accept invitation — or coming back to the page after logging in to accept — replaces the buttons with the heading "This invitation is unavailable." The link is not used up; reload the page and Decline is back. See Your judging invitation.

Its staff

You cannot write to the festival's staff, and they cannot write to you. They leave the list behind New on your Messages tab, and a conversation you already had stays readable, with its message box replaced by the strip:

No longer staff at the festival

The conversation stays readable. Their replacement will start a fresh thread.

Here that strip does not mean anybody left. It is the same strip a departed staff member's conversation shows, and it goes away — with the message box back in its place — once the festival is available again. See Messaging festival staff.

To reach them in the meantime, use email. A reply to the festival's invitation email reaches them whenever they have given FilmScorecard a support address.

Your account

  • Asking to leave that festival from the Festivals tab of your account cannot go through while it is unavailable; the request answers "Your request could not be sent. Try again." Ask again once the festival is back.
  • Pausing new assignments still works. That festival is simply not told about it.

When it is available again

Everything returns by itself: the card, your queue and your counts, its open calls, invitations whose deadline has not passed, and your conversations with its staff. There is nothing for you to do.

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