Salute Your Shorts
Just warning filmmakers to be careful submitting to Salute Your Shorts. Many have commented here they've had the same scammy experience with them: a personal solicitation claiming someone has specifically recommended their film, then giving a 'discount' on a submission, then form rejections.
This practice -- soliciting someone personally, then rejecting impersonally -- is a manipulative approach. Fests shouldn't do it. There's a lot of rejection that is inevitable in any sort of creative career. To personally reach out to someone just to then give a form rejection they did not ask for, feels slimy.
Anyway, I've seen a lot of filmmakers comment that they've have had this experience, so I just wanted to flag as a warning for other filmmakers not to fall for scams. If other fests do this, I hope that they reconsider this approach.
Just so this post is not negative, I'd like to shout out festivals that I've had great experiences with recently: Florida Film Fest, Rooftop Films, Lower East Side Film Fest, Coney Island, AmDocs, Annapolis. Okay, happy Fourth!