Delayed Submissions?

I’ve noticed that a number of my film submissions, some of them dating back as early as July, have not yet been added to the system. Is there a change in the processing or am I just to assume that my submissions have been, somehow, silently rejected?

It is going on four months now that I’ve been patiently awaiting the addition of a few titles and given the fact that I’ve been consistently submitted films ever since then, I want to be sure that the titles I submit in the future will actually someday show up on the website…. at the moment, it seems if all of my effort might have been all for naught…

I don’t mean to be rude but I was under the impression that the average wait time was two months.

:(

Don’t worry, I doubt that your submissions have been rejected. Since July it has no longer been a site priority to add submitted films, and all of us who have submitted films are facing the same problem. It has certainly to do with their preparation for PS3, and editors are apparently obligued to add films which are not site/festival-related in their free time without payment, and obviously none of them wants to do it. It would be nice if the site would care to provide a chance for submitted films to get added again, since this is basically a service for the users that shouldn’t simply get ignored.

Thank you for your patience, and I can definitely understand your frustration. (And no worries…it isn’t rude at all :-) ).

Apursansar has it. It’s been an incredibly busy time with our Sony launch coming up, with a lot of special projects that go beyond normal business (not to mention that the rush of new and upcoming festivals isn’t slowing down). But it’s still a high priority for us, and I can assure you that your effort wasn’t for naught. We’re still working on it, with new films approved every day, and we’ll be looking to jumpstart the flow as one of our goals for the next few weeks. It may take some time, but it will start moving faster, and every film that gets submitted should end up published.

I must also issue a public thank you to everyone who’s been been submitting films. Our library is getting to more and more comprehensive by the hour, and all the hard work you’ve done to help us grow is and has been outstanding. (Not to mention that it looks fantastic—the stills you guys manage to find never cease to amaze). Seriously, we couldn’t be half of what we are without you guys, and we haven’t forgotten.

I understand all this fuss with non-MUBI stuff BUT….I say this…I will NOT re-submit again like I did last time when they requested us to do so just because the submissions were “lost”. If anything, I’ll just send an IMDB link or simply the title, but I will NOT re-submit. I hope everyone will do the same, just in case they “demand” we do it all over because the submitted films are lost (again)

No offense, but who cares about the Sony launch? If the site’s database if incomplete, you’re losing people who could be paying customers. It needs to be a more comprehensive site.

I stopped submitting films regularly, mostly because of the backlog. 11 titles submitted between July and September that have never seen the light of day. Another 8 titles that are listed on MUBI but still don’t have accessible profiles, despite appearing on the site back in July. I understand that the moderators have other priorities, but a message a few months back to say submissions were no longer welcome due to other commitments might have been a nice gesture.

Obviously our submissions aren’t as important as all those Madonna videos [snark].

apropos of nothing, a few months ago i decided to produce a profile on Haruko Sugimura, the only biographical material that i could find though (online of course) was a obituary that focused on her pioneering achievements in shimpa theater rather then her cinema work.(cursory references to the films, no more then that) initially disheartened i eventually rationally concluded that it did not matter, why should i force a personal obsession on the users of this site!(there is a lesson in their somewhere)

“No offense, but who cares about the Sony launch? If the site’s database if incomplete, you’re losing people who could be paying customers. It needs to be a more comprehensive site.”

You’re losing a lot more people who could be paying customers if you hold back the launch the Sony part of the site. We’re talking another whole demographic of customers who are less interested in didacticism and more interested in finding more things to do on their gaming console. Whereas I am not using this defense to bring back the whole MUBI vs. Auteurs, business vs. forum debate again, I am just pointing out that in this specific case the whole “Potential customer is always right” argument does not stand up.

I had that same argument often with my managers at Hastings, telling them that they really do need to stock rentals that, honestly, did not rent often, simply because just having them there would inform potential renters of the variety and diversity of our stock. This is a true case once the system has been established, the foundation working, the most of the bugs worked out, and customers have started arriving. In the case of a niche market product such as this, they are better to think about the obscure and underground as that is their target demographic, but they can’t get those customers if they don’t have product available in the first place, and honestly, when you apply yourself to a niche market like this, look at us— everyone knows a filmmaker that’s underrepresented, everyone knows a filmmaker that’s unappreciated, everyone wants more information about their “own personal obsession” to be “forced” on “the users of this site” (to quote Liam Allen above). In our case, there is no such thing as a complete database.

I’m just happy they allow user-uploaded information at all. Most streaming sites are rather disconnected from their customers like that (except user-uploaded content sites like YouTube and Vimeo, but that’s not what this site is, not even the Garage).

—PolarisDiB.

Good to see you´re back, Liam Allen. And you´re no longer depressed which is quite a step forward. I overall agree with Polaris that mubi would lose potential clients if they further hold back the Sony application which has been announced, and it´s definitely understandable that this is currently their main priority. @Ally: Of course, cinephiles like you and me couldn´t care less about those usual suspects which mubi/PS3 are planning to display, but it´s obviously designed for a broader audience somewhere between mainstream and arthouse. I´ve meanwhile accepted that their aims can´t possibly be combined with ours, since neglected auteur cinema is not quite suited to make huge amounts of money, and I think the least we can expect them to do is not entirely overlook our concerns while expanding their business. I therefore regard it as fair that they wil keep up with the additions and other stuff as soon as Sony is launched.

Hell, you’d figure business and auteurship would get along, since a filmmaker could make a brandname product out of himself and then if the film flops, the studio could cut their losses and blame it on the little guy.

—PolarisDiB

“and I think the least we can expect them to do is not entirely overlook our concerns while expanding their business.”

Let’s hope they will make our submissions and corrections AND improvement requests (years to browse for example) come true AFTER their propaganda has vanquished into thin air.

why don’t we all stop submitting films for a while? it must only be increasing the impossibility of catching up with the backlog every time someone submits a new film. i’m sure everyone would be a lot more patient if we didn’t think that the past submissions were being completely swamped by each new monthly thread…

also, small aside, i second apursansar’s pleasure at seeing a brighter liam return….i may go and watch an unseen ozu i have lying around in my house in celebration.

^Just prep submissions for yourself as files on your own computers, and then when submissions get roaring again, open up the floodgates and welcome the deluge?

—PolarisDiB

I agree with you, Sally. We should wait with new submissions until the Sony launch. This should hopefully give the editors the chance to catch up.

MUBI film submission headquarters

^haha that’s perfect…does that go for the Profile/Corrections thread too?

A: I don’t care if the submission process is in random order, that is even more preposterous than the delay. No respect to the submissions thread and the people who have been wanting to see their submissions for over 2 months now.
B: I don’t care if the festival films have some sort of priority, because the worst thing here isn’t the priority given to them but the priority given to films that haven’t even been posted on the submissions threads. I don’t have any respect for these kinds of submissions no matter if they broaden the database. I expect to see some respect to the users first and THEN to “secret additions” or whatever the fuck goes on.
C: I will not “take a break” from submitting films because I’m fairly confident that once in a while, someone in the MUBI additions team wakes up and gives a priority to “unknown” films instead of Nightmare on Elm Street Part 163….

So it just happens that since the speadsheets are in a random order, all the Saw films have appeared in a single day and my Greek and Hungarian submissions of 3 months belong to another individual? Give me a break….give me a fucking break.

I have given up submitting for the short term until I see more fims making it onto the database. I am happy to wait, but I do rather find it frustrating looking at what is appearing on the database i.e Madonna music videos. There are loads of really rare and interesting films waiting to appear on the database, but what often seems to appear is middle of the road Hollywood pap. I’m all for diversity on this site, but it is a shame that US films as well as Japan, France etc get the monopoly. Important filmakers in Africa such as Jean Marie Teno, Flora Gomes and Nouri Bouzid don’t even have any of their films on the database yet!! and yet Kevin “Prince of Thieves” Reynolds has five! Something seems a bit wrong there.

“because the worst thing here isn’t the priority given to them but the priority given to films that haven’t even been posted on the submissions threads”

Those films you´re refering to are apparently personal favorites by the editors which they prefer to add in their free time. I don´t mind these films getting added, it´s understandable that the editors don´t regard it as their obligation to give priority to the submissions if mubi doesn´t care to compensate them for their work. But just like Cyclo I find it rather frustating to see all those music videos appear in the database, instead of missing classics of world cinema. I´ve already suggested a couple of times that more editors should get employed to get the submissions done, but it seems the site didn´t care so much about it. You´re obviously free to continue submitting films in the meantime, but as things are now I rather doubt that it will make things faster.

“but as things are now I rather doubt that it will make things faster.”

Well, it seems that this month’s submissions aren’t as enormous (in terms of quantity) compared to the previous months, so maybe by January, this submissions decrease will be evident to the whoever editors are and will start adding films properly and diligently and without any “personal favorites” because Tobias back then created this thread idea for a reason: that from this source, the submissions thread source the MUBI additions team will become faster and efficient in this task. Adding personal favorites negates the whole idea of those threads, not to mention I don’t even want to request for a second time to be part of the additions team since there’s no reciprocal respect to begin with!

Just to add my voice to the conversation….

I’m currently working on processing about 69 submissions that I received as part of an assignment in September. My load was a few less than 100, but I’ve been very busy with the semester beginning, studying for the GRE, etc. My batch should be finished by the end of the day Saturday and I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused any of you.

Take care.

Thanks to all of you for taking the time to respond.

I really didn’t expect anyone to really say anything at all; yet, it seems my question has opened up something of a passionate debate… a debate that is certainly healthy in terms of keeping up the level of quality that has come to be expected from this website…

I do understand that when a business is expanding, certain services will have to be scarified so that new ones can become accessible… I just hope our submissions will eventually see the light of day, because, if this site cannot provide the content that is relevant and necessary to keep it’s user-base engaged then, it won’t be long before many of us go elsewhere to talk film… (::cough::, IMDB, ::cough::)…

I will patiently be waiting though because I love Mubi/TheAuteurs and I want to see this project/business flourish… so, cheers for your responses and I hope that everyone, eventually, gets what they want. ;)

.

I’m glad Hedonist created this thread and I appreciate Duncan’s response. I am curious where this whole MUBI thing is going. I am assuming, perhaps wrongly, that this whole Sony deal will create some kind of profit or at least cash flow to be put back into the site. If so, I would hope the first priority, before even finding ways to pay someone for their editing work, is to have someone be on top of keeping people informed about what’s going on. Duncan’s response was good, but we tend to get driblets of information from various moderators and it would be nice if there were an actual spokesperson who could have created something this thread a couple of months ago to avoid frustration.

I realize that may not be possible right now but if this deal is lucrative I’d like to think a priority will be to hire some folks to keep up with editing and information as well as pay those who have been volunteering. This could all be wishful thinking based on false assumptions but we’ll see.

Maybe a little bit of complaining was a good thing:) Suddenly a lot more submissions are now on the database from the last 24 hours and three of them are mine:) I hope the trend continues!!!

I once again have submissions, some of them over a year old, that have not been added to the system.

The only time I ever have had one of my many submissions added was by directly messaging a staff member.

It is beginning to seem to me like there is a real problem with the Film Submission system on MUBI.