Complaint Review: New York City International Film Festival

Robert Rizzo "runs" the New York City International Film Festival. He proudly describes himself as the "CEO and Founder" on its website. He does not runs this festival well. He is, in my opinion, a borderline con man and a crook. 

The Last Gamble recently won a load of "genre" awards and "best director" at the New York City International Film Festival 2011. The Director of The Last Gamble is Joe Goodavage. The Marketing Director of the New York City International Film Festival is Joe Goodavage. What an interesting co-incidence. 

In fact, the whole event was interesting. It was the only festival I have been to where the majority of the awards were given out on the first night after only screening one film - which happened to be The Last Gamble by Joe Goodavage. Such was the festival's devotion to the film, they had most of the cast on at some point to collect an award, played a career retrospective of one of the older cast members and then a recording from someone who couldn't be there to collect their award, but then had someone come on stage on their behalf and do their own speech too. 

The rest of the festival didn't quite dedicate itself to the other films as much as it did to the Last Gamble on the opening night. Most filmmakers found their films shunted around the schedule with no notice. One filmmaker came all the way from the UK to see his film, incurring massive cost for flights and hotel, to arrive to find a cinema locked, with the lights off. It was closed. They then ingored all his calls and emails until he got back to the UK and tried to deny responsibility for what they did! Roberto Rizzo tried claiming the guy had not supported his film enough, despite the fact that he had cancelled the screening without telling the poor guy who had spent a couple of thousand dollars flying to New York. 

Avoid working with these people, and if you're thinking of entering your film for any festival they have anything to do with: DON'T!