Meet the jury: how films are judged at Stafford Film Festival

Filmmakers are entitled to know how their work is being looked at. So here is the process, without mystique.

An international panel

Films are scored by an international panel of industry professionals, several of whom have worked on features and series that received Oscar, BAFTA and Emmy nominations. They are not all from the same country and they do not all like the same things, which is the point.

Scored point by point

Every entry is scored point by point rather than argued over in a room until the loudest voice wins. Scores are recorded per judge, so a single strong opinion cannot carry a film on its own, and a single harsh one cannot sink it.

Budget is not a category

The panel is looking at the work in front of it. A short made for a few hundred pounds and a feature made for a great deal more are judged on what they achieve, not what they cost. Our archives are full of the former winning.

Why joint winners happen

Occasionally two films end up genuinely inseparable. When that happens we award both rather than break the tie with something arbitrary. It is rare, and when you see it in the archive it means exactly what it says.

If your film is selected you will hear from us directly, and finalists and winners are invited to take part in filmmaker interviews.