The Film Festival Radar

Review, Moderation & Platform Integrity Policy

Last updated: 2 July 2026

This Policy explains how Film Festival Radar handles reviews, ratings, festival complaints, right-of-reply requests, moderation decisions, evidence records, trust signals, verification concerns and platform-integrity issues. Film Festival Radar is a service operated by MiraBan Ltd. Website: www.filmfestivalradar.com Email: hello@filmfestivalradar.com Document status and hierarchy This Policy should be read together with our Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy. It supports those documents and must not be read as replacing, narrowing or overriding them. Document What it controls Terms & Conditions Contractual matters, account use, paid services, subscriptions, credits, liability, acceptable use and access to the Service. Privacy Policy How personal information is collected, used, stored, shared, retained and protected. This Policy Reviews, ratings, moderation, complaints, right of reply, evidence records and platform-integrity decisions. If there is any inconsistency between this Policy and the Terms & Conditions or Privacy Policy, the Terms & Conditions govern contractual matters and the Privacy Policy governs personal information. This Policy does not create separate rights that override either document. Nothing in this Policy gives any user, filmmaker, festival or festival organiser an automatic right to be listed, verified, ranked, promoted, displayed, given a particular score, given a particular badge, or have a review removed. Nothing in this Policy limits any rights users may have under the Privacy Policy or applicable data protection law.

Purpose of this Policy Film Festival Radar exists to help filmmakers identify, compare and assess film festivals around the world. Our review, rating, Trust Check, verification and matching features are designed to support a more transparent festival ecosystem. This Policy explains how we aim to: encourage honest, useful and relevant reviews; reduce fake, misleading, abusive, retaliatory or manipulated reviews; give festivals and organisers a fair route to report inaccurate or unfair content; allow festivals a right of reply where appropriate; protect filmmakers who share genuine experiences; protect festival organisers from abuse, misinformation, fake reviews and bad-faith complaints, while preserving genuine filmmaker feedback; apply moderation standards fairly and consistently; keep proportionate evidence records where needed; use AI-assisted tools responsibly as part of wider research, review and matching processes; preserve trust in the platform. Film Festival Radar aims to help identify trustworthy festivals, but we cannot guarantee that any festival will remain trustworthy, active, fair, accurate, responsive, solvent, ethical, accredited, legally compliant or operationally unchanged after it has been listed, reviewed, rated, verified, matched or assessed.
Scope of this Policy This Policy applies to: festival reviews, ratings, scores and comments; festival profile information and organiser-submitted information; Trust Check outputs, advisory notes, ranking signals and badges; verification badges, organiser claims and verification concerns; festival replies and right-of-reply requests; user reports, festival complaints and takedown requests; moderation decisions, appeals and evidence records; Festival Match, Filmmaker Match and AI-assisted summaries or analysis. This Policy applies to both Filmmaker Users and Festival Organisers. Festival organiser rules in this Policy are additional conduct standards for organiser use of the platform. They do not replace or reduce the obligations set out in the Terms & Conditions.
Festival organiser conduct Festival Organisers must use Film Festival Radar honestly, professionally and lawfully. This section explains organiser-specific conduct expectations, but it does not override the Terms & Conditions, Privacy Policy or any other rules displayed in the app. Festival Organisers must not: impersonate a festival, organiser, filmmaker or reviewer; submit false, incomplete or misleading festival information; claim accreditation, recognition, prizes, venues, screenings or awards that cannot be supported by evidence; create fake filmmaker accounts or fake reviews; manipulate ratings, reviews, rankings, Trust Check outputs or verification signals; pressure filmmakers to change, remove or soften genuine reviews; retaliate against users for honest reviews, ratings, complaints or feedback; use a verification badge as proof of endorsement, accreditation, guaranteed legitimacy or guaranteed future operations; use complaints, right-of-reply requests or legal threats to silence genuine feedback; publish or expose private personal information about reviewers or users. A Festival Organiser may report inaccurate, unlawful, abusive, fake or misleading content using the complaint process in this Policy. However, submitting a complaint does not guarantee removal, correction, re-ranking, re-verification or any other particular outcome.
Review standards Reviews should help other filmmakers make informed decisions. Reviews must be honest, relevant, lawful, written in good faith, and based on genuine experience or reasonable belief. Reviews should, where possible: describe what happened clearly; separate facts from opinions; focus on the festival, submission process, communication, screening experience, awards, fees, deadlines or filmmaker experience; avoid exaggeration, personal attacks and unnecessary naming of private individuals; avoid publishing private personal data or confidential information; avoid serious allegations unless the reviewer has evidence. Users should not describe a festival as fraudulent, criminal, illegal, fake or a scam unless they have evidence and are prepared to provide that evidence if requested.
Prohibited reviews and ratings Users must not submit reviews, ratings or comments that are: fake, knowingly false, misleading, malicious, defamatory or retaliatory; abusive, threatening, discriminatory, harassing, irrelevant, spam or promotional; generated by a competitor in bad faith; submitted by a festival organiser pretending to be a filmmaker; submitted through multiple accounts to manipulate ratings; submitted in exchange for payment, selection, discounts, fee waivers, trophies, certificates, laurels, publicity, favourable treatment or other benefits unless clearly disclosed; copied from another person without permission; generated automatically or in bulk to manipulate the platform; designed to artificially improve or damage a festival’s reputation; containing private personal data about another person; containing confidential information the user has no right to share. We may remove, hide, restrict, annotate or investigate reviews that appear to breach this Policy, our Terms & Conditions or applicable law.
Fake, misleading and incentivised reviews Film Festival Radar does not allow fake, misleading or manipulated reviews. We may use reasonable and proportionate measures to detect, prevent, investigate and remove fake or misleading reviews. These measures may include: account checks and reviewer-history checks; duplicate-review, suspicious-pattern and review-volume checks; behavioural checks and evidence requests; manual moderation and AI-assisted flagging; festival-response review and investigation of suspicious rating patterns; removal, annotation or reduced visibility of reviews that appear unreliable. If a review was incentivised, requested by a festival, connected to a personal or commercial relationship, or submitted in exchange for any benefit, the reviewer must clearly disclose that relationship.
Verified, unverified and disputed reviews We may label reviews or ratings as verified, unverified, disputed, under review, moderated, removed, edited for policy reasons, or subject to an evidence request. A verified review label does not mean we guarantee every statement in the review. It means only that we have applied certain checks to the review, reviewer account or review context. An unverified review label does not mean the review is false. A disputed label does not mean the review is false. These labels indicate status, not a final legal finding.
Festival right of reply where appropriate Festivals may be allowed to reply to reviews, ratings, advisory notes or profile information where appropriate. A festival reply should be factual, professional, relevant, respectful, focused on the issue raised and supported by evidence where appropriate. A festival reply must not: threaten, harass or intimidate a reviewer; expose private personal information; identify anonymous or pseudonymous users without lawful basis; use abusive or discriminatory language; make misleading claims; pressure a user to remove criticism; retaliate against filmmakers; include defamatory or unlawful content. We may refuse, edit, hide, moderate or remove festival replies that breach this Policy, the Terms & Conditions, the Privacy Policy or applicable law. A right of reply does not guarantee removal of the original review.
Festival complaint process If a festival or organiser believes that content on Film Festival Radar is inaccurate, misleading, unlawful, defamatory, outdated, abusive, fake or unfair, they may contact us at hello@filmfestivalradar.com. A complaint should include: complainant name and email address; role and authority to act for the festival; festival name; exact URL or location of the content; exact words, rating, profile detail, badge, trust note or review being challenged; explanation of the issue; evidence supporting the complaint; requested action; confirmation that the information supplied is accurate. We may reject, delay or request clarification for complaints that are vague, incomplete, unsupported, abusive, threatening, repetitive, bad-faith or impossible to assess. Submitting a complaint does not guarantee that content will be removed, changed, hidden, re-ranked, re-verified or annotated. We aim to review complaints within a reasonable timeframe, but complex complaints, legal issues, evidence requests or user responses may take longer.
How we may assess complaints When assessing a complaint, we may consider: whether the content is user-generated or created by Film Festival Radar; whether the disputed statement appears factual, opinion-based or mixed; whether evidence has been provided by the festival or user; whether the reviewer appears to have genuine experience or reasonable belief; whether the content contains private personal information or confidential information; whether the content contains serious allegations; whether the content appears fake, malicious, retaliatory, manipulated or outdated; whether public information supports or contradicts the content; whether correction, annotation or right of reply is more appropriate than removal; whether legal, safety or platform-integrity risk is present; whether retaining the content supports legitimate filmmaker transparency. Where appropriate, we may contact the user who posted the content and ask for evidence, clarification or response. We will not normally disclose a reviewer’s private contact details to a festival without consent unless required by law or necessary for legal claims.
Possible moderation outcomes After review, we may decide to: keep the content live; remove the content; hide the content temporarily; annotate the content as disputed; correct factual information; request further evidence; contact the reviewer or festival; allow a festival right of reply; reduce visibility of the content; suspend a review or rating; remove a review from rating calculations; update a Festival Profile; suspend, revoke or re-review verification; suspend an account; take no action. We are not required to remove content simply because it is negative, critical, commercially inconvenient, disliked by a festival, or potentially damaging to a festival’s reputation. Removing, hiding, annotating or changing content does not mean that Film Festival Radar accepts liability, admits wrongdoing, or agrees that the original content was unlawful, defamatory, inaccurate or unfair.
Evidence records and moderation logs Film Festival Radar may keep internal evidence records and moderation logs to support fair, consistent and evidence-based decision-making. These records may include: date a complaint was received; complainant details; festival involved; content complained about; screenshots or copies of disputed content; evidence submitted by users or festivals; public-source checks; reviewer response and festival response; verification evidence; admin notes; decision made and action taken; follow-up communications and appeal history. These records are for internal legal, moderation, safety, audit, dispute-resolution and platform-integrity purposes. This Policy does not give users or festivals an automatic right to access internal moderation notes, proprietary scoring logic, anti-fraud methods, internal risk signals, legally privileged materials or confidential information. Personal information contained in evidence records and moderation logs will be handled in accordance with the Privacy Policy and applicable data protection law.
Fair and consistent application We aim to apply this Policy fairly and consistently. We may consider context, evidence, seriousness, user history, festival history, risk level, public interest, legal obligations and platform-integrity concerns. Similar cases should be treated consistently, but different outcomes may be appropriate where the facts, evidence, risk level or context are different. Moderation decisions may require judgment. Film Festival Radar is not required to apply identical outcomes to different factual circumstances.
Review editing and corrections We may correct or update factual festival information where we identify an error. We may also edit, hide or remove content where necessary to remove private personal data, abusive language, unlawful material, irrelevant material, spam, confidential information or content that breaches this Policy. Where possible, we may prefer correction, annotation or right of reply over removal, especially where the content appears useful to filmmakers and can be made fairer or clearer. We may add notes such as “Information updated”, “Review disputed”, “Festival response added”, “Verification under review”, “Profile data not recently confirmed” or “Trust signals incomplete”.
No retaliation Festival Organisers must not retaliate against users for leaving honest reviews, ratings, complaints or feedback. Retaliation includes threatening legal action without proper basis, contacting users aggressively, exposing private user information, blacklisting users because of honest feedback, pressuring users to remove reviews, offering benefits in exchange for removing criticism, using fake accounts to attack reviewers, attempting to identify anonymous or pseudonymous users without lawful basis, or making false reports to silence criticism. Users must not abuse, harass, threaten or defame festivals, organisers or other users. We may restrict accounts or content where retaliation, harassment or abuse is suspected.
Online safety and illegal content Users must not submit content that is unlawful, threatening, abusive, harassing, hateful, fraudulent, defamatory, discriminatory, sexually exploitative, terrorist-related, encouraging self-harm, promoting violence, infringing privacy, infringing intellectual property rights, or otherwise illegal. Users may report suspected illegal, harmful or abusive content by contacting hello@filmfestivalradar.com and identifying the content, URL or location, reason for the report and any supporting evidence. We may remove, restrict, hide, annotate, investigate, preserve, report or disable access to content or accounts where we reasonably consider this necessary to comply with law, protect users, prevent abuse, reduce illegal-content risk or protect platform integrity. In urgent cases, we may temporarily hide, restrict or preserve content before completing a full review where we reasonably consider this necessary to protect users, comply with law, reduce risk or preserve platform integrity.
Trust Check, ratings and ranking integrity Trust Check, ratings, rankings, advisory notes and badges may be based on a combination of public information, user reviews, review volume, review recency, profile completeness, verification evidence, organiser responses, complaints, moderation history, festival-submitted information, third-party data, AI-assisted analysis, internal trust signals, manual research and human review where appropriate. We do not guarantee that every trust indicator reflects a complete investigation of the festival. Trust indicators are decision-support signals. They are not legal findings, regulatory findings, criminal allegations, accreditations, endorsements or guarantees. We may change ranking, rating and trust methodology to improve accuracy, reduce abuse, protect users or preserve platform integrity. We are not required to disclose proprietary scoring logic, anti-fraud methods, internal risk signals or ranking algorithms.
Verification and trust status Verification is a limited evidence-review process. A verification badge means only that the festival or organiser passed the specific checks applied at the time of review. Verification does not mean accreditation, endorsement, permanent approval, guaranteed legitimacy, guaranteed festival quality, guaranteed selection, guaranteed screening, guaranteed awards, certificates, trophies, laurels, prizes or refunds, or guaranteed future operations. We may suspend, revoke or re-review verification where we reasonably consider it necessary, including where new complaints arise, evidence becomes outdated, the festival changes operations, the organiser breaches our rules, public information changes, continued verification could mislead users, or legal, safety or platform-integrity concerns arise.
AI use in matching and trust-support features Film Festival Radar may use AI-assisted analysis to help support Festival Match, Filmmaker Match, Festival Advisor, Trust Check, review summaries, advisory notes, search and comparison features. AI may help compare film or project information with festival criteria, organise public festival information, identify possible matches, summarise trust signals, flag suspicious review patterns, prioritise moderation review, generate draft explanations or report text, and improve search or comparison results. Film Festival Radar does not rely only on AI. Matching, ratings, trust indicators and advisory outputs may also use public festival data, user-submitted information, festival-submitted information, manual research, verification evidence, reviews and ratings, complaints and moderation history, platform rules and human judgment where appropriate. AI-assisted results are informational only. They do not guarantee selection, acceptance, suitability, contact, legitimacy, trustworthiness, screening, awards, refund, response or festival outcome. Users should not rely on AI-assisted outputs as the sole basis for paying submission fees, entering contracts, making travel arrangements, making legal decisions or making financial commitments.
Appeals and further review Users and festivals may request a further review of a moderation decision by contacting hello@filmfestivalradar.com. A request for further review should include the decision being challenged, why the decision is believed to be wrong, any new evidence and the requested outcome. We may decline repeated, abusive, unsupported, bad-faith or substantially identical appeals. We are not required to provide unlimited reviews of the same issue.
Internal moderation procedure Film Festival Radar may maintain internal procedures for moderation, evidence logging, complaint handling, review integrity, fake-review detection, verification review and platform-integrity decisions. Internal procedures may be updated from time to time. This public Policy explains our general approach but does not require us to disclose internal procedures, confidential records, anti-fraud systems, proprietary scoring methods, security methods or legally privileged materials.
Changes to this Policy We may update this Policy from time to time. If changes are material, we will take reasonable steps to notify users, such as by website notice, account notice or email. The updated Policy applies from the date shown at the top of the page.
Contact Film Festival Radar is operated by MiraBan Ltd. Website: www.filmfestivalradar.com Email: hello@filmfestivalradar.com