Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Dana Film Festival ("we", "us", "our") collects, uses, shares, and protects your personal information when you use our website and services, including film submissions, delegate passes, memberships, donations, and newsletter sign-ups. By using the Services, you consent to the practices described here.

We collect the following categories of information:

• Contact details: name, email address, and, where provided, phone number and mailing address.
• Account details: if you create an account, your email address, the name you give us, your chosen language, and a password we never see in readable form. Passwords are hashed by our authentication provider.
• Project details: everything you enter about a film you save to your account, including credits, screening history, and private screener links and their passwords. Screener links are visible only to you and to festival staff.
• Submission details: information about your film, including title, synopsis, credits, and uploaded or linked media.
• Transaction information: records of passes, memberships, submissions, and donations. Card and banking details are handled directly by our payment providers and are not stored on our servers.
• Technical data: IP address, browser type, and usage information collected automatically to operate and secure the website.

We use your information to:

• Process film submissions, passes, memberships, and donations;
• Communicate with you about your orders, submissions, and the festival;
• Send newsletters and updates where you have opted in;
• Operate, maintain, secure, and improve our website and services;
• Comply with legal, tax, and accounting obligations.

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only with trusted third parties who help us operate the Services, and only as needed:

• Payment providers: Stripe, to process payments securely.
• Infrastructure & email providers: Supabase (database and authentication), AWS Amplify (hosting), and Resend (transactional and newsletter email).
• Legal authorities: where required by law or to protect our rights, safety, or property.

These providers process data on our behalf under their own security and privacy commitments.

We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your information, including encryption in transit and access controls. However, no method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

We retain personal information for as long as necessary to provide the Services and to meet legal, tax and accounting requirements.

If you delete your account, we permanently delete your projects and all their details, and we remove your name, email address and contact details from our records. We do not delete records of orders you have paid for. Card scheme rules allow a payment to be disputed for up to 540 days, and UAE bookkeeping obligations run longer, so a paid order is retained as a financial record, but it no longer carries your personal details. This is the one part of your data that deleting your account does not remove, and we would rather say so than promise otherwise.

Depending on your location, you may have the right to access, correct, delete or restrict the use of your personal information, to obtain a portable copy of it, and to withdraw consent for marketing at any time.

If you have an account, you can exercise two of these yourself: your account page lets you correct your details and delete your account. Otherwise, contact us using the details below. You can unsubscribe from newsletters via the link in any newsletter email.

Our website uses essential cookies and similar technologies to enable core functionality such as secure checkout and session management. We also use two non-essential tracking technologies, which load only with your consent where consent is required: the Meta Pixel (Meta Platforms, Inc.) for advertising measurement, and Google Analytics 4 (Google LLC) to understand how visitors use the site. Both set cookies in your browser and share your IP address and your activity on this site with their providers, who may use that data under their own privacy policies. Neither is required to browse the site or to submit a film. You can change your choice at any time under Cookie settings.

The Services are not directed at children under 18, and we do not knowingly collect their personal information. We are aware that our Student Film and First Time Filmmaker categories may attract entrants under 18. If you are under 18, please ask a parent or guardian to create the account and submit on your behalf. If you believe a minor has provided us data, contact us and we will remove it.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Material changes will be reflected by updating the "Last updated" date above. We encourage you to review this page periodically.

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or how your data is handled, contact us at hello@danafilmfestival.com.