Started in Canada in 2014 as a four-person startup, FilmFreeway steadily grew in competition to the much larger
Amazon-owned company,
Withoutabox. Until that time, Withoutabox had a virtual monopoly on the digital film festival submission process. With the closing in September 2019 of Withoutabox, FilmFreeway became the most popular film submission platform, followed closely by
Festhome and
Shortfilmdepot. FilmFreeway was acquired by the
Backstage publication and entertainment-industry portal in September 2021. == Criticism ==