Africa in Motion (AiM) Film Festival » Short film competition

Posted 13th January 2010

AFRICA IN MOTION SHORT FILM COMPETITION

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Our call for Short Films has now closed. If you’ve missed this year’s deadline, remember to enter your film early next year!
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For the third year, the Africa in Motion (AiM) film festival is inviting African filmmakers to submit short films of up to 30 minutes for the festival’s short film competition. In order to target the competition specifically towards young and emerging African film talent, filmmakers who enter a film for consideration must not have completed a feature-length film previously. Films entered must have been completed in 2007 or after.

A shortlist from all the entries will be selected and announced by the end of August 2010. From this shortlist, the competition winner will be chosen by a high profile jury and announced at an awards ceremony at the Africa in Motion festival in October 2010. The jury will consist of local and international film specialists and established African filmmakers.

All shortlisted films will be screened at the festival. In addition to the overall first prize selected by the jury, an audience choice award will be selected by the audience at the screenings and announced at the end of the festival.

The deadline for short film competition entries is 31 May 2010. Please see below for full submission guidelines and to download the entry form. Please read carefully through the submission guidelines and email the festival co-directors Lizelle Bisschoff and Stefanie van de Peer with further enquires at: email hidden; JavaScript is required.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

We accept entries from all filmmakers of African nationality working in Africa or abroad. We are particularly interested in giving exposure to young, emerging African filmmakers living and working in Africa. To this end, filmmakers who enter a film for consideration must not have completed a feature-length film previously. Films could be fiction, documentary, animation or experimental and shot in any format.
Only recent films directed by filmmakers of African nationality will be accepted. The film must have been completed in 2007 or after and could have been screened on television, at festivals and in cinemas previously.
Films should be no longer than 30 minutes.
We will only accept films in English or with English subtitles. Participants are responsible for all translation and subtitling, but please get in touch with us if you need advice/support on this.
Viewing copies should be on DVD (any region). All films submitted should be accompanied by a completed entry form and all viewing copies should be clearly labeled with the title of the film and name of the director. Please submit three DVD viewing copies as well as three copies of the completed entry form.
Unfortunately viewing copies and promotional materials submitted cannot be returned to the sender and will be stored in our festival archive. These are kept exclusively for research and non-commercial purposes.
All deliveries from outside the European Union should be marked with the phrase “no commercial value – for cultural purposes only”. Applicants are responsible for the cost of posting the entry form and viewing copy to us.
The completed entry forms and viewing copies should reach us not later than 31 May 2010. There is no entry fee.
We welcome stills, press releases and other promotional materials to accompany entries, which we might use for promotional purposes. Digital stills can be emailed to email hidden; JavaScript is required with the title of your film in the subject box. Digital stills submitted should be in JPEG format and must be at least 300 dpi and no less than 500KB.
By submitting your film to the Africa in Motion short film competition, the copyright holder of your film authorises the festival to make clips of a maximum of three minutes available on online broadcast channels (such as the Africa in Motion tv channel and other online channels affiliated to the festival). The purpose of this is solely to promote the festival and your film.
We will contact all applicants in August 2010. If your film is shortlisted we will get in touch with you to arrange for a screening copy to be sent to us (screening copies could be on DVD, but should preferably be on a professional exhibition format such as Betacam SP, Digibeta or HD CAM). Participants are responsible for the cost of sending the screening copies to the festival. The festival will cover the cost of returning/forwarding screening copies.