Grants/Festivals/Awards/Screenings
I was looking to see what sort of opportunities are out there for filmmakers like us who are in to a bit of everything. I do mostly short documentary pieces, but with one eye on science, narrative, comedy and music. I’ve gathered together a few short film festivals/awards/grants, screenings and stuff that are particularly relevant to people like me; but hopefully interesting and relevant to others. Please email me or leave a comment if you have anything else I could add to this list, as sadly, I couldn’t find that much stuff, and I've got to believe there's more out there... right...?
First things first if, like me, you haven't won any awards yet (apart from that Wii Tennis tournament in 2011). You can still easily get some of those nice leaves around your name by using this leaves award meme generator.
OK, on with the show...
Festivals/awards
Sheffield Doc Fest (and interactive)
'Brings the international documentary family together to celebrate the art and business of documentary making for six intense days in June'
Not taking any more submissions but there are a couple of pitching sessions where you can pitch shorter ideas for exposure or some funding. One for 2015 perhaps...
Encounters - Bristol
Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival, is the UK's longest running competitive short film and animation event.
http://www.encounters-festival.org.uk/
Deadline - 16th May 2014
Also includes: DepicT! - 90 second film competition - £2500 prize (as part of Encounters) any style/genre, from documentary to narrative. It's fun to work within the constraints of time limits.
7th July 2014 - free entry
Imagine Science Festival - New York
http://www.imaginesciencefilms.org
‘The Imagine Science Film Festival exists to promote new dialogues between art and science, between specialists and the public, and even between fact and fiction in portrayal of scientific information.’
http://www.imaginesciencefilms.org/
Submission deadline August 1st
Expression - Dublin
UCD Science Expression is Ireland's first and only dedicated science film festival; a dynamic public engagement programme invigorating conversation around science, technology, research and innovation through film and new media
http://www.ucdscienceexpression.ie/why-science-expression/
Likely to be in October 2014, no submission date yet
The International Festival of Science Documentary Films Academia Film Olomouc
next round - April 2015
has a category for -
The Best International Science Documentary Film Award
The Best Science Documentary Short Film Award
http://afo.cz/index.php?lang=en
Grants
Wellcome Trust
Needs a biomedical angle, but around that there seems to be a lot of flexibility, well worth a look if that’s your area of interest.
Interesting Channel 4 collaboration - BritDoc
The Bertha BRITDOC Connect Fund
Strategic outreach campaigns for completed or almost completed films - See more at: http://britdoc.org/real_funds/bertha-britdoc-connect-fund
Feature Journalism fund - 5-50K
The Bertha BRITDOC Fund for Journalism is an international film fund dedicated to supporting long form feature documentaries of a journalistic nature. We are looking for films that break the important stories of our time, expose injustice, bring attention to unreported issues and cameras into regions previously unseen
http://britdoc.org/real_funds/bertha-britdoc-documentary-journalism-fund
Arts Council England don’t fund films unless they are very specifically about an artist/art - what they do support is listed here http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/media/uploads/pdf/gfta_information_sheets_june_2013/Artists_film_and_the_moving_image_June_2013.pdf
Other things of potential interest
US TV Screenings on Independent TV, could be interesting extra avenue for showing your work - http://www.kcet.org/about/submissions.html
Film nights - Doc Heads, - http://www.docheads.org/ I’ve been to this in East London, very nice people, good fun night, always good films, they take submissions for anything from 2 - 30 minutes.
Saw this amazing film at Doc Heads, really worth a watch. Let's not let it put us off applying for stuff though!
Dir: Alex Nicholson
My London - film competition as part of the East London Film Festival -
What films are we looking for?
All sorts. There are two main rules: all entries have to be no more than three minutes long, and all entries have to fit the brief ‘My London’.
http://www.timeout.com/london/film/my-london-a-short-film-competition
Deadline for submission Midnight May 16th 2014
Thanks, hope that was useful. I found it interesting, but a bit depressing that there isn't more support out there. If anyone has any smaller festivals, competitions, grants, screenings, please do get in touch.
I'm on Twitter @thomhoffman
Speaking of which, here are some interesting twitter people to keep an eye on: