HIGH COAST INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL – True Independent Films in the Swedish High Coast.
We work to promote True Independent Films – for film makers to reach out with and for people to see. Participating at the High Coast Film Festival should be a valuable and memorable experience.
The Festival is a two day event - Friday and Saturday- held at Lunde Folkets Hus (house of the people). Used as a Cinema in the 70's it has now received a revival!
We show films that are self produced and haven't been at the major Swedish Film Festivals. We also have a limit for how much external cash that the production has been granted. This is to ensure that the Festival remains a platform for True Independent Films and film makers. For more details about eligibility please read "Rules & Terms" below.
The foundational idea with the festival and the program we put together is the personal voice and expression through the medium of film. There are no sections for contemporary films or attention to any specific topics or methods – film as a means to artisticly express and portray is what puts the program together.
As a result we show films with all sorts of thematics and methods. Strict fiction with a clear cut storyline, wild experimental film poetry, quiet anthropological documentaries. Comedies, dramas and everything there between. Some are entertaining, some are not. Some are easy to digest, some not at all.
We pay for accommodation for all selected film makers thursday to sunday so all guests can get both the festival event and a few days extra. This is something we do to help and support visiting the festival and part of our ambition to make it a valuable experience for participating film makers.
During our first four editions we are happy to have succeeded establishing the festival as a quality event for international independent films in the High Coast. Lots of press coverage by regional news paper, Swedish National TV and Swedish National wide radio have spread the word about what we do and it's had an impact. Full house festival and attendence from both press, audience, film organizations and film makers have shown what we knew all along – the quality of real independent films is high, the gems are unknown and once people are exposed to them they put great value to the films and the cinematic experience.
2018 we founded a Streamingsite for True Independent Films – Illambra. All participants are invited to join, not only with the film at the festival but with others too that fit the site. We want to offer audience a wider opportunity to take part of the festival program – all year around from anywhere in the world, and to offer film makers a home for their works where they are presented in a qualitative environment and platform. The idea of Illambra is to over time build a solid videostore online presenting authors rather than titles for audience to follow and watch works of.
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Featured Films on Website
Apart from the Festival event we have also begun building a section of featured films on our website. We're looking for Experimental and Unconventional Genre, Auteur and Art house films of all sorts.
If you have a Short film available for free online or a Feature film for free or purchase, and you wish to have it featured and promoted, please follow the instructions in this link: http://bit.ly/featuredfilm
We want to host a curated section of films that is wide but still of quality and that makes sense for film makers who submits a film, as more films can be featured on our website than we can invite to the festival event.
The curating is based on our artistic judgement and we won't feature every film - but we will host many and we will never charge for this service.
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Feedback, Review & Festival Consideration
It's frustrating to be declined and not get to know why. However, it can also be frustrating submitting to a festival and be forced to pay a higher fee because it includes feedback you're not interested in.
We work diligently, with care and dedication when putting the program together and when it comes to feedback for the submissions we do the same thing. This is why we divide our categories so that feedback is separate from the submissions and is an in-depth review rather than a small note.
Feedback is given by our head programmer Andrija Jovanovic and is an extensive analysis and review of the film and it's different components. Film language, dramaturgical storyline, pacing, technical aspects of grading, composoting and editing, acting etc. It's direct, honest and constructive.
If you wish to submit a film and also get feedback, please choose the matching category.
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We have no hard rules for the content of the film, but the following tend not to be a good fit for us:
- Films that seek to educate and teach the viewers
- TV-format films and headshot interview based documentaries
- Music videos and films solely driven by soundtrack
We spend months carefully watching and programming our festival selection. Presenting the best possible program we can is what our festival is built upon. Submitting to the festival is to pay to have the film considered and is not a guarantee to have it selected. We receive hundreds of submissions each edition and only around 5% are selected. Please make sure that you wish to submit before doing so.
