TEHRAN International Short Film Festival (40)

Festival start: 19 October 2023      Festival end: 24 October 2023

In the Name of the Greatest of all Artists, the Loving God

To all friends, folks and appreciators of art from all over the world, we would like to welcome you with the greatest esteem to join us in celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Tehran International Short Film Festival by contributing your works, all of which shall be registered and processed free of charge. It is with great honor to announce that our festival is the world’s only Academy Awards® (Oscars) Qualifying International Short Film Festival with no entry fee.

The number forty is considered the age of wisdom and recognition of truth; likewise, we too take our festival’s 40th anniversary as a good omen and a sign of restoration and revival that shall be heard throughout the cosmos. Like spring, we welcome every sound, color, light, and image that seeks the excellence of wisdom, love, life, mindfulness, truth, and beauty; and like spring, we turn a blind eye to every sound, color, light and image that promotes oppression, fear and deception, attachment, slavery and totalitarianism. This is to ensure that we witness a new way of life and a new human being, and how right was the Persian poet, Hafez, when he said:
’Tis the time to usher in a new world with new souls…
This year’s festival includes two new awards – “The Truth-seekers Award” and “The Silk Road Award” – in addition to the previous awards i.e. the Grand Prize, whose winner is eligible for the Oscars, and awards for best movie, best documentary, and best experimental and animated films. There will also be events with a focus on science, culture and arts with new and diverse approaches.

The Tehran International Short Film Festival has been held for 40 consecutive years in Iran, by the Iranian Youth Cinema Society – one of the most renowned schools of cinema and short film production in Iran and throughout the world.

With more than 80 branches across the country and a family of 250 thousand graduates, the Iranian Youth Cinema Society has gone through excellent educational and effective filmmaking courses, producing hundreds of short films every year and winning hundreds of awards from prestigious and prominent international film festivals in the past four decades. Many of its graduates rank among the top celebrated filmmakers of both Iran and the world.

With a new approach to both the Iranian Youth Cinema Society and its festival, we are honored to announce that we are ready to receive foreign students into our courses for theoretical and practical filmmaking as well as to extend our relations with different countries and creative filmmakers worldwide. We also look forward to having joint international endeavors in producing and distributing short films and holding regional and global film markets.

New awards with their themes and subjects introduced and presented at the 40th Tehran International Short Film Festival:

The Truth-seekers Award ($2,000 Cash Prize)
This award is to honor the endeavor, sacrifice and bravery of those filmmakers who, among the enticing glamour of most of today’s media, strive to seek and convey the truth.

It is an attempt to seek the true manifestations of a heavenly heritage like Islam which has been defamed and distorted by totalitarian media corporations that incorporate lies and techniques of deception to hide from the public eye the beautiful wisdom of life and love that constitute the essence of the human being.

It is an attempt to honor endeavors that seek to dispel fears of divinity, especially with a focus on Islamophobia; it is an attempt to honor a movement against the false depictions and disdainful characterizations of nations, kinfolk, and divine religions.

It is an award for:

- New discoveries that shed light on forgotten truths and introducing truth-seekers throughout history, religions, and anthropology.
- Illuminating the world with hope and promoting peace and reconciliation instead of war and violence.
- Reviving notions of fraternity, justice, and fairness among nations.
- Reviving the status of women and the family and raising awareness on future threats against humanity.
- Attempts to break the emotional barriers set between humans and the truth and the loyalty towards a natural inner calling.
- Confronting neocolonialism, challenging the imposition of dominant cultures on other nations, and opposing the scorning of independent cultures.
- Criticizing dishonest acts and the double-standards of some politicians towards people.
2. The Silk Road Award ($1,000 Cash Prize)
The Silk Road has long been a major platform for promoting cultural and human interactions that have manifested into a sort of common heritage among the residents of 300 cities and 73 countries. In consideration of its illustrious historical role of establishing rich and stable connections, be it cultural, political, economic, or religious, among the many civilizations, nations, and governments that have come and gone throughout the region in the course of time, as well as recent considerations for the revival of this road, it is quite evident that the Silk Road is strategically imperative for the success of international cooperation in various areas of activity. Accordingly, the Tehran International Short Film Festival, on the brink of its 40th anniversary and with new courses of action undertaken, has put on its agenda a new outlook on the cultural and economic opportunities of this facilitative road, as a sign of a long-enduring relationship between the two civilizations of the east and the west.
The Silk Road Award honors outstanding merits in the film industry that seek to represent the evident and hidden capacities and heritage of the Silk Road as a prosperous motif of:
Sustainable and comprehensive development, peaceful coexistence, ethnical cohesion, consolidation of civilian relations, national integrity, interfaith dialogue, religious tolerance, promulgator of peace and fraternity among individuals, ethnicities, and nations, retainer of individual and group rights and properties, compliance with neighborly rights, fair trade, generative economy and collective production of wealth, cultural diplomacy, and mutual respect for other cultures and native or national values.

******** دعوة لحضور في الدورة الأربعين لمهرجان طهران الدولي للأفلام القصيرة ********
نحتفل سعادتنا کحصری المهرجان الدولي للأفلام القصيرة فی العالم الذی مصدق من أكاديمية أوسكار بدون تکلفة الدخول لاربعین عامًا على ارتباطك بمهرجان طهران الدولي للأفلام القصيرة من خلال قبول أعمال
جميع صانعي الأفلام من جميع أنحاء العالم مجانًا

The Tehran International Short Film Festival (TISFF) is a festival approved by the Academy Awards® (Oscars) and the winner of the Grand Prize becomes eligible for the Oscars®.

Grand Prize: Trophy + Diploma + $2000

The Truth-seekers Award: Trophy + Diploma + $2000

Best Fiction: Trophy + Diploma + $1000

Best Documentary: Trophy + Diploma + $1000

Best Animation: Trophy + Diploma + $1000

Best Experimental: Trophy + Diploma $1000

The Silk Road Award: Trophy + Diploma + $1000

- To qualify for the competition, films must be completed after January 1st, 2022

- Films completed prior to this date risk disqualification.

-Films containing nudity or violence are inadmissible.

- Despite no limitations on the subject and categories, due to the approach of the Iranian Youth Cinema Society in supporting innovation and diversity in cinema, short films that use a genre in an innovative way would have a higher priority.

- Films must not exceed 30 min running time.

- Selected participants will be formally listed by September 22nd, and notified via email.

- Films should not have been screened in the previous editions of the TISFF.

- A pre-selection committee, appointed by the festival for each category, will watch all submissions and make the final selection.

- In case your work is accepted for display in the festival, the original video (un-subtitled) is required along with subtitles and transcripts in both the original language as well as in English.

- Once the film has been selected and confirmed, the film cannot be withdrawn from the festival program.

- Films that have already been publicly broadcast or distributed in any form or screened in Iran are not accepted.

-Iranian short films should be submitted in the national section, and they must use the following platform:
(https://festival.iycs.ir/fa/)

- Iranian short films for the international section will be selected through interaction between the National and International Selection teams.
NOTE: The criteria for Iranian entries are that the film's main producer is an Iranian citizen or permanent resident. If in doubt, please contact us through: tehranfilmfest@gmail.com

- Submitting a film to the Tehran International Short Film Festival is equivalent to accepting the provisions of all the mentioned Rules and Regulations.