TerraLenta Film Fest (1)

Festival start: 23 July 2025      Festival end: 27 July 2025

TerraLenta Film Fest is an international film festival dedicated to environmental documentaries. The Festival is based in Pignola (PZ) in Basilicata, Italy.

The aim of the Festival is to promote independent and author documentary cinema, raise public and community awareness of environmental issues, foster cultural spaces for dialogue and learning, support multimedia research, and encourage eco-sustainable actions. TerraLenta is the intention to bring original artistic forms and offbeat culture, the experimentation of new ways of disseminating environmental issues through art and research. We believe that it is necessary to give space to a different form of divulgation, so critical, innovative and far from formalising; that's the reason why we set ourselves to support subjects with authentic contents and modes of expression.

The Festival was founded in 2024 as the evolution of a long-standing experience in the dissemination of cinema on environmental themes through independent film review in the high mountains (OasiCinema Festival), in order to promote the symbiosis between visual art and environmental research in unusual contexts, deliberately different from urban spaces.

TerraLenta Film Fest will take place in July, from 23 to 27, 2025. This will be its first edition, offering a unique opportunity to explore the world of cinema with a focus on environmental themes. The festival will take place in several fascinating locations, such as the historic center of Pignola (PZ), where the screenings will be held outdoors, and some historic buildings, including Palazzo Gaeta, which will serve as the festival's main headquarters.

In addition to the film screenings, the event will feature important moments of insight, such as seminars and educational workshops centered on the environment and related themes. The guests of the festival will have the opportunity to present their works and engage in discussions with the audience. The official festival program will be made available on May 25, 2025, allowing participants to learn about the scheduled events in detail.

This is an unmissable occasion for film enthusiasts and those interested in ecological and sustainability issues, set in the charming context of Southern Italy.

Cash Prizes: 2,000€

The selected works will compete for the following official awards:

● Best Documentary - 2000 Euro;

● Best Short film - 700 Euro;

● Best photography - 300 Euro;

● Audience Award for Documentary and Short film;

● Special mention documentary.

Special awards may be offered by the Festival partners, which will possibly be published afterwards.

Art. 1 - Introduction
TerraLenta Film Fest is an international film festival dedicated to environmental documentaries. The aim of the Festival is to promote and disseminate independent and author documentary cinema, raise public and community awareness of environmental issues, foster cultural spaces for dialogue and learning, support multimedia research in the field, and encourage eco-sustainable actions.
TerraLenta Film Fest is organised and promoted by APS Fuorisentiero in cooperation with Zer0971 ETS, with the participation of other partners and sponsors in line with the Festival's ethical principles.

The 1st edition of TerraLenta Film Fest will take place in Pignola (PZ) - ITALY - from 23 to 27 July 2025.

Art. 2 - Admission
Documentaries developing one or more of the following themes can be enrolled:
● natural sciences and biodiversity;
● events related to climate change;
● human-environment relationship and modification/evolution of the natural and anthropical landscape;
● demoethnoanthropology and socio-environmental history;
● economy and sustainable development;
● political ecology and environmental justice;
● academic and/or independent multimedia environmental research;
● other topics not mentioned but closely related to the environment.

Art. 3 - Entry
The film programme of the TerraLenta Film Fest is organized into the following sections:
● International Documentary competition - minimum length 31 minutes (excluding titles);
● International Short film competition - maximum length 30 minutes (excluding titles).

These sections will compete for the awards described in Art. 5.
Participation in the Festival selections is made by filling in the entry form on the website in the ENTRY section, through the following link https://www.terralentaff.it/iscrizioni-2025 or through the Festhome online platform.
To take part in the Festival selections, a registration fee must be paid contextually with the online application. The amount of the participation fee is:
● 25 € for the documentary section;
● 15 € for the short film section.
No-payment automatically excludes the submitted work from the selection.
Copies of the films for selection must be sent exclusively by a link with a possible password to be indicated on the entry form.
The deadline for film entries is 6 April 2025.
Works made from the year 2023 onwards are eligible. Works that had their first public screening before 1 January 2023 are not eligible for selection. Works of any nationality are eligible for selection; works in a foreign language - other than english/Italian - must be subtitled in english or Italian. subtitles must be present in the film preview or sent at the time of registration by attaching the text file. Works not subtitled as specified above will be excluded from the selection.

Art. 4 - Selection
Admission to the Festival is decided unquestionably by the Artistic Director, who is assisted by a Selection Jury. The jury is made up of figures who are experts and knowledgeable about the subjects, in order to be able to assess the competing works with a broad view and different perspectives.
Authors and/or productions of the works admitted, as well as those excluded, will be informed of the outcome of the selections by 25 May 2025.

Works that have passed the selection phase, or that have been invited to the Festival, must be accompanied by all the documentation requested by e-mail at the time of the selection notification. The screening copies of the works in competition must reach the Festival no later than 20 June 2025 (postmark) for the necessary tests before the screening, possible subtitling in Italian language and the creation of the DCPs - if not already available. Failure to submit the screening copy by the aforementioned date will result in exclusion from the competition - and related penalties as per Art. 9.
The allowed formats are:
● DCP open;
● HD files (H264 high definition codec, Prores, .mov or .mp4 wrapper, bitrate 20 Mbps).

Where there is a downloadable file version, the shipping method must be agreed with the Festival Management by writing to direzione@terralentaff.it, while physical media - excluding DVDs - must be sent at the participant's expense to the following address (unless otherwise specifically agreed with the Festival organisation):
APS Fuorisentiero
Via Mar Egeo 111, 85100, Potenza
ITALY

In case of works from abroad, for customs purposes, please state on the package: “No commercial value, for cultural purposes only”.
Should the final version of the selected work not correspond to the one sent at the time of registration, it is the responsibility of the authors and/or producers to provide a new file copy that is perfectly faithful to the screening copy, for any translation and subtitling work.
The authors/authors/producers of the selected works are invited to attend the Festival; hospitality and travel (to be agreed in advance with the Management) will be offered for a maximum of 2 representatives of each work.
For all selected films, excluding those in Italian language or already subtitled in Italian, the transcript of the dialogues or the list of english subtitles must be provided. The screening copy of the Italian language films must be provided with english subtitles.
For all selected films in original language other than Italian, the Festival will donate the Italian subtitle file.
Relevant promotional materials (selected photographs, trailer, official poster, possible press kit) should also be provided.

Art. 5 - awards
The selected works will compete for the following official awards:
● Best Documentary - 2000 Euro;
● Best Short film - 700 Euro;
● Best photography - 300 Euro;
● Audience Award for Documentary and Short film;
● Special mention documentary.
Special awards may be offered by the Festival partners, which will possibly be published afterwards.
Authors, producers and distributors of the selected films (as well as of the award-winning films) are invited to include the official TerraLenta Film Fest laurel in the film, and on all promotional materials, wich can be requested from: direzione@terralentaff.it.

Article 6 - Archives
Copies of the films submitted for selection will be kept for the constitution of a Festival archive and, later, a Film Library. The donated copy will be used for the purposes of study, preservation and dissemination of knowledge of documentary cinema, to the exclusion of all commercial use. The donation of a copy in HD high definition format will also be appreciated.
The Festival reserves the right to use excerpts of the selected works for a maximum lenght of 2′ (or 10% of the entire lenght of the short films) for television or web broadcasting, for exclusively promotional and non-commercial purposes.
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Article 7 - Sanctions
The Festival Management will request the payment of the amount of € 1,000.00 as compensation in the following cases:
● Author/Author or the Production decides to withdraw the participation of an already selected film;
● projection material will not be sent in the time and manner mentioned in Art. 4 of these Rules;
● in all other cases referred to in the Rules, and in any case not attributable to the Direction, that result in the impossibility of screening of a work that has already been selected.

Article 8 - Data Processing
Be aware that the personal data provided and related communications are subject to our privacy policy in accordance with EU Regulation 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation). For further details, please refer to the full text of the policy at https://www.terralentaffl.it/informativa-privacy/

Art. 9 - Final dispositions
Submission of the TerraLenta Film Fest entry form implies acceptance of all the points of this Rules. Authors and/or Producers are responsible for the content of their works and declare, by registering for the Festival, that they have fulfilled all obligations towards third parties arising from copyrights.
The Management has the right to settle all cases not provided for in these Rules, as well as to derogate from them in particular and well-motivated cases. For any possible dispute on the meaning of the individual articles of the Rules, only the original Rules in Italian language shall be considered.

The Court of Potenza shall have jurisdiction over any disputes.