The IndieFEST Film Awards (0)

Festival start: 16 February 2016      Festival end: 16 February 2016

Promoting independent filmmakers of cinematic gems and unique voices to a worldwide audience.

IndieFEST, currently in its 7th year, discovers and honors the achievements of filmmakers who produce high quality films and new media. Attracting both powerhouse industry veterans as well as talented new filmmakers, the IndieFEST is an exceptional, truly international awards competition, not a traditional film festival. The goal of traditional film festivals is to bring entertainment to local audiences making the filmmaker of secondary importance. IndieFEST is about helping independent filmmakers gain the credibility and publicity they justly deserve. Our talented IndieFEST award winners have gone on to win Emmy, Telly and other awards.

Serving filmmakers is IndieFEST’s primary goal:

IndieFEST strives to give talented directors, producers, actors, creative teams and new media creators the positive exposure and credibility they deserve. The IndieFEST promotes award winners through press releases to over 40,000 filmmakers and industry contacts as well as five additional global media/distribution outlets. We are currently developing a filmmaker representative program to assist with the distribution of award winning films and a joint venture with The GRID, a worldwide network for mobile devices – both coming in 2015.

Where our filmmakers are from:

The IndieFEST Film Awards is truly international in scope and has received projects from filmmakers in over 64 countries, they include Australia, Bahrain, Bali, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Columbia, Cuba, Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kosovo, Malaysia, Malta, Martinique, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, the USA and more.

What kind of media:

The IndieFEST is an excellent venue for film, new and experimental media, television programs, animation, educational programs, remixes & mashups, movie trailers, music videos, webisodes, tube length works and more.

Each year IndieFEST Film Awards receives thousands of entries. Quality and creativity are celebrated in four levels of awards: Best of Show, Award of Excellence, Award of Merit and Award of Recognition.

The judging takes place by in-house staff and a committee of industry professionals including Emmy, Telly and Communicator award nominees and recipients.

As with the Telly and regional Emmy Awards, entries do not compete against each other. Instead, entries are judged against a high standard of merit and are scored accordingly. Judges score entries on a performance scale and winning entries are recognized and awarded as Best of Show, Awards of Excellence, Awards of Merit, Awards of Recognition or no award.

Best of Show honors are granted to the top scoring entry for each season. Awards of Excellence are granted to entries with truly exceptional filmmaking. Notable artistic and technical productions are recognized at the Award of Merit award level and Award of Recognition recognizes achievement in a specific category of entry.

No fixed numbers of awards are granted at any level but rather fluctuate based on the total number of entries received for each competition deadline.

Notification:

Each individual submission will receive two confirmation emails. One from Film Freeway confirming your entry through their system and one directly from the IndieFEST Film Awards team with additional details.

After judging is completed, winners in all categories will be notified of their award immediately following the submission of the judge’s findings to the IndieFEST staff. Submissions that were not awarded will be notified after the judging process. All award winners are also provided the opportunity to acquire statuettes and other keepsakes to commemorate their achievement.

Humanitarian Award:

The IndieFEST is a competition with a conscience. Each year the IndieFEST Film Awards grants its annual Humanitarian Award for dedicated service to Social Justice, Animal Welfare, Political, Environmental, Wellness, or Conscious Awareness issues. Films meeting these criteria and recognized at the Award of Excellence level can be nominated for the Humanitarian Award by any of the judges. All nominated films are then reviewed at the end of each year and awards granted. Each year the judges will select one Grand Prize winner and award Outstanding Achievement and Award of Distinction to all deserving films.

1. Submissions in other than English must be subtitled.

2. Multiple entries are allowed from a filmmaker and each entry may be entered in multiple categories.

3. Online screeners preferred. If you choose not to upload your project to Festhome’s site, please provide an online link to your submission and be sure to include the password in an email correspondence sent directly to IndieFEST.

4. *Please note: IndieFEST does not download data or accept Dropbox submissions. Please only send links to your media hosted on 3rd party servers such as Vimeo or YouTube.

5. Written comments describing entries are beneficial.

6. DVD Entries will not be returned.

7. All films submitted under a “Student” category will be listed as a (Student) on all materials including social media and press releases. Student I.D. required.