The Musical Écran film festival is a unique event in France, focusing mainly on music documentaries, which takes place each year in Bordeaux. During a week, the spotlight is on music docs and over 35 films from all over the world are screened and discussions between the audience and the directors are organized.

2023 marks the 9th anniversary of the Musical Écran festival which will take place from November 12th to 19th.

This festival is administered by the legal entity "Association Bordeaux Rock", which does not prejudge the artistic orientation of the selection but only constitutes a historical precedent in the history of this festival.

Musical Écran is part of the Music Film Festival Network (M.F.F.N) founded at the beginning of 2019 made of over 10 European music film festivals based in France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland the UK.. MFFN intends to provide an opportunity for the creative teams behind music film festivals to exchange experiences and best practices, promote music film (docs, fictions...) expand existing audiences and build ones...

JURY AWARD
The jury awards the Best Documentary and a cash prize of 1000 € to the best doc, which is provided to the director of the film.

AUDIENCE AWARD
The audience vote for their favorite film in the competitive section and awards the Best Documentary and a cash prize of 500 € to the best doc, which is provided to the director of the film.

STUDENT AWARD
Musical Écran is organizing a student jury to award the Best Documentary.

TERMS OF PARTICIPATION
The theme of the submitted films must be explicitly music-based. A French subtitles version is wished. Documentaries solely will be accepted to be part of the competitive section.
In order to learn more about the artistic direction of the festival, you can check out the programmes of the previous editions via the links below :
https://www.bordeauxrock.com/festival-musical-ecran/
https://www.bordeauxrock.com/festival-musical-ecran/archives/

The festival will not accept films under 52 minutes
Only films produced after January 1st 2022 can be selected to be part of the competitive section in 2023.

REGISTRATION PROCESS
Films must be entered by their directors, producers or their legal representatives.

The documentaries must be entered in their original language with either French or English subtitles.

SELECTION
The selection committee is composed by the members of the Musical Écran board.

Directors whose films will be selected will be notified via email.

When a film has been selected to be screened at the festival and an oral or written approval has been given by the film’s representative, it cannot be withdrawn.

The complete programme of the 9th edition of the festival will be communicated and uploaded on the website www.bordeauxrock.com and festival’s social networks in October 2023.

PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL
When getting your selection notice, you must provide the files listed below to the following address : manu@bordeauxrock.com
- a selection of pictures of the documentary (minimal resolution of 300 dpi / copyrights must be written in the files’ titles) ;
- a picture of the documentary director (minimal resolution of 300 dpi / copyrights must be written in the files’ titles) and a small biography ;
- the file for the film trailer or teaser ;
- a synopsis of the film ;
- any other material that you deem interesting for the promotion of the screening.

The participants allow Musical Écran festival to use a short extract of the film (up to 2 minutes) to promote the screening. The extract may be included in the festival’s trailer which will be broadcasted on the internet and in the festival places up to two weeks before the festival before each film.
This short extract may also be used in promotional videos published on the social medias of the organization.
This short extract may also be included in the promotional video sent to the press in the form of a password protected Vimeo link compiling short excerpts of all the films screened at the 9th Musical Écran festival.

SUBTITLES
The directors or representatives of the selected films agree to forward a timecoded transcription of dialogues to the festival.

If the French subtitles for the film do not exist, the festival may handle their creation for some of the selected films. The festival will be the sole owner of these subtitles. Apart from the Musical Écran festival, an agreement between the two parties will have to be established for their use.

SCREENING
The festival’s artistic committee sets the date, time and place of each screening for all the selected films.

The screening copies must be :
1/IMAGE
CODEC : PRORES 422 HQ
FRAME DIMENSIONS : HD OR 2K
SCANNING METHOD : PROGRESSIVE
FRAME RATES : 23.98 FPS, 24 FPS, 25 FPS, 29,97 FPS
2/SOUND
AUDIO FORMAT : 2.0 STEREO CHANNEL LAYOUT : L-R
3/SUBTITLES
ALL SUBTITLES MUST BE “BURNED-IN”
4/ DELIVERY
HARD DRIVES FORMATTED IN APFS OR EXFAT

and must get to us before September 27th 2023.
The mailing fees of the film copies will be borne by the sender. The copy must be mailed to :
Association Bordeaux Rock
39 rue des Menuts
33000 Bordeaux
France

The festival will handle the return fees of the copy.

DIRECTORS' INVITATION
The directors in the official selection may be invited by the festival to present their film to the audience and do a Q&A following the screening.

AWARDS AND JURY
Films that are part of the official selection compete for the following awards :
- the Jury prize : 1000€ grant, funded by the Bordeaux Rock organization ;
- the audience award : 500€ grant, funded by a sponsor.
- the student award
These grants are awarded to the director of the winning film or his/her beneficial owners.

The festival’s jury is made of 5 professionals from the world of film, music and the arts. They are all appointed by the festival’s organizers. They commit to watch all the films selected in the official competition and to award their prize to the winning film during the closing ceremony.

Each member of the audience attending a competitive screening is given a vote card and has to give between 1 to 5 points to the film. At the end of the festival, all cards are processed by the festival’s team. The film receiving most points, in proportion to the number of people voting, will be awarded the audience prize.

AWARDED FILMS
Awarded films will be reported on the festival’s website and social networks at the end of the festival. A press release will also be sent to all our press contacts.

Filmmakers, producers and distributors of the awarded films will add the Musical Écran laurel to all publicity, press material of the film..
Selection and award laurels will be sent by the Musical Écran team.

Overall Rating
Quality
Value
Communication
Hospitality
Networking
  • Duco Donk

    This relatively small festival is a great place for true lovers of music and film. We were happy to be invited to attend, and the reception was really friendly. The audience showed a real interest in my film (Jimmy is punk - The story of PANIC), and asked a lot of questions. It was also interesting to see work of others. So thank you all at Musical Écran.
    And we must say: Bordeaux is a fantastic city! It was great we had some time to get to know Bordeaux, visit the wine museum and stroll through the old center with so many nice restaurants and places.

    February 2024
  • Yohan Malka

    Thanks a lot "Musical Ecran" it was a great experience to present my film: "Pone, sans rémission" in your festival . Yohan

    November 2022
  • The Rumba Kings team was thrilled to have our French Premiere at Musical Ecran Film Festival. The festival team is awesome - super cool, kind, organized, responsive, professional and one of the best festival teams that we've worked with so far! We weren't able to make it to the festival in person this year due to the pandemic but we would have loved to be there. We highly recommend this festival to any other music documentaries! Thanks so much to the whole Musical Ecran team for all their passion, commitment, and love towards films, from The Rumba Kings cast and crew!

    September 2021