The Astrophobia Film Festival is an International science fiction and horror film and screenwriting festival that takes place in the Comox Valley on beautiful Vancouver Island. The second season will take place in October, 2022. It will run for three days (dates TBD), and will screen some of the best genre films made in the period of 2020 to 2022. There are no restrictions on who can submit and we invite people from any nationality and ethnicity to submit their work.

Awards & Prizes

As we are only in our second year, and the first festival was limited in its scope by COVID considerations, the festival can award only screenings, laurels, and shout-outs to the winners in various categories. In terms of screenwriting, every attempt will be made to get the best scripts into a pitch session with industry professionals, and every great film similarly exposed to producers/distributors. As we are still a very small festival, there will be no financial awards or screening fees for selected films, but we intend to institute some in the future. This policy may change if the festival receives external funding before the festival dates. Entrance to festival events will be free for those submitters whose films are chosen as official selections.

Rules & Terms

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS FOR FILMS

• Genre: horror or science fiction only
• Maximum length (including credits) for features: 110 minutes
• Minimum length (including credits) for features: 50 minutes
• Maximum length (including credits) for shorts: 30 minutes
• Premiere not required
• Accepted Screening Formats Apple ProRes 422 or H.264
• Must be a minimum of 1080p resolution
• Language (or subtitles) must be English

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS FOR SCRIPTS

• Genre: horror or science fiction only
• Maximum length for features: 110 pages
• Maximum length for shorts: 25 pages
• Must be formatted correctly and submitted as a pdf file
• Language: English

All entrants agree that the decisions of the festival organizer and consultants are final and there are no procedures for appeal. All submitted scripts must be submitted in the commonly accepted format and the festival organizer reserves the right to discard improperly formatted submissions (although they will make every attempt to contact writers to get reformatted submissions). All payments are final and there will be no refunds of script submissions.

FILM COMPETITION RULES

1. Films will not be ranked in the same way as scripts. For films, there will be official selections based jointly on the curation of the director and consultation with industry professionals if required.
2. Filmmakers may submit as many films as they like in as many categories for which they are eligible.
3. Films made at any time may be submitted, however only those that have been finished and produced after January 1st, 2020 will be considered for an award.
4. Films must be fictional narrative. We do not accept music videos, promotional videos, trailers, and documentaries.
5. All non-English submissions must have hard-coded English subtitles.
6. Films must be compliant with all copyright laws. If music, artwork, or additional film material used in your film is not original, then permission from source must be obtained. The responsibility for this rests entirely with the filmmaker. Failure to obtain clearance could result in your film being withdrawn from the Festival. In this event, Astrophobia will not be liable to refund the fee or return the materials entered.
7. By submitting to Astrophobia, the participant is granting permission to view their film by anyone the director deems relevant for adjudication, is granting permission to screen the film at Astrophobia and use selected clips it in promotional materials (including but not limited to press releases, websites, social media, TV, radio and print). After the festival, Astrophobia may post the film online only if the film is publicly available for viewing.
8. If selected for screening at the festival, the filmmaker will be required to submit the following:
• Minimum two high-resolution film stills
• One high-resolution Director's headshot photo
• Brief synopsis of the film
• Film exhibition copy in 1080p resolution, in DCP, ProRes, or MP4 format
• Film trailer file and/or online link
9. Once a film has been selected for the festival it may not be withdrawn.
All entrants agree that the decisions of the festival organizer and consultants are final and there are no procedures for appeal.
10. All submitters agree that they will not be paid a screening fee should their film be chosen for screening.
11. The festival directors withhold the right to retract their offer to screen a film at the festival, should the submitter take longer than 6 days to respond to the notification that their film is an official selection.

SCREENWRITING COMPETITION RULES

1. Winners and placements will be determined by the rankings of the festival director and any relevant consultants.
2. Scripts that have been submitted to previous iterations of the festival are not eligible.
3. While submitters can submit as many scripts as they want in a single category, only the top ranked submission will be eligible for an award (i.e., a submitter cannot win more than one placement in a single category)
4. Each individual script may be entered in only one category.
5. Submitters may compete in a maximum of 2 categories, but in order to do so, they must enter different scripts in each (i.e., see rule #3).
6. Any scripts that have already been made into a film are not eligible.
7. All submitted scripts must be formatted in some commonly accepted format and the festival organizer reserves the right to discard improperly formatted submissions (although they will make every attempt to contact writers to get reformatted submissions). 8. All submitted scripts must include both an anonymous and named version of the script.