Berkeley Springs Film Festival (WV)

By submitting to the festival, you are agreeing that you comply with all our rules and terms. You accept full responsibility and liability for violating these rules.

You must have release forms signed by all your actors and actresses (or guardian if under 18), but we do not require you submit documentation to us.

You must own the film, or have permission from the owner to submit the film.

If you are selling your film anywhere, you must have rights to the music. If you are not selling or monetizing your film in any way, this is not necessary.

Some nudity is allowed, but not pornography.

Film must be made in the past 5 years.

Films cannot be submitted a second time, unless rejected and significantly improved.

You agree we can use clips, screenshots and artwork to promote the festival, but you maintain all rights to your film. We will only show your film in it's entirety during the festival.

Your film may currently be in distribution or available online. We don't care, as long as you don't violate any existing contracts with your distributors, etc.

Any foreign language in the film must be accompanied by English subtitles.

To qualify as a Student Film, Director must be 21 or younger when the film was made (Director does not have to be a student at the time), OR Director can be any age and enrolled in a film class or program when the film was made.

Film must be submitted via FilmFreeway, in MP4 format, without any watermarks, ready to be screened at the festival. We suggest 24 fps for shorts because they will be edited into a single 24 fps film block and may cause jitter at other frame rates. We will only download your film once, when submitted, so do not submit incomplete films. On very rare exceptions, we may accept a feature film in another format such as Blu-ray, but it would have to be an exceptional film. Obtain permission from festival organizers prior to submitting in a different format.

Currently, the theater has a single speaker which plays mono (both left and right channels through a single speaker), but the theater is in the process of installing a brand new Dolby 5.1 surround sound system before the festival. Please make sure your film has sufficient audio levels (-12 dB to -6 dB) on left and/or right channels. We suggest playing it on your TV via DVD. If you click to a TV channel and the audio is about the same level as your film, you are good!

The following are not exclusive rules, but we are inclined to choose films that are:
- At least full HD (1080)
- Good quality sound.
- Camera work that doesn't make the audience sea sick.
- Not about COVID.
- Not political.
- Not trying to sell or promote something.
- We generally are not interested in victim films (i.e. sad stories about people being abused) unless it is a horror film.
- All things equal, we give a slight preference to local films made in or about or by filmmakers from WV, VA, DC, MD, PA, but we are most interested in quality entertaining films from around the world.

If for some reason the festival must be cancelled (i.e. new COVID restrictions, etc.), we will include your film in the festival at a later time. If your distribution contract precludes it at that time, we will pull your film at your request. We will not have the festival online. Either it will be held in-person as scheduled, or rescheduled or cancelled. There will be no refunds for any reason.

All communication will be via email, so PLEASE CHECK YOUR EMAIL OFTEN.