Big Cartoon Festival

15th Big Cartoon Festival (BCF) will take place in Moscow (Russia) between the dates of October 28 – November 8, 2021.
The festival assumes offline screenings of all films of the competition programs, but reserves the right to transfer the event completely to the online format if it is impossible or unsafe for the participants to hold screenings in cinemas.

Competition Programs
The Festival competitive program includes:
a) International Competition of Animated Short Films
b) Russian National Competition of Animated Short Films
c) International Competition of Animated films for Children
d) International competition of Animated Series

Rules & Terms
Submission of applications for the competition is carried out through the form posted on the Festival’s page on the FilmFreeway website.
Films selected for competitive sections will be screened without screening fees.
The festival accepts films from 1 to 30 minutes.
All films must not have participated in the previous editions of the Festival.
All films must have been completed after January 1, 2020.

Films are eligible for the Russian Competition if they are made in Russia or with a substantial contribution of a Russian main crew member.
Films are eligible for the Foreign Competition if submitted in English or with English subtitles.
Each film selected for the Festival can be included in the program of only one competition. The final decision on the inclusion of a film in a particular competition is reserved by the selection committee.
The Festival will not consider works-in-progress.
The Festival will not consider advertisements.
Filmmakers are responsible for sorting out the copyright on their own materials.
The Festival places no restrictions on your work in terms of premiere status or whether your work has been made available online.

The festival assumes offline screenings of all films of the competition programs, but reserves the right to transfer the event completely to the online format if it is impossible or unsafe for the participants to hold screenings in cinemas.
Films selected for the competition can be shown within the framework of the competition programs no more than 4 times in any Moscow cinema or online on the festival platform for 3 days during the festival.
Public online screenings will be geographically limited to the territory of the Russian Federation. In case of expansion of the screening area, the Festival will notify the representative of the film in a letter about the inclusion of the film in the Festival program.

The festival covers the cost of accommodation of nonresident participants of the competition programs of the festival in a Moscow hotel, no more than 2 nights during the festival. The Festival does not cover the cost of purchasing air tickets, train tickets to / from Moscow, taxi tickets to / from the airport to the city, or the cost of food over the duration of the Festival participant's stay in Moscow.

The Festival can use a maximum 1-minute sequence from the selected films to promote the BCF 2021 in any media. During the Festival, teasers of selected films may be screened at Festival venues, in TV spots promoting the BCF, on the website of the Festival, and in multimedia presentations during the Festival.
The Festival reserves the right to use film stills in promotional materials (Festival catalogue, Festival journal, leaflets, posters, billboards, website, and multimedia presentations), and provide them to the media for the purpose of disseminating information about the BCF.

Submission
Owners of the festival screening rights (hereinafter the “submitters”) may submit their films to the 15th BCF before June 30th, 2021 for all the competition programs.
No registration fee is required.
The sending of a completed entry form and film constitutes a submitter’s full acceptance of the Festival’s rules and regulations.

Screening Formats & Supplementary Materials
Submitters must provide a screening copy as a full HD video file (1920x1080) without black bars and/or cropping, encoded with H264 video codec, packed as *.mp4 / *.mov / *.m2ts / *.mkv. As for the audio, general stereo mix (2.0) is OK, encoded with AAC.
If there is no h264 version of the film availible, either of the following will be acceptable: ProRes / DCP / BluRay (digital image).
If the Festival does not receive the required presentation copy in the proper format on or before August 24th, 2021 for the international competition programs and before September 7th, 2021 for the Russian national competition program, the selected work will be withdrawn from the Festival program.
The Festival also requires three (3) CMYK 300 dpi film stills, film description, dialogue lists (with time codes or an .srt file of English subtitles) and a link to the film trailer where applicable. Film description includes a synopsis, duration, country of production, studio of production, year of production, credit list, animation technique used and information about the film's prizes and its participation in competitions of other festivals.