The Bike Shorts Film Festival is not a film festival about trail rides or scenic bike tours in exotic locales. This is a film festival about stories that just happen to include bicycles - thrilling heists with narrow escapes by bike, small sci-fi tales of riding bikes in a gas-less apocalypse, and family stories of siblings coming together over a bike ride. Just as bicycles are practical tools to help us get from place to place each day, the Bike Shorts Film Festival focus on stories where bicycles are used in the service of storytelling.

Awards & Prizes

Juried Prize, $300: Best overall film, selected by a panel of judges drawn from the regional arts and film community.

Best Local Film, $300: Best film submitted by a team from within the RIDE Solutions service area, selected by a panel of judges drawn from the regional arts and film community.

Best Original Music, $300: Must feature an original song or piece of music, featured either as a stand-alone music video or as an original score. This category will also be selected by our panel of judges.

Best Teen Film, $100: The best film by a filmmaker or film-making team between the ages of 13 and 18, as chosen by our panel of judges.

People's Choice, $100: The audience favorite, selected at the end of each Bike Shorts Film Festival screening. (4 total)

YouTube Prize. $100: All submissions will be posted to our Bike Shorts Roanoke YouTube channel. At the end of May, the film with the most views will be awarded this prize.Note: We use YouTube's video counts to score this award. YouTube's algorithm for what counts as a "view" is not made public, but an explanation for what does and does not tend to count can be found here. In brief, YouTube does its best to count legitimate views by unique users, so tactics like constantly refreshing a video, multiple views a day by the same person, views after clearing your cache, and related actions are unlikely to increase your views significantly.

Rules & Terms

Submitting your film electronically is preferred. We accept films via Dropbox or any cloud service, and can provide FTP access to upload a film to ridesolutions.org. You may make arrangements for digital delivery of your film by contacting us at bikeshortsroanoke@gmail.com.

You may also submit your film by mail on CD, DVD or flash drive. Mailed submissions will not be returned and must include a completed entry form. Address all submissions to: Bike Shorts Film Festival, c/o RIDE Solutions, P.O. Box 2569, Roanoke, VA 24010

To be eligible to have your film considered for screening or awards at the Bike Shorts Film Festival it must:

- Feature a bicycle or bicycling as a substantive feature of its plot, lyrics (in the case of original music video) or photography.
- Be received (not postmarked) by midnight, September 27th, 2019.
- Films of any length will be considered, though submissions with a running time of 15 minutes or less have the best chance of being accepted.
- Films of any style will be considered, though we prefer narrative films or films with a complete, identifiable story arc.

For examples of past submissions, please visit our YouTube channel.

Directors may submit more than one film, though each film must be submitted as a separate, unique file and include its own registration form

Filmmakers who contact the organizers within 24 hours of the deadline may request a deadline extension of up to, but no more than, 48 hours. Entries received after the 48 hour extension will not be considered for screening, and requests for extensions after the deadline has passed will not be considered.
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  • John Williams

    What a great idea for a festival and I was happy to be a part of it! Communication was fine and I'm looking forward to submitting again in the future

    November 2019
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  • Marta Ridolfi


    Coplimenti for the festival. We hope there is another chance to be there with you!

    November 2019
    Helpful