Cartoons Underground is Singapore's largest underground animation festival featuring international and local award-winning animation. Marking our 9th edition in 2020, the festival has 2 competition sections: International and Singapore Student. Past editions of Cartoons Underground had screened animation works by both emerging and established animation artists including Bill Plympton, Hisko Hulsing, Dahee Jeong, Spela Cadez, Tal Kantor, Paloma Baeza, Mirai Mizue, Lei Lei, Chen Xi and An Xu.

Awards & Prizes

Members of the Jury are proposed by the Festival Director. The ‘Best Animation’ and ‘Best Singapore Student Animation’ awards will be decided by the Jury members, and the ‘Audience Choice’ will be voted by the festival attendees. A ‘Special Mention’ can be awarded according to the Jury’s discretion.

Rules & Terms

Festival submission is open to all short films (maximum runtime: 20 minutes) applying animation techniques. Films should be completed in 2019 or 2020.

Submission deadline: 30 June 2020
Incomplete or late submissions will not be accepted.

Submission procedure
There is no entry fee required for the regular deadline. Please submit on FilmFreeway at https://filmfreeway.com/CartoonsUnderground. One form is required for each film. The Festival only accepts online preview screeners (e.g. vimeo,youtube), with or without passwords.

Competition selection
Film selection is done by the Programme Director of Cartoons Underground. Selected films will be presented as a competition programme. The Festival will inform the person submitting the film by email if it has been selected, at the same time requesting material necessary for publicity and screening. Following this notification, written requests can be made to withdraw a film from the programme. The Festival does not pay screening fees to the selected films. The selected film list will be announced on the official website 1 month before the Festival.

Screening copy
Digital file with the following technical specification: Quicktime or MPEG4, Compression: H264, Resolution: 1920x1080

Films with dialogues or narrations in languages other than English need to have embedded English subtitles in the screening copy.

Jury and awards
Members of the Jury are proposed by the Festival Director. The ‘Best Animation’ and ‘Best Singapore Student Animation’ awards will be decided by the Jury members, and the ‘Audience Choice’ will be voted by the festival attendees. A ‘Special Mention’ can be awarded according to the Jury’s discretion.

Publicity and broadcast
The Festival has the right to use all materials related to the submission, including a film excerpt up to 10 per cent of the total length of the film, which will not exceed more than 3 minutes. They will only be used for the promotion of the Festival in TV and web programs, interviews and reports.

Rights and responsibilities
By submitting, each applicant declares to be the author or rights owner of the submitted film(s) and to own all the literary, dramatic and musical rights guaranteeing Cartoons Underground against any claims, conflicts and legal action concerning the presentation of the film. All preview screeners of the films will be included in the Festival’s library. The Festival reserves the right to use the films for strictly non-commercial, educational purposes.

Acceptance of terms
Participation in the Festival, and its film submission process, implies acceptance, without reservation, to the terms of the present regulations. An entry form is valid without a signature. In case of any question or problem, please contact programme@cartoonsunderground.com.