Castle Rock Film Festival

The 3rd annual Castle Rock Film Festival will have the following terms and conditions for all submissions for the 2024 festival year.

1.SUBMISSIONS LENGTH AND CATEGORIES
In all categories, all films must be at 30 minutes or less. We will not accept any film that is more than 30 minutes in fairness of all submissions. There will be four categories for films, and the following categories are the ones filmmakers can submit to:
A. Documentary Films (short)
B. Short Narrative Films
C. Music Videos
D. Experimental Films

2. ALL-INCLUSIVE SPACES (ALL STORIES WELCOME)
Castle Rock is a town where everyone comes to truly live. For this reason we accept films (inside of our length parameters) including LGBTQ, BiPOC, LatinX, Asian and all themes and characters. We do not accept films that portray hatred, sexism or racism in a positive light. The determination of a violation of our terms for submission will be determined by our panel of judges. All films will be judged on a basis of fairness by our panel for their quality.

3. SCREENINGS/USE OF IMAGES
To be selected for this festival is to give full rights to the Castle Rock Film Festival to use images, shots, sound, and music from the film in order to promote the festival and its screenings. We reserve the right to use images, shots, sound and music from the movie pre- and post-festival in order to promote subsequent festival screenings.
* We also reserve the right to use the film in future screenings, pop-up events, Q&A sessions with the filmmaker, interviews with the filmmaker, and in video promotion for the festival including but not limited to social media, tv, internet ads, or traditional media.

All films selected for the festival will have a screening in our venue, THE THEATRE OF DREAMS in beautiful Castle Rock, Colorado. Selection in the festival gives the filmmaker one ticket for the festival screening to the night their screening will commence.

4. ATTENDANCE
This festival is open to submissions from all over the world, and attendance is not mandatory for filmmakers to be eligible to become finalists or receive any award. Each filmmaker will be given the chance (if they cannot attend physically) to attend virtually for the Q&A.

5. LAURELS AND OFFICIAL SELECTION
Upon official selection to the festival the festival will send you an official Logo for Official selection for the Castle Rock Film Festival. Please feel free to use whichever laurel is more fitting for your film. However, we will only release our custom festival laurel for winners and finalists.

6. SOCIAL MEDIA
We use social media to share all updates of your selection to the Castle Rock Film Festival.

Please note, we take all films based on their quality and social media, connections to the festival, critical reception, or any other metric other than the film's overall storytelling and technical expertise will have any bearing on the film's selection, becoming a finalist or award winner.

7. CASTLE ROCK CITIZENS

In order to encourage youth participation and local creation, the Castle Rock Film Festival will have no fee for Castle Rock residents. A filmmaker must be able to prove their residence in Castle Rock and their submission fee will be waived by the use of a waiver code. One waiver code will be issued by filmmaker by film.

The Castle Rock Film Festival reserves the right to at any time to disqualify the filmmaker or film for any violation of the rules or terms above at any time.

This festival is sponsored by the Castle Rock Arts Alliance, a Colorado 501c3 nonprofit.

8. Resubmissions- please note, if your film wasn’t chosen for one season, we are happy to accept your film again the next season. However we cannot promise a festival slot based on a filmmakers decision to submit twice. We also must caution that no film completed before 2022 can be submitted.