Please read this document carefully before submitting your work and contact the festival committee if there are any questions. Applicants who complete the registration process implicitly agree to the rules and terms outlined within this document. CineCina Short Films Awards Committee reserves the rights to make final decisions and interpretations for the cases not described clearly below.
1. Mission Statement
CineCina Film Festival (CineCina) is a New York-based organization focused on discovering the best Chinese cinema. The main goal of CineCina Film Festival is to build an international platform to exhibit Chinese films. Located in New York, CineCina has the opportunity to exhibit films to more people and promote cultural exchange among diverse audiences. Overall, CineCina hopes to become an incubator for Chinese art-house cinema. The inauguration of CineCina Film Festival will take place on April 5th, 2018 in New York.
2. General Rules and Regulations
2.1. The Film Must Satisfy at least One of the Conditions Below
- The main language of the film is in Chinese or a Chinese dialect (including Mongolian, Tibetan, etc. )
- At least one of the key creative members is of Chinese ethnicity (e.g. director, screenwriter, lead actor/actress, cinematographer, and editor)
- The film’s content focuses on Chinese society, Chinese culture or the lives of Chinese people.
2.2. Registration and Competition Schedule
- Regular Submission Deadline: January 31, 2019 (Entry fee: $40)
- Extended Submission Deadline: February 20, 2019 (Entry fee: $60)
- Finalists Announced: March 2019
- Winners Announced: April 19, 2019
Note: All materials must be received by the committee by the submission deadline above (11 pm ETS ).
2.3. Submitted Films Must Adhere to the Following Requirements
- The work must be entirely original. Any plagiarism will result in disqualification;
- There is no restriction on the theme or format of the submission. Submissions may include but are not limited to narrative, documentary, experimental, and animated films. However, the contents must not violate any law of the People’s Republic of China and the United States of America;
- All the applicants should be directly contactable by the CineCina organizers and able to reply within 48 hours;
- Applicants must hold the film’s copyright or have proof that they are authorized to promote, screen, and participate in related activities at this festival;
- Applicants have the obligation to ensure the legal status of the film itself. In the event of a legal dispute (e.g., any copyright infringement including but not limited to the rights to music, stills, or videos featured in the submission) before, during, or after the film festival, the applicant will assume full legal responsibility and bear all costs related to the dispute (including attorney and court fees).
2.4. Eligibility Requirements
- CineCina’s definition of a short film is 25 minutes or less;
- The entry must be a motion picture, with completed production date after January 1, 2017;
- Every applicant may submit no more than three films (not including representative of an agency or a company).
- Each film can only be submitted to one category.
- The film has not been released or distributed (including online distribution) in any area and will not be released in full on any other online platform during CineCina Film Festival;
- CineCina Short Film Award’s jury is from both China and U.S.. All submissions are required to have embed English subtitles, costs of subtitling to be covered by the applicants.
2.5. The main competition has subcategories include:
Narrative Short Film
Experimental/Animation Short Film
Documentary Short Film
3. Submission Guidelines
3.1. Read Rules and Regulations, if you have any question, please contact the festival programming committee. (Contact: info@cinecina.co）
3.2. Complete the Online Submission through FilmFreeway (https://filmfreeway.com/CineCinaFilmFestival).
* Additional info:
- All materials submitted by applicants are non-returnable, please be sure to retain the original;
- Once successfully submitted works, in principle, the organizing committee is no longer accepting new versions, if there are significant changes in registration information, please contact the organizing committee;
- The festival will be set up promotional pages and hashtags on social media platforms to introduce CineCina’s participants and their works, online interaction with the audience are welcomed.
4. Programming and Selection
4.1. Initial Review
The festival organizing committee will conduct a preliminary selection and classification of all entries, filtering out those films, which do not meet the festival’s requirements.
4.2. Nomination progress
- The first round of nominated films will be deliberated and selected by CineCina committee;
- All the nominated films will be taken on a road show in collaborated film schools including Columbia SOA, NYU Tisch, SVA, Yale, etc. The organizing committee will hand out ballots to the audience before every screening, and collect the votes after every screening.
- After collecting the jury’s scores, awardees and selected nominated films will be put on the big screens with other feature films at CineCina Film Festival in April.
- Q&A sessions are eligible for filmmakers who are can participate in the CineCina Film Festival in April.
4.3. Awards
- All awardees will be announced at the Closing Ceremony.
- Prizes will be distributed to winners within 6-8 weeks after the closing of the festival.
- Winners will receive a trophy, more details will be announced in the future.
- Please refer to the following table for each award in all categories, the organizing committee will adjust and revise the awards based on participating films in each category, and announce the updates along with the finalists.
4.4. Competition
Best Narrative Short 最佳剧情短片奖
Best Documentary Short 最佳纪录短片奖
Best Animation/Experimental Short 最佳动画/实验短片奖
Special Jury Award 评委会大奖
Audience Award 观众选择奖
Promising Filmmaker Award 最具潜力奖
Innovation Award 创造力大奖
Her Perspective Award 巾帼奖
Diversity Award 多元文化奖
* The festival committee has the final rights to alter the awards and competition categories.
5. Authorization
5.1. The finalists are required to authorize the committee to use clips from the film ( no more than 3 minutes) and related information (including screenshots, posters, stills, abstract, trailers, etc. ) on the festival's official website, radio, television, print media, social media, and other forms of media used to promote the festival;
5.2. Once the applicants accept the festival nomination they may not withdraw from the competition, finalists are required to give the programming committee the rights to screen the film at least one time in New York metro area.
5.3. Invitation to CineCina
The nominated director (producer, or another designated representative from the production team) will be invited to New York to attend a 15-day festival and other related activities including a post-screening Q&A with the audience and filmmakers’ forum and discussion panel. Finalists are independently responsible for obtaining a visa for travel to the U.S. and travel insurance.
*The festival committee can provide an invitation letter if needed.
Contact:
Wechat:CineCinaSFA
