Elevation

Elevation is a in-person festival with live audience screenings in our venues. It is a not-for-profit film festival with film submission fee income going directly toward the costs of reviewing films, programming, hosting and running the festival. Elevation is a not for profit Community Interest Company, in collaboration with Real Ideas Organisation which is a social enterprise operating within Plymouth.

We welcome entries from any territory, worldwide.

Elevation accepts short, mid and feature length films with a particular focus on artistic, non-narrative, poetic, experimental and underground film. Based in Cornwall, we are also interested in films made in Cornwall of any genre. Where possible, we will support the screening of analog film formats in 8mm and 16mm.

We do not require premiere-status, we are a fully inclusive festival and it is fine if your work has already screened at other festivals or galleries.

If there is dialogue or narration in your film, we require films to have English dialogue or English subtitles at the point of submission.

We regret we do not have the capacity to provide individual feedback on unsuccessful entries.

The festival will take place over an evening and two full days at Devonport Guildhall and Market Hall, as well as installations and workshops in Maker Heights, both in the South West, UK.

Films will be reviewed by a programming team who uphold a strong commitment to meritocratic principles of fairness, equality and diversity within their reviewing processes and programming decisions. Every submitted film is reviewed by at least two members of our programming team before being shortlisted.

Selected films will be presented either as standalone feature presentations, within curated short film programmes or within an installation/expanded cinema format.

If your film is selected, we will require your digital screening copy and any requested film information (for the programme) to be delivered or made available for download at least three weeks prior to the festival start-date. If you are unable to do this on time, it will sadly result in your film being withdrawn from the programme.

Once a film has been formally accepted to the programme, you may not withdraw your entry at a later date.

If you are unsure whether your film fits in terms of genre, before committing to pay the submission fee, you are welcome to contact us and we will do our best to respond, time and capacity permitting.

If circumstances prevent you from being able to pay the film submission fee, we operate a 'no questions asked' fee waiver policy. Please just contact us.

We are working toward a artist fee-paying model for the festival, but due to limited funding, we regret we unable to pay screening fees for selected films at this time.