Silhouette Film Festival Terms and Conditions
1. ORGANIZATION
The Silhouette Festival is organized by the Silhouette Association (named below “Silhouette”), a non-profit organization whose responsibilities include, amongst others, the selection of the Festival program and competing films.
The Silhouette Festival aims at screening and promoting short films to a large audience. Screenings (open air and indoor) are free.
The Festival's 23rd edition will take place in Paris, France, in early September 2024 (dates to be announced shortly).
2. CONDITIONS FOR SUBMISSION
The Festival is open to all short film directors and producers, regardless of their country of origin. All shooting formats are accepted. The accepted screening files are high definition files (Apple ProRes 422).
Should the film be selected to the festival, it is necessary to give a clear copy of the film without subtitles (viewing copies need to have either English or French subtitles).
The length of the films must not exceed 59 minutes, except for documentary films, which must not exceed 45 minutes.
The deadline for submission is March 1st 2024. Submission is free and made online. It implies the acceptance of the present terms.
3. SELECTION PROCESS
The Selection committee is composed of Silhouette programmers, who are responsible for the film selections (International Selection, Official Competition and parallel selections). Every film submitted is watched by the committee.
Applicants will be informed of the selection of their film in July. The final selection form must be filled, signed and sent back to the Festival in time in order for the film to be selected. If selected, please provide the format you announced when filling in the submission form.
The final selection is validated only when the availability of a screening device is confirmed to the Festival. In case of selection, the screening support filled during the submission must be respected (Apple ProRes 422 without subtitles).
The Festival reserves the right to withdraw a film from the selection if circumstances arise that do not follow our guidelines/convictions.
The Festival selection will be announced in July 2024 on the Silhouette Festival website.
4. SCREENING PROCESS
Selected film prints/tapes must be sent to the Festival office before July 10th 2024 for films already subtitled in French, and before July 3rd 2024 for films still to be subtitled in French.
Sending costs are to be born by the participants only for one-way. The return costs are born by Silhouette Festival.
At least three stills must be e-mailed to the Festival in high-resolution (JPEG format, 300 DPI).
No defective prints/tapes will be accepted for the Festival screenings. Applicants requiring extra care for their prints should notify it when sending the copy.
For foreign language films, Silhouette will undertake the subtitling in French of the films received without subtitles, at its own expenses.
Apart from payments that may be owed to collecting societies (should the films be eligible to these payments), screenings of the selected films are not compensated.
The Festival insurance coverage of the films is effective from delivery of the print/tape at our office to their pick-up by carriers for return shipment.
In case of damage or loss of the film, the liability of the Festival cannot exceed the cost of a new print of the film calculated on the basis of a net price, according to the rates applied in the country of production.
In case of a major problem, Silhouette may cancel the event without any compensation.
5. FESTIVAL AND FILMS PROMOTION
Right holders grant Silhouette, without compensation, the right to reproduce excerpts of the films (excerpts limited to 10% of the duration of the film and in any case shall not exceed 3 minutes), stills, synopsis and/or any other texts related to their films for promotional purposes of the Festival, on any support and any media, press and the Internet included.
The producers also hereby guarantee that they have the legal authority to grant such rights and have cleared all rights related to the films (including, but not limited, to the music).
In order to promote the official Selection of the Festival, the awarded films can be screened until the May 1st 2025 in the limit of 4 screenings maximum. Right owners will be informed of each screening. Right owners allow Silhouette to keep the copy of the film provided previously for the Festival screenings.
6. AWARDS
All the films screened open air make up the International Competition and thus compete for the Public Awards.
The films making up the Official Competition are chosen among the International Competition films and the parallel line-up. These films compete for the Jury Awards and the Youth Jury Award.
Awards are given to the filmmakers of the award-winner films and cannot be transferred to third parties, apart from the Best Photography for a French Film award which is given to the Director of Photography of the film.
A confirmation e-mail will be sent over in July to specify the section(s) in which the film will be presented and the details of the prizes. Award-winner films are encouraged to use this label for promotional purposes: “[Award title] – Silhouette 2024”.
7. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
The signatory of the present document certifies to have the full ownership of the rights granted above on the submitted film according to our regulations, and acknowledges that Silhouette is not liable for any claims or expenses asked from any third party regarding rights matter. Silhouette shall be granted the rights for subtitling the film in French, if needed.
8. ARCHIVE
In order to create a short film resource centre, which is to be located in our office and which access is to be restricted to Silhouette members or users of the “videothèque” only, submitted films will be kept and may be transferred for a better preservation on a new device (digitalization or copy). Silhouette may also use the films for its educational and non-commercial activities.
9. REGISTRATION CONDITIONS
Submitting a film to the festival and participating in the festival implies the full acceptance of the terms mentioned here above.
