The GOLDEN TREE International Documentary Film Festival (GTIDFF), founded in 2016, takes place every fall in Europe. The Festival’s aim is to focus the world’s attention on documentaries, encourage the exhibition of quality films worldwide , deeply explore different cultures and countries, and promote mutual exchanges and learning through the art of cinematography.
The theme of the 7th GOLDEN TREE International Documentary Film Festival is “Roots of Culture”, focusing on habitat and other areas of human existence, including social changes, environment and other content. The Golden Tree Festival has units such as film competition, Golden Fruit Plan pitching, opening ceremony and documentary night, film screening, theme forum, round table conference, closing and award ceremony.
1 Film Competition
1.1 Registration will start on January 10, 2022 and close on June 30.
1.2 Evaluation process is divided into three stages: preliminary evaluation, pre-selection and final jury.
1.3 The jury group is composed of 44 experts, scholars and professionals from all over the world, divided into a preliminary jury (30), a pre-selection jury (7) and a final jury (7).
1.4 Awards announcement: The final winning films will be announced at the closing and awards ceremony.
1.5 Other information refers to "Details of Film Competition Unit".
2 Golden Fruit Plan pitching
The "Golden Fruit Plan" is a collaboration of GTIDFF, Poland's Arkana Film Studio (Arkana Film Studio) and Adam Mickiewicz Institute. The pitching will focus on young documentary directors and extend to Global documentary field.
2.1 Purpose of the plan: the Golden Fruit Plan is a supportive training and outstanding project funding plan aimed at discovering and cultivating young directors in the documentary industry.
2.2 Participation qualifications: young documentary directors from China and European countries.
2.3 Training: The proposals that pass the preliminary selection will receive one-on-one training from the special tutor invited by GTIDFF.
2.4 Funding: Each year, the Golden Tree Festival will award 500 Euros for each of the 4 award-winning proposals, and invite the winning directors to participate in the next year's Golden Tree Festival closing and awards ceremony, and the Golden Tree Festival will bear the transportation and accommodation expenses.
2.5 Investment: Golden Tree Festival will introduce investment funds to invest all or part of outstanding projects.
2.6 Other information refers to the "Details of the Golden Fruit Plan”.
3 Opening Ceremony and Documentary Night
The opening ceremony of the 7th Golden Tree Festival will be held in Paris, France, and an exchange reception will follow the ceremony.
4 Film screening
During the Golden Tree Festival, 20 shortlisted films will be selected for screening, and the creative teams will be invited to the scene to share the story behind the creation of the documentary with the audience face to face. At the same time, the films would also be shown in schools, communities, small theaters and other places for free. Online screening would be held in the column of Golden Tree Festival on famous online video platforms.
5 Forum
During the Golden Tree Festival, two documentary-themed international forums will be held in Paris, France.
6 Round table meeting
During the Golden Tree Festival, a number of thematic round tables will be arranged, covering multiple sub-topics such as technical cooperation, business cooperation, investment, and procurement.
7 Closing and Award Ceremony
The 7th Golden Tree Festival has 7 awards including the Golden Tree Award, the Best Long Documentary Award, the Best Medium-length Documentary Award, the Best Short Documentary Award, the Best Director Award, the Best Cinematography Award, and the Best Completion of GFP Award. The award and closing ceremony will be held in Paris, France.
GTIDFF encourages the participation of filmmakers with documentaries that are culturally relevant, unique, innovative and meaningful.
There is no registration fee. Proof of registration entitles you to two (2) free passes to the GOLDEN TREE Festival, giving you access to all of the 7th GTIDFF industry activities.
Theme, Time and Location:
2021 Theme: Roots of Culture
Festival date : TBD
Location: Paris, France
Accepting submission between : January 10, 2022 - June 30, 2022.
Film length definition:
Documentary Feature: Longer than 60 minutes;
Documentary Medium-Length: 20-60 minutes (including 60 minutes);
Documentary Short: 20 minutes or less (including 20 minutes);
Awards and Prize
1 Golden Tree, Prize 5,000 Euro
2 Best Feature Documentary, Prize 5,000 Euro
3 Best Medium-length Documentary, Prize 2,000 Euro
4 Best Short Documentary, Prize 2,000 Euro
5 Best Director, Prize 1,500 Euro
6 Best Cinematography, Prize 1,500 Euro
7 Best Completion of GFP, Prize 1,000 Euro