HBO Max APA Visionaries Short Film Competition

FREE TO SUBMIT. There is no entry fee to submit your film to this Competition.

1. Director and Co-director(s) must be a resident of one of the 50 United States or Washington, D.C.

2. Films must have been directed by a person of Asian or Pacific Islander descent [i.e., descendants of the people of the Far East, Southeast Asia, Indian subcontinent or Pacific Islands (e.g., China, India, Japan, Korea, the Philippine Islands and Samoa)].

3. Director and Co-director(s) must be at least 18 years of age and of the age of majority in their state of residence (i.e., 19 years of age in Alabama and Nebraska; 21 years of age in Mississippi) as of March 1, 2022.

4. Films must be an original live action narrative (no documentaries or animation).

5. Videos must be recorded in 16:9 aspect ratio with a minimum resolution of 720p and be encoded in h264 Quicktime MOV format. Potential Winners will be contacted by email with instructions to submit a higher quality version of the Film for festival and broadcast premieres [D-Cinema (DCP, NTSC only) as an .MOV file, conforming to Apple ProRes 422 HQ (1920 x 1080 24p 48kHz)] which must be received by 11:59 PM PST on April 24, 2022.

6. Running time (inclusive of credits): 10-15 minutes. Film must be a minimum of 10 minutes in length; submissions shorter than 10 minutes in length will be disqualified. Films must be a maximum of 15 minutes in length (inclusive of title sequence and closing credits); if a submission is longer than 15 minutes in length, only the first 15 minutes of the Film will be judged. Videos longer than 17 minutes will be disqualified.

7. Films must be in the English language or contain accurate English subtitles (common foreign words/phrases are acceptable without subtitles).

8. If the Submission contains any person(s) other than the entrant, by entering this Competition, entrant attests that he/she has received permission from other person(s) depicted in the film Submission [and from parent/legal guardian if other person(s) depicted are considered minors in their jurisdictions of residence] for Sponsor to use their names/likenesses in the Film and for publicity including, but not limited to exhibition on all broadcast and digital media and must make written copies of such permissions available to the Sponsor upon request.

9. If you are determined a potential winner, any people (or the parent or legal guardian for any minors) depicted in film Submission may be required to sign a publicity release at the sole discretion of the Sponsor. Entrant must make written copies of such permissions available to the Sponsor upon request.

10. Film must not be publicly available online through May 31, 2022.

11. Film must have commenced principal photography on or after January 1, 2021.

12. Film must not have had any previous exhibition on broadcast or cable (by means of any method or medium) or online.

13. Employees of WarnerMedia, Direct, LLC (“Sponsor”), Home Box Office, Inc., Warner Media, LLC., Don Jagoda Associates, Inc. (“Administrator”), The Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment (“CAPE”), Visual Communications, FilmFreeway, Vimeo, Inc., YouTube, and their respective affiliates, subsidiaries, advertising and promotion agencies (collectively, the “Promotion Entities”) and the immediate family members and/or those living in the same household of each are not eligible.

14. Once completed, submit your film to the HBO Max APA Visionaries Short Film Competition via FilmFreeway. Follow the on-screen directions to create an account on FilmFreeway and complete your entry. An acknowledgment of the Official Short Film Rules and Official Short Film Competition Release is required to be entered into the Competition.

15. Submissions for the Competition officially open on January 18, 2022 at 9:00 AM PST and will be accepted through March 1, 2022 at 11:59 PM PST.

16. Limit one entry per person.

Please see Official Rules document (https://bit.ly/326g5ya) for more information on the Rules & Terms.