Martinsburg Apollo Film Festival

By submitting to the festival, you are agreeing that you comply with all our rules and terms. You accept full responsibility and liability for violating these rules.

You cannot sell anything at the festival without our permission in writing.

You must have release forms signed by all your actors and actresses (or guardian if under 18), but we do not require you submit documentation to us.

You must own the film, or have permission from the owner to submit the film. The person that submits the film will receive the free all-access pass, unless they tell us to give it to someone else by name.

Legally, if you are selling (monetizing) your film anywhere, you must have rights to the music. If you are not selling or monetizing your film in any way (not even youtube), this is not necessary. Personally, we don't care, but you should obey the law. No proof or documentation is required.

Some nudity is allowed, but not pornography.

Film must be completed in the past 5 years. We will check the copyright date at the end of your credits to verify.

Please don't request that we waive the entry fee. We have done it in the past only for a few films from countries that are not allowed to do business with the USA, but it needs to be a very good film. No US or European films will receive a waiver. We kept our fees very low so anyone can enter, so please don't ask for a freebie.

Films cannot be submitted a second time, unless rejected and significantly improved. This means that if you submitted to the Berkeley Spring Film Festival in the past 5 years, you cannot submit the same film to this festival unless you have made major changes. If you really want to, have a very good reason, and your film is local, let us know. We might make an exception, but you need to communicate with us via email before submitting.

You agree we can use clips, screenshots and artwork to promote the festival, but you maintain all rights to your film. We will only show your film in it's entirety during the festival. Never before or after the festival.

Your film may currently be in distribution or available online. We don't care, as long as you don't violate any existing contracts with your distributors, etc. No need to provide proof, just be honest with us.

Any foreign language in the film must be accompanied by English subtitles. Please burn them in (permanently on).

To qualify as a Student Film, Director must be 21 or younger when the film was made (Director does not have to be a student at the time), OR Director can be any age and enrolled in a film class or program when the film was made.

Film must be submitted via FilmFreeway, in MP4 H.264 format, without any watermarks, ready to be screened at the festival. We currently cannot play H.265 but we are going to try to support it by the time the festival arrives. We suggest 24 fps for short films because they will be edited with other shorts into a single 24 fps film block and may cause jitter at other frame rates. Any frame rate for features is acceptable. We will be presenting at an aspect radio of 16:9 so please letterbox if you shot at a different aspect radio. It must be a fully expanded frame, not compressed for CinemaScope. We don't do CinemaScope. We will only download your film once, when submitted for acceptance, so do not submit incomplete films with the expectation of sending us another version later. We will not do that. It messes up our workflow. This means no watermarks/screeners.

Please make sure your film has sufficient audio levels (approximately -12 dB to -6 dB) on left and/or right channels. We suggest playing your MP4 on your TV. If you click to a TV channel and the audio is about the same level as your film, you are good! We are no super picky, but will not accept films with audio at -20 and peaks at 0. We will have to crank the audio to hear it in a theater, then blow out the speakers on peaks. Been there, done that. No more. Get your audio at reasonable levels! We are terribly picky, anything close will work. Make sure you have stereo tracks. This is a new theater and I'm not sure it supports 5.1.

We absolutely will not accept films that are:
- About COVID.
- Political.
- Trying to sell or promote something.

The following are not exclusive rules, but we are inclined to choose films that ARE:
- At least full HD (1080)
- Good quality sound.
- Camera work that doesn't make the audience sea sick.
- We generally are not interested in victim films (i.e. sad stories about people being abused) unless it is a horror film.
- All things equal, we give a preference to local films made in or about or by filmmakers from WV, VA, DC, MD, PA. If you are local, and your film meets the minimum requirements, you film will very likely be accepted. We are also interested in quality entertaining films from around the world.

If for some reason the festival must be cancelled (i.e. new COVID restrictions, etc.), we will include your film in the festival at a later time. If your distribution contract precludes it at that time, we will pull your film at your request. We will not have the festival online. Either it will be held in-person as scheduled, or rescheduled or cancelled. There will be no refunds for any reason.

All communication will be via email, so PLEASE CHECK YOUR EMAIL OFTEN. If you do not respond within a reasonable amount of time, we will remove your film from our festival.