Now Accepting Film Submissions for the 2024 Festival!
Moving images, moving bodies. Movement and film just go together. From the early experiments of artists like Loie Fuller and physical comedians like Charlie Chaplin, to the lush spectacle of the movie musicals of the 1930s and 40s starring dancer/choreographers like Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and Fred Astaire, to the avant-garde movement with the likes of Maya Daren and Merce Cunningham, to Damien Jalet’s collaboration with musician Thom Yorke and filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson—moving bodies and the camera have shared an ongoing, dynamic conversation.
ADF’s Movies By Movers is a multi-faceted festival, dedicated to the celebration of conversation between body, movement, and camera. We want to share the collaborative history between the ephemeral art of live performance and the perpetual nature of film. And we love receiving new expressions of these forms from all over the world from artists like you. Students, emerging artists, seasoned professionals, even those who would not consider themselves “artists” but have great ideas find room on our screens to share their craft.
Categories: Professional Shorts (2–15 min.), Professional Features (15-60 min.), films made or with origins in ADF’s Historic Locations (North Carolina, Connecticut, California, and Vermont), 90 second (and under) dance films, and Student categories.
While ADF’s Movies By Movers is, by all accounts, a dance film festival, our definition of dance is broad and includes movement that may test the genre. Modern dance, ballet, jazz, cirque, parkour, skating, butoh, martial arts, and maybe even sports—we will consider it all! We invite you to keep us on our toes, literally, and help us keep pushing boundaries and redefining definitions. We welcome work by students and emerging and established artists. Films of any genre – experimental, documentary, animation, narrative – are welcome, as long as movement (of any genre) is a strong component.
We live at the intersection of movement and filmmaking, inviting site-specific, media-specific work demonstrating thoughtful collaborations between moving bodies and film to apply. In other words, we are not looking for archival footage or documentation of performances but work that highlights experimentation, visual intimacy, and attention to detail.
Submission Deadline: August 2, 2024
More details upon acceptance.
All films are celebrated equally! Artists who's work is selected are invited to join us at the American Dance Festival for screenings, free ADF classes and tickets to one live performance. More details upon acceptance.
