The Mental Health Foundation Australia’s Multicultural Mental Health Film Festival invites film submissions from the 9th of August to October 1st, with the awarding and closing ceremony scheduled for October 31st.
This festival hopes to be a force that recognises, acknowledges, and showcases the way that mental illness can affect and appear in multicultural communities. We hope to use film to detail, educate and promote awareness of multicultural mental health issues within Australian communities.
We hope that through this showcase of multicultural mental health stories, we can assist in removing mental health stigma, as we bring communities together to support each other; and support better mental health for all. Mental illness can come in many forms: addictions, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, insomnias, OCD, PTSD, personality disorders, phobias, and schizophrenic disorders.
This festival seeks submissions from filmmakers who have lived experiences or wish to present fictitious or real stories about those suffering from mental illness in multicultural communities.
The Mental Health Foundation Australia is seeking films that range from horror, comedy, science-fiction, romance, surrealism, and all other genres and sub-genres.
We seek films from Australia's largest ethnic and cultural groups, the Chinese, Filipino, German, Greek, Indigenous-Australian, Italian, Jewish, Lebanese, Punjab, Spanish, and Vietnamese to name a few communities.
To ensure that young, emerging multicultural filmmakers get a chance at showcasing their work, we have capped the age limit of the filmmakers to 35 years old.
The Categories for the films will be as follows:
- Best Live-Action Short Film (Narrative and Non-Narrative)
- Best Animation Short Film
- Best Documentary Short Film (Non-Fiction)
- Best Cinematography
The judging process will focus on the film's relevance to the festival's criteria, and only a handful of films per category will be chosen for screening during the awarding ceremony.
Successful films will receive laurels to promote their official selection across their social media and their relevant websites. The winners of each category will receive an engraved trophy and the winner of Best Live-Action Short Film will receive a $500 cash prize.
The winner of Best Cinematography will receive a free one-year membership to the Australian Cinematographers Society (ACS), and have their film co-judged by members of the Society.
