Reel Teal Film Festival is a student-run film festival presented by members of the Flicker Film Society at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Reel Teal aims to present innovative films from filmmakers, students, and enthusiasts, and to promote a community that fosters competition and cinematic diversity. Complete with a teal carpet, photographers, and Q&A with filmmakers, Reel Teal encompasses all your film festival and award show needs.

Every year we bring the best local productions alongside the best international selections to offer a red carpet night of short films. We create an environment that is equally satisfying to the big production filmmaker as it is to the everyman college student.

As we go into our 14th year, we have huge aspirations. Last year was very successful with over 5,000 submissions and we hope to raise the bar even higher for this year. In order to encourage a stronger curation of unique films, we have implemented a small submission fee of one to ten dollars. The festival is also discounted for student filmmakers.

We invite all filmmakers to join us for a Q&A afterwards. With Reel Teal, we want to stress the duality of amateur and professional, artistic and entertaining. As always, we’re more than proud to have our event in Wilmington, North Carolina, home to one of the largest film communities east of Hollywood.

The event will be split up into two screening blocks. These blocks will be feature a filmmakers' lounge in between to give a chance for our guests to mingle with some of the top filmmakers of the year.

We will have an awards show following the festival to present the cash prizes and trophies to the winning filmmakers.

Awards & Prizes

We will award one $150 Grand Prize and one $50 Audience Choice Prizes during the festival in the form of either cash or check. All winners will be announced during the awards ceremony at the end of the night.

In the event that a filmmaker cannot make it to the festival, we will mail the trophy to them, as long as they reside within the United States of America. We will mail the cash prize internationally.

Rules & Terms

GENERAL RULES

Information Concerning Reel Teal Film Festival

Notice: You may submit a maximum of one film to this festival. In the case that someone does submit more than one film, we will disqualify them from the festival and they will not be allowed to submit any more films without disqualification. If you want to change your submission, please withdraw your original submission and submit your new submission.

Section 1: Format Requirements

When submitting, you must have a screener available on FilmFreeway, Vimeo, or another video streaming service.

If your film is selected for the festival, we will be in contact with you to receive the full quality file via an online file sharing service, or through a physical disc-based copy.

Section 2: Content Requirements

All submitted films must be under 15 minutes total runtime.

There is no required MPAA rating or specific content restriction; however, Reel Teal Film Festival encourages and promotes Filmmakers who do not use superfluous violence, nudity, language, or other cultural taboos as a substitution for real, thought-provoking content.

All Films that use a language other than English for more than ⅓ of total running time are required to either have A. English subtitles during the parts the foreign language is used or B. an English dub over the foreign language.

It is not Reel Teal Film Festival’s responsibility to screen for potential copyright infringements or deny acceptance based on the possibility of such an infringement. If the Filmmaker responsible for the infringement is caught due to the materials exhibition during the Festival, or an infringement is noticed by a festival attendee, no legal recourse can be taken against Reel Teal for whatever reason.

Section 3: All Other

Reel Teal Film Festival will send out emails to the Filmmakers whose Films were selected by December 30th, 2016. If you have not received an email by that date (sent to whichever address the entrant chooses in the entry form), check your spam filter. If you have not received any notification by January 1st, then unfortunately your film was not selected.

For those who do receive an email, please reply ASAP in order to confirm.

As a part of the festival, there will be a special Filmmaker Q/A section where audience members will engage with Filmmakers with various questions. If your film is selected please send a representative up during this portion to answer on behalf of the film - this could be you, a DP, producer, writer, etc. If you, or a representative, cannot attend the festival, it will not be held against you, however, please let us know so we can make name badges accordingly.
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  • Lucy Collins

    Such a great experience! So happy to have been included!

    March 2021
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  • Catalina Altuna

    Great festival, great communication. I'm very happy that my shortfilm Unheimlich was chosen. Thank you very much!!

    March 2021
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  • Chris Chism

    What a great festival. Very small but a lot of effort was put in to make it really wonderful. I'm super excited that I got to premiere my film there and plan to submit in the future.

    February 2020
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  • Max Shoham

    What an outstanding Festival to bring Student Filmmakers together! I am deeply honoured to have one of my films chosen, and can't wait to submit again next year.

    February 2018
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