Southern Shorts Awards

ENTRY FAQ

PLEASE NOTE!
PARTICIPATION IS MANDATORY FOR ALL SELECTED FILMS.
If your film is selected for screening, the Producer and/or Director must either attend the online Awards Presentation or send in an acceptance speech video prior to the festival. If no one represents your film at the Awards Presentation and you do not send in an acceptance speech video you will forfeit all awards and you will not receive laurels.

Films should be available on FilmFreeway directly as our management system does not support using links to other sites,

STUDENT CATEGORY - The Student Category is available ONLY to those 21 or younger. If you enter incorrectly you will be disqualified and refunded so that you can enter through one of the other categories. Please note that ALL Animations must be entered in the Animation category, we do not accept Animations in the Student category.

MADE IN GEORGIA RULE - The Producer and/or Director of films selected for screening in this category are REQUIRED to attend the festival - this is MANDATORY.

PLEASE NOTE: We accept films from all over the world, we are called the Southern Shorts Awards because we are based in Georgia.

Films must be less than 30 minutes in length to enter this festival.

Preferred: An H264 or MP4 file compressed from the original 1080p or 720P master.
Minimum Acceptable: An H264 or MP4 file at 480i. Do not rip from a DVD unless you have no other option.
• We prefer that you upload directly to FilmFreeway without a password.
• We prefer Vimeo over YouTube as a hosting platform.
• Do NOT enable ads on your film or it will be immediately disqualified without refund.
• Do NOT put logo bugs or any other overlays on the film.
• Do NOT start your film with a countdown slate, they are no longer used.
• Do NOT start your film with a screen showing awards/laurels from previous festivals. This is pretentious and a waste of our judges time.
• Try to keep end credits to 60 seconds or less. (All film festivals hate long end credits BTW, so it's best to make a separate version for festivals.)
• We do NOT accept pornographic, or hate films or films with religious or political agendas.
• We do not accept music or dance videos.
• We do not accept experimental films.
• Commercials, PSA's, trailers, and other other types of films not categorized here can only be entered in the Review Only category.
• Laurels are ONLY awarded to those films which are shown at the festival and are not sent until after the festival.
• All films are scored and may receive a awards for the film and/or cast and/or crew.
• We ONLY screen the top 3 award-winning films in each genre and films scoring 70 or higher. So your film may receive an award yet NOT be accepted for the festival.

STUDENT ENTRY FEE
PLEASE NOTE: Films must be produced by those under 21. This category is not for filmmakers with professional experience. We reserve the right to reclassify any entry into the Student category. If rejected, you will be refunded and must re-enter under the proper genre at the non-Student entry fee.

REVIEW ONLY
In order to accommodate those films which do not fit into our stated genres, we offer the option of choosing the REVIEW ONLY category. These films will be scored, receive judges comments and can earn awards, but they will NOT be eligible for festival participation. We reserve the right to move films incorrectly submitted into the Review Only category at our discretion.

PLEASE NOTE
• We do not grant fee waivers under any circumstance.
• All films must earn the privilege of being screened at our festival. We do not choose or 'curate' our films, they are selected by score alone. In addition to scoring as one of the top three in their genre, all films must score a minimum of 75 to be included in the festival. Films scoring 80 or higher may be shown even if they are not in the top three of their genre. This will be dependent on the time available for programming. Top three films scoring 70-74 will be considered for screening at the discretion of the festival director.
• We do not pay screening fees.

RULES

1. This is a seasonal short film competition with the running time limited to 30 minutes, including titles and credits. Entries with a run time longer than 30 minutes will be disqualified.

2. Non-English speaking films must be sub-titled to be accepted. Subtitles must be readable! It is the filmmaker's responsibility to ensure that the subtitles on their films are legible. They may look fine on your final edit, but once you have uploaded them to a site such as Vimeo, their recompression may cause them to become indistinct, especially against light backgrounds. Our preference is to use a font such as Helvetica in white with a black outline to make sure that it can be seen on any background.
Also, all credits MUST be in ENGLISH in order for award certificates to have the winners' name. Otherwise we will just list the category. For example, if we can't tell who was the editor because the credits aren't in English, the award will just be for editing and will not list the editor's name.

3. All works must be submitted digitally online directly to FilmFreeway. Do NOT use Dropbox, We Transfer or any similar file-sharing service.

4. We have no ‘completion by’ deadlines. We will accept any short film regardless of when it was produced.

5. Works in progress will NOT be accepted for submission.

6. Make sure you are submitting the final version as you cannot change the link to your film once it's been submitted.

7. Films may be resubmitted in future competitions IF they have been re-edited. Resubmissions are not discounted as they go through the same judging process.

8. We do not accept pornographic, propaganda or hate films, films with specific political agendas or those promoting or proselytizing any religious beliefs.

9. Titles & Credits: Every festival has to to consider screening time when selecting films and ALL of them hate long titles and/or credits. it is in your best interest to keep your opening titles to 30 seconds and your end credits to under a minute. No one wants to watch 4 minutes of creeping credits, you can show that version to cast and crew, but your festival screener should keep it short.

Terms & Conditions

I. Southern Shorts Awards is hereby granted the right to utilize an excerpt from any film submitted for promotional purposes.

II. Southern Shorts Awards is hereby granted the right to share your contact information in specific instances when someone inquires about your production and is trying to make contact with you.

III. The individual or corporation submitting the film hereby warrants that it is authorized to submit the film for consideration, and understands and accepts these requirements and regulations.

IV. By entering your film for consideration to the Southern Shorts Awards Film Festival, you authorize that your work is cleared for festival exhibition and accept full legal responsibility for the intellectual property therein. The submitter and all filmmakers associated with the project shall indemnify and hold harmless the Southern Shorts Awards Film Festival and any representative or affiliates from and against any and all claims, liabilities, losses, damages, and expenses (including but not limited to attorney's fees, and costs of the court) which may be incurred by reason of any claim involving copyright, trademark, credits, publicity, screening, and loss of or damage to the screening videos entered.

V. Entrants who were not granted awards will be notified by email, which will also include their score sheet. Results may be delayed, dependent upon the volume of entries.

VI. Southern Shorts Awards winners will be emailed their scoresheet, along with a PDF of their Award Certificate(s) and their laurels. Printed certificates, plaques and trophies must be purchased.

DISCLAIMER: The viability of holding a festival screening will be determined by the number of paid entries in each season. We require a minimum number of entries to offset the costs incurred in holding a screening event. If we do not reach the required minimum, we reserve the right to combine that season with the next available season. All entrants will still receive their scoresheet and Judges Comments on the notification date, however the competition will be combined with the next available season.