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Sustain is a film, animation, performing arts, and interactive media festival based in Guildford, Surrey—a cathedral town just a short train ride from London. The theme of the festival has environmental overtones, but we welcome submissions from artists, creators, producers and makers from across the creative and cultural landscapes, with an open invitation to interpret the theme as they see fit. We seek stories and artworks far and wide – local regional, national and global. We want to bring people together to promote the future wellbeing of the planet, as well as the current cultural wellbeing of its inhabitants. We want to deliver experiences that explore the very nature of our species, that probe into our psyches, ask big questions of who we are, and who we might become.

Confirmed venues:
📽️ Boileroom
📽️ Guildford Institute
📽️ Nodus Centre
📽️ Lakeside Cinema
📽️ Performing Arts Technology Studios

Awards & Prizes

📽️ All selected submissions will be screened at venues in Guildford at our main festival, as well as build-up events prior.
🌿 All selected projects will receive an "OFFICIAL SELECTION" Sustain Film Festival laurel to use for promotion, for both main festival and build-up screenings.
🎓 All student films will are eligible for competition in our awards; there are no student specific categories.

GOLDEN LEAF Awards
All films will be judged as competing for the following categories where appropriate:
🏆 Best in Festival
🏆 Green Finger Award for Sustainable Film
🏆 Best in Short Films
🏆 Best in Features
🏆 Best in Documentary
🏆 Best in Animation

GENRES
🏆 Best Comedy
🏆 Best Experimental Film
🏆 Best Drama
🏆 Best Interactive
🏆 Best Music & Dance Film

Rules & Terms

Advice for submissions:
🎭 GENRE - All project genres welcome!
🌎 ORIGIN - International submissions welcome!
🖼️ FORM - We do our best to host many forms of media arts, including interactive - surprise us!
📏 LENGTH - We accept both short and feature submissions. Any length is welcome, though ideally no longer than 120 minutes.
🧠 THEME - Our 'Sustain' theme is open to interpretation - we are particularly interested in titles associated with our theme, in whatever creative ways you can interpret. For example, as well as nature and climate, sustaining health, relationships, self, and more.
💚 SUSTAINABILITY - Projects that adhere to sustainable production practices are, of course, encouraged

Terms:
🔁 By submitting your film, we reserve the right to use it at upcoming and unannounced events, should we deem it brilliant enough to be worth sharing a second time around! You will be welcome to use laurels for these events, though your submission will only be eligible for awards in your project's original submission.
📅For screening eligibility, films can have been produced any year.
🏆For award eligibility, films must have been produced after 01/01/2023
📱 We may use your trailer or short clips from your film (max. 90 seconds) to promote your film's screening, on social media and other digital platforms
📰 To ensure you are satisfied with your films marketing materials, we would appreciate the following from you:
- at least 1 director/filmmaker headshot
- any BTS photos
- any stills/screenshots from the film
- a trailer, if you have one
Our intention is to use these within marketing materials for the festival, both digital and physical media - promo videos, flyers, posters, programmes etc.
On occasion, we may also gather alternate screenshots and short clips from the projects ourselves, for use in festival marketing where appropriate.

SELECTION PROCESS
✨ Films are reviewed by a majority of our team before the ultimate selection decision to screen is made. Our team is made up of filmmakers, creative producers, journalists and more!
📽 Not all projects might suit our film festival, and we reserve the right not to screen project submissions we think would find a more suitable home at other festivals.
🫴We are committed to including a variety of films by a variety of filmmakers, and consciously programme our events to include a diversity of culture.