Transparent Film Festival is different that virtually every other film festival. If you're an independent filmmaker who is looking for a chance to get your films out there in a big way... Welcome to Transparent Film Festival.

We watch EVERY FILM and post our screen grabs along with Director, Place of Origin, Date Watched and brief note about the story on Facebook.com/TransparentFilmFestival.

The 5th Transparent Film Festival will take place this April with a live Program, Streaming Programs, and Huge After Party in the Penthouse at the World Renown 230 5th.

Selected films are screened live. Films that are Finalists screen online with the permission of the filmmaker. Our streaming programs are FREE on our Full Screen Streaming Channel TransparentDTV.com.

TUESDAY APRIL 26
PROGRAM 1 (Streaming)
Brought to you Wednesday April 26th from DS Simon Screening Room
Best Feature, Music Video/Performance

THURSDAY APRIL 27 (Streaming)
PROGRAM 2 (Streaming) Thursday April 27 from DS Simon Screening Room
Best TV Pilot, Best Documentary, Best Faith-based

FRIDAY APRIL 28 (LIVE SCREENINGS & AWARDS PRESENTATIONS)

PROGRAM 3
4:-5:30 pm
Producer's Club 358 W 44th St, New York, NY 10036

PROGRAM 4
5:45-7:00
Producer's Club 358 W 44th St, New York, NY 10036

AWARDS CEREMONY
7:15-7:45
Producer's Club 358 W 44th St, New York, NY 10036

AFTERPARTY
8:00 PM
Penthouse at 230 5th Avenue hosted by Comedian Andy Troy.

The judges who evaluate selected films for competition have either Emmy, Grammy and/or Oscar awards and/or nominations.

Our awesome one of a kind custom made trophies will be provided to category winners who are in attendance for the screening of their winning films.

Best Director
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Short
Best Foreign Film
Best Feature
Best TV Pilot
Best New York Film
Best Documentary
Best Mobile Film
Best Musical Video/Performance
Best Faith Based
Best 1 Minute Film Challenge
Young Filmmaker Award
Best Score

If there are less than 3 submissions in a category, we may at our discretion move films that are selected to a different category for competition. Further we may add any selection to another category at our discretion.

IMPORTANT:
1. Films earning the status SELECTED, DO NOT NECESSARILY SCREEN. Films that earn nominations (Best Short, Best NYC Film, Best 1 Minute Film), DO SCREEN.

2. We DO NOT SCREEN FEATURES live - only online with the permission of the Filmmakers.

3. We provide a hi-res Laurels ONLY UPON REQUEST AS A COURTESY TO THOSE FILMMAKERS WHO LEAVE A REVIEW. If you choose not to leave a review you have our permission to use Film Freeways Laurel Maker.

PLEASE READ ALL RULES AND TERMS CAREFULLY PRIOR TO SUBMITTING YOUR FILM. BY SUBMITTING YOUR FILM TO THE TRANSPARENT FILM FESTIVAL, YOU HEREBY AGREE TO THE BELOW TERMS.

The 5th Transparent Film Festival (“TFF”) will take place at in NYC on Thursday April 27th and Friday April 28th. There will be a Monster After Party on the roof of 230 5th after the awards ceremony on April 28th which will be at the Producer's Club.

Transparent Film Festival and it's affiliated streaming channel TransparentDTV.com exists for the promotion of True Independent Filmmakers from around the world. We use an MTV inspired format that showcases films on a light, medium and heavy rotation basis to a worldwide audience. We also produce our own content including shows such as Director's Spotlight as well as live concerts and events,

1. Submission Deadlines
Submissions will be accepted beginning June 1, 2022. The final deadline is Fri. March 31, 2023. Early entry is encouraged but in no way guarantees acceptance. Last season, literally the very first, AND very last submissions were selected.

2. Submission Format
Films must be submitted via online screener ONLY. We do not accept films sent over by DVD. If selected, you must provide a theatrical quality screener that is HD and 2K in size dimensions as we will be showing on a 2K projector. Anything less than HD at a minimum of 1920 x 1080 will not be screened.

Filmmakers who do not promptly provide a properly compressed MP4 file at 1920 x 1080 resolution risk losing their selection status.

IMPORTANT ITEM 1 - We will review EVERY film with the exception of films submitted via Waiver. Due to the number of submissions we can no longer guarantee (as we did with the first four seasons), that we will watch every frame. We will provide our notes TO ALL FILMMAKERS (again with the exception of films submitted via waiver as we get so many).
Films that are submitted with a fee, will receive our notes along with our FilmFreeway Rating, and post a date stamped viewing receipt on our Facebook Page so you know when we viewed your submission.

IMPORTANT ITEM 2 - Please do not submit to our festival and make your film available for download if you are worried that a conflict will arise with other festivals, or if your film has any distribution restrictions of any kind (such as geo-blocking, rights issues, etc.). Our cable TV Show (audience reach of 620,000 people), in Manhattan NYC. and our new DTV Channel has been gaining in popularity since launching at the beginning of the year. It will not affect your acceptance status. We acknowledge that we own no rights to your film, and that you may request us to remove your film from our website and/or streaming channel at any time, for any reason.

3. Submission Eligibility
(A) All submissions must have begun production after 1 January 2020.
(B) Transparent Film Festival reserves the right to disqualify any film for any reason. For instance, nudity is fine, children appearing in a film naked is not material we are comfortable with receiving and/or reviewing. Violence, even graphic violence in a narrative context is fine. However video footage of someone being pummeled is not.

4. Premiere Status
- There is no premiere policy.

5. Submission Fee
All submissions for The Transparent Film Festival are to be paid through FilmFreeway platform. The submission fee is non-refundable.

6. Shipping - We no longer accepted snail mail. Use WeTransfer, Dropbox or Google Drive to send us content to: transparentfilmfestival@gmail.com

DOUBLE MAKING SURE YOU UNDERSTAND
By submitting your film to Transparent Film Festival, you acknowledge, and grant us permission to upload your film to our website for exposition and promotional purposes. We acknowledge that the operators of this website own no rights to your film, and you may request at any time to have it removed.

8. Selection of Films
Every submission will be screened under the following criteria, and given a score between 1 and 10 according to our customized rating system on FilmFreeway - which you will receive a copy of. Note we post all ratings on Facebook (but are not necessarily able to do so for films submitted via Waiver). We do not provide reviews.

TFF reserves the right to move any film submitted via Waiver to another category.

9. Notification
TFF will complete all selection procedures by April 7, 2023, and inform all submitting parties, in writing, if their film has been successful or not after that time. Filmmakers whose submissions are accepted into the festival will be given two weeks to prepare, and will immediately receive information on how to make the most of participating in the Festival.

10. Festival Screenings
As selected films will be shown on 2K Projection Screen, selected films MUST provide an .MOV file that must be at least 1920 x 1080 HD quality. The film title and running time MUST be included in the file name. All foreign language films MUST contain English subtitles files.

IF YOU DO NOT PROVIDE A HI-RES HD COPY - YOUR FILM WILL NOT SCREEN AND THE STATUS WILL BE CHANGED TO NOT SELECTED.

11. Scheduling
Screenings are scheduled at the discretion of TFF. The festival organizers will make every effort to adhere to the published schedule, however, TFF reserves the right to make changes at any time for any reason. TFF will not be liable for any costs claimed as a result of a change in scheduling.

12. Preference for live screenings are at the discretion of TFF. International Selections are screened online UNLESS THEY ARE IN CONTENTION FOR A BEST IN CATEGORY award (such as Best Foreign Film). Unfortunately we cannot screen Feature Films live.

13. Transparent Film Festival gives preference to SELECTED Filmmakers who are able to attend their live screening. It order to be selected BEST IN CATEGORY, Filmmakers must either: 1) attend the Awards Ceremony in person, 2) Have a representative at the Awards Ceremony, or 3) made arrangements to record and send an acceptance speech to the festival organizers at transparentfilmfestival@gmail.com.

No film may be withdrawn from the festival after it is selected.

SUPPLEMENTAL RULES (PLEASE READ)

ONLY ONE WAIVER WILL BE GRANTED TO A FILMMAKER FOR ONE CATEGORY IN A SEASON.

THERE ARE NO LONGER COMPLIMENTARY TICKETS DUE TO THE FACT THAT FILMMAKERS REQUEST THEM AND THEN DO NOT ATTEND (thereby limiting tickets available for purchase).

We reserve the right to disqualify any film and or filmmaker for any reason such as dishonesty, violating our terms and conditions, or for any reason whatsoever. This includes the use of any unlicensed material (music or video footage).

Overall Rating
Quality
Value
Communication
Hospitality
Networking
  • Grégory Bollack

    Grateful thanks to Transparent Film Festival for your wonderful job in your festival. That was an honor to be part of it with our film Welcome to Candy's. All the best to all of you and your festival !

    May 2023
  • barbara peikert

    Fantastic communication and organization. I would have enjoyed to be live at the event. Great finalist selection for MI DI WORM no.10

    May 2023
  • Transparent Film Festival and Brian were very supportive and communicated well throughout the process. We are thrilled to have our independent documentary film, Her Name was Hester, win the Best Documentary for Transparent Film Festival 5! We love the feedback process of this festival; it ensures you know your film was truly evaluated. Best of luck going forward!

    May 2023
  • Evellyn Santos

    Many thanks for selecting The Poison Garden and thereby spreading confidence in our mission.

    May 2023
  • This was such a cool festival to have my film in. I was able to watch it among works from all over the world. Many thanks to Brian McLane and the whole Transparent Film Festival team.

    May 2023