Once a year in Spring, the International cellu l’art Short Film Festival presents international short films in Jena, Central Germany. This young and vibrant university city, internationally renowned for its optical industry (e. g. Zeiss lenses) comes alive with screenings and events revolving around shorts from all genres: fiction, animation, documentary, essay and experimental. Films from all over the world compete in the international competition while an annual country focus programme allows the viewers to get to know the (short film) culture of a specific country. In 2023, cellu l’art presented historical and contemporary animation shorts from Estonia, the 2024 country in focus will be announced soon. Besides the international competition and the country in focus programme, the cellu l’art also shows a great variety of special programmes on different topics (e. g. queer, ecology), genres (e. g. experimental) and formats (e. g. 35mm analog projections).

cellu l’art started out as a project by media science students in 1999 and has since grown rapidly and dynamically, becoming more diverse and more international while still retaining a loveable, friendly ambience. Traditionally, the festival begins with an open air event with live music and short films. It ends with our winning film roll, showing every award winner to a large audience.

The International cellu l'art Short Film Festival is held in the Schillerhof cinema in the beautiful Jena city district of Wenigenjena. The festival's second venue is the Kino am Markt, right in the heart of the city next to the market square.

The cellu l’art team invites all filmmakers to submit their films and looks forward to welcoming them to Jena!

Awards & Prizes

The Awards for the 2023 edition were:

- Best Film: 1.000 €
- Best Visual Design: 1.000 €
- Lichtstadt Award („Light City Award“): 750 €
- Youth Jury Award: 250 €
- Audience Award: 500 €

Awards 2024: tba

Rules & Terms

REQUIREMENTS

All short films submitted for the competition must be produced after January 1st 2022. Work from all categories (fiction, documentaries, experimental films, animations, essay films, music videos etc.) and all genres with a maximum length of 25 minutes can be submitted. Films can only be submitted once for the international competition. The festival management and programming team assigns the film selection. There is no legal claim for participation.

Films can only be submitted online via the platform www.filmfreeway.com. There are three deadlines:
Early Bird: 1-31 August: 4.50$ / Gold Fee: $3.38
Standard: 1 Sep - 31 Oct: 7.00 $ / Gold Fee: $5.25
Late Entry: 1 Nov - 1 Dec: 10.00 $ / Gold Fee: $7,50

Individual students may submit their film for free if they are the rights owner of the film (please contact us via info@cellulart.de and send us your student id). In this case, the submitter of the film declares to be the rights owner of the submitted film.

FILM SCREENING

Screening copies have to be sent as a data file in the following format: MPEG4, H.264 with a bit rate of 15 – 20 MBit/s and a resolution of 1920×1080P (Full HD). cellu l’art - Festival Jena e.V. may ask the submitter for a DCP file or the permission to convert their file to DCP if needed.
All copies have to be sent in with English subtitles.

INSURANCE

The film prints/DCPs are insured by the host for the time period that the copies are at the festival (from the receipt of the post to the return shipment). In the event of damage, costs of material for the copy are being compensated in relation to the origin country and after presenting a bill. Goodwill compensation is excluded. Preview copies remain in the organiser’s archive.

The applicant agrees that cellu l’art Festival Jena e.V. may utilise video and audio clips, as well as selected photos and credits from his or her work for promotional purposes on the festival‘s homepage www.cellulart.de and blog www.bildflimmern.de, video channels (no download), the festival’s social media channels, at the festival‘s own events as well as for television and radio reporting purposes.

AGREEMENT

The applicant confirms that he or she owns all rights for the submitted work and no music title is represented by GEMA. All rights of utilisation for the screenings (including video and audio presentation) are covered by the owner. If work protected by GEMA (or similar societies for music rights) is getting screened without noticing the host beforehand, the applicant has to pay all charges incurred. cellu l’art Festival Jena e.V. does not assume any liability.

cellu l’art Festival Jena e.V. does not pay any screening fee for any short film submitted for the competition programme and shown in the competition programme.

The submission of a work implies acceptance of the regulations.

Thank you for your submission!
4 Reviews
Overall Rating
Quality
Value
Communication
Hospitality
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  • Amina Maher

    A lovely festival with great approach and programming… Happy to be part of you.

    October 2021
    Helpful
  • Festival Formula

    Excellent festival. The team are professional and considerate to all the filmmakers. Thank you for screening our clients, INTRUSION, HORROR VACUI and THIS IS BATE BOLA. The whole team are so happy these films could be screened at this brilliant film festival.

    May 2019
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  • Amirreza Falaki

    It was a brilliant experience being in beautiful Jena and Cellu L'art festival
    Very welcoming festival, organised by young artists and art lovers
    I met a lot of great people there and enjoyed a lot
    They're simply the Best :)

    May 2019
    Helpful
  • Jannis Alexander Kiefer

    Had an awesome weekend in Jena, brilliant short film selection and excellent Festivalteam!

    May 2018
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