Project
#PLAY/REPLAY is the sixth edition of the UNIFEST contest, a university video festival born from an idea and with the scientific direction of the Audiovisual Storytelling Laboratory-LABSAV of the Department of Political Sciences and Communication-DiSPC-POLICOM, and created in collaboration between the University of Salerno and Linea d'Ombra Festival, under the patronage of the Consulta Universitaria Cinema-CUC.

Concept
Isn't life a series of images that change as they repeat themselves? asked Andy Warhol, and the question feels so relevant today that it sounds like a commonplace.
A toy or a reel, a film or a carousel, a song or a voice note, a tale or a story: everything begins with a play. But almost nothing ends there. We go back, we watch again, we listen again, we repeat and replay, each time in a way that is both similar and yet different.
Today, we live in the age of replay and remake, whose rhythm shapes our experiences and our relationships with the world and with ourselves, our desires and imaginations. We rewatch, remake, archive, share, replay and play with what seems unchangeable, between repetition and modification, simulation and parody, distraction and invention. Never alone and never only once, we role-play, cosplay, and play games of love and war, transfiguring the beautiful, the ugly and the banal around us.
But what happens when we begin again, all over again, each time differently?

PLAY/REPLAY invites participants to explore and tell these tensions and ambivalences through the tools and languages of contemporary audiovisual culture.

Competition
Audiovisual products made with amateur or professional digital devices (mobile phone, tablet, video camera) by students/PhDs of a University based in Italy or abroad, are admitted to the competition.
The audiovisual story, lasting no more than eight (8) minutes, must relate to the guiding concept / theme #PLAY/REPLAY.
Two sections are planned: STILE LIBERO (FREE STYLE), for audiovisual products as fiction, documentary, video essay, video clip, commercial, found footage, montage film, and for animation products, and ITALIAN JOB, for audio-visual products created explicitly in the context of academic educational activities (courses, laboratories and workshops) in Italian Universities and relating to film, audio-visual, performing arts and visual culture.

Awards & Prizes

Award ceremony
The winner of the FREE STYLE section, and the winner of the ITALIAN JOB section will be decided by the expert jury and will each receive a prize of 250 euros (gross of tax withholdings under Italian law).

The jury reserves the right to award one or more special mentions.
The two winning works will be announced during one of the closing evenings of the Linea d’Ombra Festival (9-14 November 2026, Salerno).
The cash prize may be split in the event of a tie declared by the Expert Jury. Payment of the prizes is permitted exclusively to the winner(s) as identified in the prize award report signed by the members of the Expert Jury. Any third parties, including legal entities (e.g. production and distribution companies, etc.), even if connected to the winners, are not permitted to receive the cash prize.

Rules & Terms

How to participate
Each work – individual or collective – must be submitted by the author or one of the authors, who will act as the only point of contact for the subsequent stages of the contest through the institutional email address of the home University.

For the STILE LIBERO and ITALIAN JOB sections, registration for the Contest can be completed via Filmfreeway at https://filmfreeway.com/lineadombra-unifest-contest.
Registration for the contest is free of charge and must be completed no later than 4 September 2026, at 11:59 pm UTC+1.

Sending the registration form implies full acceptance of this regulation. For matters not covered by these regulations, the organization of the Festival reserves the final decision.
By participating in the contest, Linea d’Ombra and LABSAV are authorized to use the selected works for educational, research and promotion purposes, even in locations and situations other than the Festival context; any commercial use is excluded.

Materials to be sent
Authors who are notified of their selection must send, with absolute priority, by email to unifest@lineadombrafestival.it the following materials:
a link to view the work, available on a web platform such as Vimeo, YouTube or similar (file max 2GB). The link must be private or password-protected. For works in a language other than Italian, subtitles in Italian or English are required;
a short synopsis of the work;
the technical data sheet of the film;
1 image per film, at least 1280x720px;
1 image per film, at least 1280x1080px.

Info
This document and the registration form are available on www.lineadombrafestival.it, www.labsav.unisa.it and on www.dispc.unisa.it.
For information or clarifications, you can write to: unifest@lineadombrafestival.it

Privacy and accountability
By participating in the competition, unconditional consent is given, pursuant to the Italian law legislative decree 30 June 2003, 196 on the protection of privacy and the GDPR – General Data Protection Regulation – EU regulation no. 2016/679, to the use of personal data for all initiatives related to the event. The participant declares to have the legal availability of the work, to authorize its public screening without claiming any compensation, freeing the organization and the rooms intended for screenings from any present and future liability.
1 Review
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  • Yasmine Aarts

    Wonderful festival. Good communication. Many thanks to the festival for selecting 'Salient' as the competition winner for UniFest #CHANGES!!

    December 2023
    Helpful
    Response from festival:

    Thank you Yasmine Aarts and compliments again for your beautiful 'Salient'.