South Asian Film Festival of Montreal

Terms & Conditions
1. The films must primarily have content related to countries of the Indian subcontinent (South Asia) and/or their diaspora communities around the globe. Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are included in our classification of “South Asian” countries. Every year, we welcome films from one other 'GUEST' country. This year we invite films from Egypt.

2. As a Montreal-based film festival, we encourage films made on South Asian themes by Canadian filmmakers. They can request a waiver discount by emailing the festival director.

3. The submitter agrees to an On-site or On-Line screening of the film if it is selected. Senior persons from the filmmaking team (e.g., director, screenwriter, actor, etc.) are requested to participate in the post-screening online Q&A discussion on the film.

4. The films should have been produced on or after 1 January 2023. The first public release of the film shall be considered as the 'produced on' date.

5. Copyright infringement (even if accidental) will result in disqualification of an entry. By submitting a film, the filmmaker (and/or the person submitting the film on the filmmaker’s behalf) attests to being the copyright holder of the film and warrants that they have the full legal authority to submit the film to SAFFM.

6. Films will be disqualified if they contain material that incites gender-based violence, homophobia, racism, or cruelty to animals of any kind or where the content partly/wholly has material that is derogatory, humiliating, degrading, or directly/indirectly attacks any social group, sexual orientation, ethnicity, nationality or religion.

7. By submitting your film to SAFFM, you hereby grant permission and a license to SAFFM to screen the entire film, without any remuneration or "screening fee", for the event. and to use the video clips/stills for promotional and/or other publicity. The use of the film shall not be prejudicial to SAFFM or the Kabir Centre for Arts & Culture and no claims shall be made against SAFFM for the use of the film. By submitting the film to the festival, it is understood that the film can be screened, free of charge, at its festival in Montreal and its extension at one or two other cities in the province of Quebec.

8. Films with audio recorded in a language other than English are required to provide English subtitles when submitting the films to Film Freeway. By submitting your film for consideration, you agree to SAFFM sub-titling your film in any other language. Because of the particular demographics of Montreal and Quebec, all our selected entries are subtitled both in English and French. We will do the subtitling in French at our own cost and the corresponding .SRT file can be made available to the filmmakers after the festival.

9. If the movie is short-listed for screening, the filmmaker should be able and willing to send us a text-less copy of the movie file and the associated .SRT file of the dialogues in English. By submitting the film, the submitter agrees that these files can be made available readily and within a week of our request by file transfer protocol.

10. In addition to the film to be submitted through the Film Freeway portal, the following should also be submitted.
- Synopsis of the movie
- Director’s statement
- Director’s bio
- Subtitled Trailer of the movie
- Poster in Vertical Format
- Still Images in Horizontal Format (1152 x 648 pixels)
For films finally selected for the festival, filmmakers will be requested to submit a blank version of the movie along with a .srt file of English subtitles either in .MOV or high resolution mp4 format. If this is not available, the film may be disqualified from the final lineup.

11. Any film that will have a commercial theatrical release in Montreal before planned date of the festival will not be eligible for consideration. Films will be disqualified if they are publicly and freely available on the Internet, e.g., Youtube, Vimeo, etc. Films already available on commercial platforms like Netflix or Amazon will only be selected in exceptional cases as determined by the selection committee.

12. The submitter guarantees that all rights and releases have been legally secured, including music rights, songs, etc. and the submitter releases the SAFFM and the Kabir Centre for Arts and Culture and its staff from any legal action whatsoever.

13. All submission fees are non-refundable.

14. All selection committees' and juries' decisions are final.

15. By submitting to our Festival, submitter/filmmakers:
- indicate that they have read, understand, agree with, and will comply with all of the Terms and Conditions above, and accept all of the terms and conditions herein, in their entirety, without modification.
- agree to indemnify us and hold us and our employees, owners, affiliates, and partners harmless from all claims and liability associated with your participation or entry to the Festival.

À bientôt.
Sincerely,

Syeda Nayab Bukhari, PhD
Director, SAFFMontreal

For questions, please contact the organizers:
Syeda Nayab Bukhari at syeda.bukhari@saffm.centrekabir.com/ sbukhari11@gmail.com
Dushyant Yajnik at dushyant.film@outlook.com
Raja Bhattacharya at bhattacharyaraja@gmail.com
T. K. Raghunathan at info@centrekabir.com
or info@saffm.centrekabir.com