Art. 1 - Introduction
TerraLenta Film Fest is an international film festival dedicated to environmental documentaries. The aim of the Festival is to promote and disseminate independent and author documentary cinema, raise public and community awareness of environmental issues, foster cultural spaces for dialogue and learning, support multimedia research in the field, and encourage eco-sustainable actions.
TerraLenta Film Fest is organised and promoted by APS Fuorisentiero, with the participation of other partners and sponsors in line with the Festival's ethical principles.
The 2nd edition of TerraLenta Film Fest will take place in Pignola (PZ) - ITALY - from 1 to 5 July 2026.
Art. 2 - Admission
Documentaries developing one or more of the following themes can be enrolled:
- natural sciences and biodiversity;
- events related to climate change;
- human-environment relationship and modification/evolution of the natural and anthropical landscape;
- demoethnoanthropology and socio-environmental history;
- economy and sustainable development;
- political ecology and environmental justice;
- academic and/or independent multimedia environmental research;
- other topics not mentioned but closely related to the environment.
Films produced exclusively using AI are not permitted. If AI has been used in part, this must be clearly indicated.
Art. 3 - Entry
The film programme of the TerraLenta Film Fest is organized into the following sections:
- International feature competition - minimum length 31 minutes (including titles);
- International short competition - maximum length 30 minutes (including titles).
These sections will compete for the awards described in Art. 5.
Participation in the Festival selections is made by filling in the entry form on the website in the ENTRY section or through the FilmFreeway platform.
To take part in the Festival selections, a registration fee must be paid contextually with the online application. The amount of the participation fee is:
- 15 € for the feature section;
- 7 € for the short section.
No-payment automatically excludes the submitted work from the selection.
Copies of the films for selection must be sent exclusively by a link with a possible password to be indicated on the entry form.
The deadline for film entries is 18 April 2026.
Works made from the year 2024 onwards are eligible. Works that had their first public screening before 1 January 2024 are not eligible for selection. Works of any nationality are eligible for selection; works in a foreign language - other than English/Italian - must be subtitled in English or Italian. Subtitles must be present in the film preview or sent at the time of registration by attaching the text file. Works not subtitled as specified above will be excluded from the selection.
Art. 4 - Selection
Admission to the Festival is decided unquestionably by the Artistic Director, who is assisted by a Selection Jury. The jury is made up of figures who are experts and knowledgeable about the subjects, in order to be able to assess the competing works with a broad view and different perspectives.
Authors and/or productions of the works admitted, as well as those excluded, will be informed of the outcome of the selections by 18 May 2026. Only the authors of the selected films will be notified of the evaluation results on the specified date.
Works that have passed the selection phase, or that have been invited to the Festival, must be accompanied by all the documentation requested by e-mail at the time of the selection notification. The screening copies of the works in competition must reach the Festival no later than 7 June 2026 for the necessary tests before the screening and possible subtitling in Italian language. Failure to submit the screening copy by the aforementioned date will result in exclusion from the competition - and related penalties as per Art. 9.
The allowed formats are:
- HD files (H264 high definition codec, Prores, .mov or .mp4 wrapper, bitrate 20 Mbps).
Where there is a downloadable file version, the shipping method must be agreed with the Festival Management by writing to direzione@terralentaff.it. Copies of the film on physical media are not allowed.
Should the final version of the selected work not correspond to the one sent at the time of registration, it is the responsibility of the authors and/or producers to provide a new file copy that is perfectly faithful to the screening copy, for any translation and subtitling work.
The authors/authors/producers of the selected works are invited to attend the Festival; hospitality and travel expenses will be offered (to be agreed in advance with the Management), within the limits of the available budget.
For all selected films, excluding those in Italian language or already subtitled in Italian, the transcript of the dialogues or the list of English subtitles must be provided. The screening copy of the Italian language films must be provided with English subtitles.
For all selected films in original language other than Italian, the Festival will donate the Italian subtitle file.
Relevant promotional materials (stills, trailer, official poster, press kit) should also be provided.
Art. 5 - Awards
The selected works will compete for the following official awards:
- Best feature doc- 2000 Euro;
- Best short doc - 700 Euro;
- Jury prize for feature and short docs;
- Special mention for feature and short docs.
Special awards may be offered by the Festival partners, which will possibly be published afterwards.
Authors, producers and distributors of the selected films (as well as of the award-winning films) are invited to include the official TerraLenta Film Fest laurel in the film, and on all promotional materials, wich can be requested from: direzione@terralentaff.it.
Article 6 - Archives
Copies of the films submitted for selection will be kept for the constitution of a Festival archive and, later, a Film Library. The donated copy will be used for the purposes of study, preservation and dissemination of knowledge of documentary cinema, to the exclusion of all commercial use. The donation of a copy in HD high definition format will also be appreciated.
The Festival reserves the right to use excerpts of the selected works for a maximum lenght of 2′ (or 10% of the entire lenght of the short films) for television or web broadcasting, for exclusively promotional and non-commercial purposes.
Article 7 - Sanctions
The Festival Management will request the payment of the amount of € 1,000.00 as compensation in the following cases:
- Authors or the Production decides to withdraw the participation of an already selected film and confirmed by them in the official program;
- projection material will not be sent in the time and manner mentioned in Art. 4 of these Rules;
- in all other cases referred to in the Rules, and in any case not attributable to the Direction, that result in the impossibility of screening of a work that has already been selected.
Article 8 - Data Processing
Be aware that the personal data provided and related communications are subject to our privacy policy in accordance with EU Regulation 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation). For further details, please refer to the full text of the policy at https://www.terralentaff.it/informativa-privacy/
Art. 9 - Final dispositions
Submission of the TerraLenta Film Fest entry form implies acceptance of all the points of this Rules. Authors and/or Producers are responsible for the content of their works and declare, by registering for the Festival, that they have fulfilled all obligations towards third parties arising from copyrights.
The Management has the right to settle all cases not provided for in these Rules, as well as to derogate from them in particular and well-motivated cases. For any possible dispute on the meaning of the individual articles of the Rules, only the original Rules in Italian language shall be considered.
The Court of Potenza shall have jurisdiction over any disputes.
