GLOBAL MOBILE FILM FESTIVAL
An announcement that might be handy to you:
The GSMA, the global trade group for the mobile industry, and Mofilm, a pioneer of short films for mobile and on-line distribution, has announced the first Global Mobile Film Festival at the Mobile World Congress in 2009, with an official ‘call for films’ to international film-makers today.
The Global Mobile Festival follows the success of the GSMA’s previous collaborations with the Sundance Film Festival to create the Global Short Film Project, which debuted at the Mobile World Congress in 2007; and this year, showcasing with Mofilm, the work of short film directors representing the Cannes, Locarno, Shanghai and Sundance Festivals supported by the actor, director and film maker Robert Redford and the actress, writer and director Isabella Rossellini.
The GSMA and Mofilm are seeking films up to five minutes in length, made both using traditional film making techniques by established and upcoming film directors, as well as films made using mobile devices themselves. Submission forms and films can be uploaded on-line at the Mofilm website www.mofilm.com from today until the deadline of November 28th 2008.
Films will be judged by an international jury of film, festival and mobile content experts, with the best films showcased at the GSMA’s Mobile World Congress (www.mobileworldcongress.com), the world’s largest communications industry event that attracts more than 55,000 visitors from the mobile, entertainment and many other industry sectors to Barcelona each February.
Mofilm with present Awards for the Best Film at the Congress, selected by a special jury of film directors and film festival executives.
Tags: contest, GSMA, Mobile film, Mofilm, Short Film
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Read their fine print too.
”7. Film Submissions. If you upload any material to the Site (including, without limitation, films) you hereby grant to us a worldwide, non-exclusive licence to use that material in any media and, specifically, to make that material available via the Site and via mobile phone networks …. If you do not want to grant these rights, please do not submit material to the Site.”
[http://www.mofilm.com/terms-users.php]
Note that this granting-of-rights bull does not apply only to the winners/runners-up. Any film uploaded for the contest automatically becomes free content for the organisers. Seems a nice way for people to get ready content without paying for it.
Short filmakers, be very very careful while uploading your film anywhere. Do not upload till you read the ‘terms and conditions’, make sure that the contest organisers are really in it for finding and rewarding deserving talent rather than for gobbling up your content for free.
PFCone is a good example of a genuine contest. Contrast this with so many dubious ones that keep springing up every now and then. I recently came across a short film contest called ‘Advantage India’ by some ‘1takemedia’. The three winners of this contest would apparently see their films go to Florence Indian Film Festival. Reading their terms and conditions, one comes across this gem:
”9. All the rights including but not limited to distribution, exhibition and Intellectual Property Rights of the films submitted shall rest with the sponsors “Time Broadband Services Limited” hereinafter referred to as the “Sponsors” in perpetuity. By sending the film for the competition the film makers, producer, etc. do hereby transfer all the rights as mentioned hereinabove to the Sponsors and give up any claims, compensations, rights, etc on the said film. The Sponsors shall have absolute and final authority to deal with the said film / content in any manner it deems fit.”
There we go again. I don’t think submitting a feature film to any festival anywhere in the world leads to relinquishing of rights over the film. Imagine such a scenario, would film festivals receive a single feature from anywhere?
So why are short films such easy game?
absolutely, Ravi. In fact, before sending entry to any film festival or contest, the rules and regulations must be gone through with a fine comb, more so when it’s something online. I think filmmakers too should write in protest letters to them on this.