Cork Film Festival | Call For Shorts, Documentaries, Features

Ireland's oldest and most prestigious film festival, the Cork Film Festival, is now accepting shorts, documentaries and features for the 2014 edition to be held in November.

As well as playing a rich selection of the best of contemporary global cinema truffled out from some of the world’s most interesting Festivals, Cork Film Festival is always on the look out for interesting new voices. The Festival boasts a lively and varied music on film programme, and runs a discussion series which uses films to explore some of the burning issues of our time.

In 2013 there were over 150 events, including 97 feature film presentations; 20 Shorts@CFF events powered by Vimeo; and ten Special Events. Both the feature film and Shorts@CFF programmes are a mixture of invited (best of Festivals, work known to the Fest, catch up on films released but which have not played Cork, and previews) and submitted films.

Within Shorts@CFF there are three prizes, with cash awards and expert juries: CorkShorts, Grand Prix International and Irish. Films eligible for CorkShorts are those made by filmmakers from Cork and/or those not from, but based in Cork. The Festival also annually nominates a short film to the European Film Academy Annual Awards.

For features in competition, CFF is looking for a programme of about ten films to compete for the new CFF Spirit of the Festival Award / Spiorad na Féile Gradam, which has a €1,000 prize attached.

The festival also boasts a new award: Spirit of the Festival. Each of the projects selected to compete for the Spirit of the Festival Award will be eligible for a €350 bursary to cover travel expenses and three nights accommodation to the Festival. The Award will be judged by a jury of filmmakers, artist and industry professionals. Each filmmaker selected will be invited to do a series of phone interviews with Irish journalists. The Festival will work with the Consulates, Embassies and Commissions from the director’s / writer’s / producer’s native country to help to ensure attendance at the Festival.

The films can be can be live action, animation, documentary or – indeed and, perhaps, especially – hybrids. As can be seen from this list of recently programmed films from the CFF submissions system, or those that the Festival’s programmers have recently invited, what is sought are bold ideas well told, rather than high production values; for films that cry out to be seen on a very big screen – during the Festival the CFF has Ireland’s largest, at the Cork Opera House; for new and evolving filmmakers who are prepared to be innovative with form, and to take risks.

Submission Dates:

Normal Submission: Until midnight BST June 19th Shorts €20/ Features €30

Late Submission: June 20 until midnight BST August 5th Shorts €30/ Features €30

The festival's website is located over here.