Regulations, Entry Procedures and Submission
Organization
The Festival is founded by International Film & Video Center (Bahman Maghsoudlou) and ZIBA Foundation (Nina Ghavami, Maryam Ghavami, M.D. and Zia Ghavami, M.D. ) in the US and receives financial support from public and private partners.
Objectives
The International Short Film Festival is an independent, non-religious and non-political short film festival that aims to nourish and facilitate the greater exchange of ideas, information, awareness, and consciousness of the fact that art and culture can develop, not only among Iranian youth, but also between non-Iranians who deal with Iranian culture in their films all over the world.
The founding principals of this festival are the education of youth, intercultural dialogue, the defense of civil rights, and the exhibition of films that may contribute to human dignity. Behind every film hides a world of identity and culture, thus this festival accepts films by four groups of filmmakers:
- Iranians filmmakers who reside in Iran
- First and second-generation Iranians filmmakers who live outside of Iran
- Non-Iranians whose films that deal with Iranian culture or other Iranian matters
- Filmmakers from Tajikistan and Afghanistan also can participate with any subjects
Programs
The Festival program consists of the following sections.
- Competition: The Festival accepts films for competition in two categories: fiction and documentary
- Retrospective: The Festival will arrange an exhibition of short films by Iranian filmmakers whose works greatly influenced and shaped Iranian cinema
- Panorama and Special Programs: The Festival will also exhibit a selection of Iranian short films that have received awards any time over the past decade
Festival Dates
The First International Short Film Festival: Independent Films on Iran will take place on October 19 - 21 at Asia Society in New York City.
Selection
- Any filmmaker, producer or organization can submit the films directly to the festival. The selection committee will view all entries
- Filmmakers or producers will be notified of the selection results by August 15th
- Festival director selects 3 to 5 members of Selection Committee
Return Procedure
- The sender is responsible for the cost of postage for the preview copy and screening video
- Return expenses for the screening videos will be covered by the festival
- Festival keeps all preview copies for its archive
Festival Screening
- All films screened must be in DVD or DV format, regardless of their original format. The Festival does not screen 8mm, 16mm, or 35mm prints
- The Festival gets permission to use excerpts of the film of a maximal length of 5 minutes for festival reports (the total duration of these excerpts may not exceed ten percent of the total length of the film)
- The VHS or DVD preview copies submitted will not be returned
Festival Tour
The Festival will organize a two-hour compilation of selected films that include the winners for a USA tour. Any revenue from this tour belongs to the Festival.
Further Remarks
The Festival program consists of the following sections.
- Selected films cannot be withdrawn from the festival program after its publication.
- The Festival will pay travel expenses of only three directors whose films are selected: one from Iran, one from Europe, and one from the US. Drawing lots in a special ceremony will select the three directors with the presence of media
- The festival director will adjudicate any matters that cannot be clarified by means of these regulations
