The Irish Film Board has announced the deadline for submissions for the next round of the Reality Bites as Friday, June 10th. The Reality Bites scheme will provide funding for up to three documentary shorts up to 12 minutes in duration, all of which will premiere at the Corona Cork Film Festival next year.
The Reality Bites scheme aims to encourage experimentation and a fresh approach to short non-fiction documentaries in either the English or Irish language. Each of the films submitted should be a maximum of 12 minutes in length and the budget being offered by the IFB is a maximum of €15,000. Applications are invited from producer/director teams, the members of which must be able to prove some relevant production experience. There is no limit to the number of Reality Bites applications that an individual may apply to make.
Application forms should be downloaded from the IFB's website, completed in full, and sent - together with all the additional materials requested – to IFB's head office in Galway. Submissions will be examined, with consideration given to the script and the creative team, by a group of assessors put together by IFB from in-house and externally. A shortlist of around six teams will be drawn up, who will then be invited to attend an interview.
Recent successful Reality Bites include the award winning ‘Bye, Bye Now’, which was co-directed and co-produced by Ross Whittaker and Aideen O'Sullivan and Anna Rodger's ‘If These Walls Could Talk’.
Where the rights to the shorts are concerned, in previous years, the distribution rights were retained by the IFB for five years and a sales agent was appointed to distribute the shorts internationally. Now, the distribution rights will remain with the filmmaker who can choose to appoint a sales agent or distribute the film themselves.
For more Reality Bites submission information visit www.irishfilmboard.ie. The deadline for Reality Bites submissions is Friday, June 10th.
