The Cork Film Festival, with the tagline ‘Film. Music. Ideas.’ runs from the 7th to the 16th of November this year. In 2013, there were over 150 events, including 97 feature film presentations, 20 Shorts@CFF events powered by Vimeo and 10 special events. The festival operates in the Cork Opera House, the Triskel Christchurch, and the Gate Cinema. Submissions are open for this year’s edition now with the standard date being June 19th and the late date August 5th.
For the Shorts@CFF category, there are three cash prizes for CorkShorts, Grand Prix International and Irish. Films submitted to CorkShorts should be made by filmmakers from Cork or based in Cork, or films shot in Cork. The Festival also nominates a short film to the European Film Academy Annual Awards every year.
Features in competition will contend for a new award to the festival called the CFF Spirit of the Festival/ Gradam Spiorad na Féile which has a €1000 prize attached. The features programme will consist of approximately 10 films. Each of the projects selected will be eligible for a €350 bursary to cover travel expenses and three nights’ accommodation to the Festival.
Films can be of any genre, including live action, animation, experimental, student work, documentary, digital, or a hybrid. All films should be Cork premieres. Short films must be 30 minutes or less in duration. ‘Bold stories well told’ is the criteria for submissions rather than high production value.
In addition to the news of submissions now being open, the Cork Film Festival has also launched the Cork Film Festival Bundle on VODO. Consisting of over ten hours of film from its 2013 festival, the initiative is available through VODO, a VOD platform that organises themed media bundles, offered as to customers who want to pay for what they want.
The initiative has three tiers, with more shorts and features available depending on what the consumer wants to pay for. Hit features ‘How to Be Happy’ and ‘The O’Briens’ are among the films offered in the plan.
See vodo.net/cork or www.corkfilmfestival.org for more.
Films can be submitted to this year’s Cork Film Festival through www.reelport.com, following registration. The categories are Shorts, Features and Cork Shorts. The normal submission date is June 19th at midnight with a €20 fee for shorts and €30 fee for features. Late submission is midnight August 5th, with a fee of €30 for both shorts and features.