Your Festival, Your Way: YouTube YourFilmFestival!
The YouTube venture into the film festival arena, Your Film Festival, will accept submissions of short films (less than 15 minutes) from February 2, 2012 – March 31, 2012. The fifty semi-finalists will be chosen by Scott Free Productions.
The contest presents a great opportunity for creative minds everywhere as the genre can be of any frame be it TV-pilot, web series or short film.
The 10 winners of this competition will open the 69th Annual Venice Film Festival and compete for a chance to win the grand prize of $500,000 and the opportunity to create a new work with Scott Free and his talent team.
“Through this program, YouTube will give filmmakers the opportunity to reach a vast audience, screen their work during the Venice Film Festival and potentially be rewarded in a career-changing way,” Robert Kyncl, global head of content at YouTube, said in a statement according to Atlanta Business News.
This is not YouTube’s first trip to the rodeo, the Google owned company released the experimental documentary Life in a Day in 2011 which patched together submissions by YouTube users on one day of the year. The documentary was well received critically and showcased that YouTube is capable of venturing further into the independent and mainstream film industry.
“We’ve always wanted to do something like this, but there were limitations in the past that prevented us from doing it,” says Nate Weinstein, YouTube entertainment marketing manager according to AJC. “The time also seemed right given the work that the organization is doing within original channels.”
Ironically, with SOPA and PIPA looming it is nice to see a perfect example of how organizations like YouTube have made the ability to exercise free speech on the internet into great opportunities for others. While there are inherent issues with the internet as it is, let us not forget all the good it has done and the strong bonds people have formed using it.
