Rules Short film competition

Prizes / categories

Prizes will be awarded in the following categories:

• Best short film: 2,500 EUR + voucher worth 12,000 EUR for the rent of audiovisual materials
• Honorable mention for exceptional cinematography awarded to DOP

Eligibility

Are eligible for the short film competition: all short films (fiction, animation, docu or experimental) that are officially recognised as for the most part Flemish (hereafter called film), or of which the director is Flemish. Both professional and graduation works.

Eligible short films have a maximum duration of 30 minutes and have not yet had their Flemish premiere on another film festival or online platform in Flanders. 

The Flemish director or producer of the film must register before the 1st of October 2022. 

The maker/producer gives permission to the festival to use fragments from the selected short film for promotional purposes.

By entering the competition the maker/producer gives the festival permission to programme a maximum of 5 screenings of the film at the festival.  No fee is provided for this. 

Selection procedure

The list of registered films is checked for completeness on the first working day after the registration deadline. After this, the internal programming team will examine the registered works. We kindly request you not to call or email us to confirm the delivery of your material. All applicants will be informed of the selection or rejection of their film by e-mail by early December at the latest. 

The decision of the selection committee to select or reject a film is final. No correspondence will be entered into on this decision.

Each film can only be submitted once, i.e. for one festival edition, irrespective of possible adaptations afterwards, a re-release, etc.

Jury

Every year, a diverse professional jury is composed of people recently active in the film industry.   

The award ceremony takes place on Friday 3rd of February 2023. 

After the award ceremony, the jury provides a short motivation text in which they substantiate their choice for the award-winning film(s).

The jury members commit themselves not to communicate anything to the outside world about the choice of the winner(s), voting behaviour of fellow jury members or their own voting behaviour. The jury members undertake not to leak any information about the closed meetings and the results. 

In case the jury members have direct ties with a production that is eligible for a prize or in case of doubt, they must announce this in advance and, if necessary, abstain from voting when the short film in question is discussed.

Partners

FFO's official short film competition is in collaboration with Amplo, Camalux, Flow and SBC.

Organisation

Ostend Film Festival and the Short Film Competition, are organisations of Les Films du Bord de Mer vzw.