The Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) is seeking features, documentaries, short films, and animation for the 39th annual festival.
SIFF is the largest and most highly attended film festival in the United States, with more than 250 feature/documentary films and 150 short films presented to an audience of over 155,000 annually. One of the top festivals in North America, SIFF has been cited as one of the best “audience festivals” in the world.
As usual, there are lots of awards and cash prizes to be won in 2013.
The Call for Entries for the 2013 Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) has been Open!
Every year, the organizers give out the Golden Space Needle Audience Awards for Best Narrative Film, Best Documentary Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Short Film, and the Women in Cinema Lena Sharpe Award (an audience award given to the film by a woman director that receives the most votes in the Festivals’s Golden Space Needle balloting). In addition, the organizers sponsor seven internationally juried awards in the below categories, awarding $8,000 in cash prizes:
- Documentary Film Competition
Twelve exceptional non-fiction films will be judged by an international panel of jurors who will choose the documentary they feel best illuminates and captures the human spirit, pursues the search for truth, and feeds our insatiable hunger to learn. A cash prize of $2,500 will be awarded to the winner of this competition. - New Directors Showcase
The New Directors Showcase features a selection of 12 directors who are clearly emerging as major talents. SIFF programmers choose films from around the world, a debut or second feature by the selected director, each chosen on the basis of its original conception, striking style and overall excellence. The films must also be without US distribution. A cash prize of $2,500 will be awarded to the winner of this competition. - Shorts
Culled from the more than 2000 submissions each year, approximately 150 shorts are selected to play before features or in one of the Festival’s shorts programs. This is a popular and exciting section of SIFF that has launched the careers of many writers and directors. All shorts selected for the Festival are eligible for this prize. Three cash prizes of $1,000 each will be awarded in the categories of Live Action, Animation, and Documentary; as well as a Macintosh Computer System, courtesy of The Mac Store and $1,000 of film stock from the Eastman Kodak Company for the Golden Space Needle Best Short Film Audience Award winner. - FutureWave
The Festival’s youth film competition, open to filmmakers 18 years or younger.
Please consider the following submission deadlines and visit the official website for further info.
- 2 November 2012: Early submission deadline
- 7 December 2012: Regular submission deadline
- 7 January 2013: Final submission deadline
- 1 March 2013: FutureWave submission deadline
Entry Fees
Entry fees start from $35 and vary depending on the submission deadline and the length of the submitted film.
