Terms of Participation for Film submissions

Films submitted will be screened and selected by our programme committee. The committee decides about the participants of the competitions as well as the rest of the festival programme. Films in competition will be judged by the jurys, thus electing the winners. The winner of the audience award will be chosen during the festival.

Films should be produced within the years 2018 and 2022. Raw preview versions of films completed by 2023 can also be recognized in exceptional cases. However, the preview version must be similar to the final version.

Short film as well as long-playing films can be submitted.

All contents and genres are acceptable (except for advertisements, image and experimental films) as long as they do not imply any illegal exposures according to german StGB law (e.g. pornography, excessive violence or sedition etc.).

Low Budget production costs have to be below 2,500 Euro per minute run-time, long-playing films from 60 minutes shall have not more than approx. 250,000 Euro total costs and short films up to 30 minutes not more than approx. 50,000 Euro.

No Budget production costs have to be below 100 Euro per minute run-time, long-playing films from 60 minutes shall have not more than approx. 10,000 Euro total costs and short films up to 30 minutes not more than approx. 2,500 Euro.

Apart from the actual production costs factors like production facilities and infrastructure (company or film academy) are also taken into account for the classification.

Screening copies, photos/film stills and other submitted footage remain in the festival archive, they will not be sent back.

Return of presentation copies can be realized after the last presentation during the festival directly to any authorized person or else by mail latest 1 month after the festival to the address provided by the filmmaker.

The festival organizers only accept the costs for re-dispatching of the presentation copies. The festival will chose the delivery service for shipment.

The sender has to provide sufficient postal fees for the transmittal of the presentation copies. Film transmittals with insufficient postal fees will be rejected.

The following formats are valid for the film submission:

Audio: 2.0 or 5.1, 16/24 bit, up to 48 kHz

Remarks:

• Film presentation is provided by a digital cinema projector with a max. resolution of 2048 x 1080 pixel.

• The presentation of NTSC footage is without any warranty for quality or color fidelity.

• If no high-quality presentation copy is available, the film will be played from the screening copy.

• Subtitles of the screenings copies (English subtitles or german subtitles in films with english) have to be arranged into a safe area: lowest line 10% of the complete screenhight. XML subitles should have a font size of 42, lowest line at 10%, upper line at 16%. Please submit the subtitles as separate file. Imprinted subtitles can be sent, if no subtitle data file is existing.

• Screening copies as video files can also be provided by file transfer over the internet (e.g. Dropbox, WeTransfer, ftp server). In this case a download link shall be provided (with password) and sent to the following email address: id-filmfest@filmboard-karlsruhe.de.

Only film submissions are considered that are submitted latest until November 30, 2022 via filmfreeway.com.

All copyrights remain with the filmmakers.

The filmmakers have to guarantee that they possess all copyrights and personal rights necessary for the festival presentation.

Films submitted for the festival cannot be withdrawn. Upon submission the filmmakers accept the presentation of their films during the festival.

All transmittals and other materials are not covered by insurance. The organizers do not assume any liability in case of damage or loss.

The risk of transport is on the side of the sender. Under no circumstances will the organizers be liable. Transmittals from abroad have to carry the remark:

“For cultural purposes only – no commercial use”.

Decisions of the festival administration, the programme committee and the jury are binding and unappealable. Any legal process is excluded.

The festival administration can provide extracts of submitted films (up to 3 minutes) as well as still pictures for means of non-commercial festival advertising to internet, press, radio and television networks.

The presentation of all films that are accepted in the festival programme will be free of any charges or fees.

The Independent Days International Filmfest offers awards in different categories. In case of being awarded, you may only claim the prize money if the filmmaker or a crew member participates in the award ceremony in person!

Films that have been formally submitted to us and selected by our programme committee can not be withdrawn.

Screening copies (e. g. USB-Storage, harddisk, DVD), which you have sent to the festival will be delivered back to your official adress (or to the next festival) with a postal service of our choice. Please note that we cannot influence the speed of delivery.