NYC's Celebration Of Diversity In Film Opens For Submissions

New York City's Winter Film Awards International Film Festival announces a Call for Entries for its 8th Annual celebration of independent film, to be held February 14 - 23, 2019 in New York City.  The annual celebration of diversity in film showcases emerging filmmakers from all genres from around the world, with a special emphasis on highlighting the work of women and under-represented artists. Categories include Documentary, Narrative (Feature and Short), Horror (Feature and Short), Music Video, Animation and Web Series!

Filmmakers from around the world will travel to NYC to attend the Festival's ten days of film screenings, educational panels, professional development workshops and industry networking after-parties, which will conclude with a glittering awards ceremony to be held on February 23, 2019.

The rapidly growing Festival - which was recently voted one of the top 50 best reviewed festivals on FilmFreeway - seeks a diverse collection of creative indie films from NYC and worldwide in all genres - ranging from narrative features to short films, from documentaries to animation, and from music videos to web series and horror films. Outstanding work will be awarded for each category, along with Best Director, Best Actor/Actress, Best Original Score, Best Student Film and the NY Perspectives Award for best depiction of the New York multi-cultural experience. For the 2018 Festival, 93 films from 31 countries were selected for screening, including 40% made by women, 43% made by people of color and 31 first-time directors. Works of all genres, forms, and lengths are considered for Festival screening.

Filmmakers from around the world are invited to submit films online via Film Freeway

Milestone Dates are as follows:

• September 5, 2018 ... Early Bird Submissions Deadline
• October 15, 2018 ... Regular Submissions Deadline
• November 5, 2018 ... Late Submissions Deadline
• January 5, 2019 ... Entrants to be notified of final decisions
• February 14, 2019 ... Festival Opening Night Celebration
• February 15-22, 2019 ... Screenings, Discussion Panels, Workshops & Networking After-Parties
• February 23, 2019 ... Gala Red Carpet & Awards Ceremony

Steffanie Finn, WFA Executive Director says "At Winter Film Awards, we believe everyone deserves a fair shot at getting their voices heard and we make an enormous effort to provide a careful bias-free selection process. Emerging filmmakers with low budgets and no connections are so often ignored in favor of the standard big budget generic action films - exciting low-budget films are created all over the world; we need the opportunity to actually see them! "

Winter Film Awards is honored to partner with a large variety of local and international sponsors, including Yelp, Cyberlink, Jungle Software and IndiePix. Filmmakers are awarded over $100k in prizes, including software, equipment, distribution deals and other goodies. Since publicity is critical for an emerging artist, the Festival provides each film an SEO enhanced website page, films over 15 minutes get a written review and all attending filmmakers are interviewed on camera.

Winter Film Awards is an all-volunteer women and minority-run 501(c)3 organization founded in 2011, which celebrates diversity of local and international filmmaking. It was built with the dream of making diverse indie film more accessible to the public and providing driven, talented artists the opportunity to break through competitive barriers to establish meaningful careers in film. The focus is on showcasing emerging filmmakers from every age, ethnic, racial, religious, cultural, political and geographic perspective while providing a stepping stone for all filmmakers, from students with blossoming careers to established industry veterans, to screen their work in front of a large audience and gain recognition for their achievements.

For more information about Winter Film Awards events and sponsors, visit www.WinterFilmAwards.com.
For more information about the Winter Film Awards judging process, visit our FAQ.
For more information about previous years' Festivals, including Press Information, visit our Festival page.

 

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