VOKA Smartfilm International Mobile Film Festival ()

Festival start: 16 April 2020      Festival end: 16 April 2020

Festival idea – “A free format of your story”. 
VOKA Smartfilm International Mobile Film Festival.

We announce the season of (not)ordinary stories open! Each history is unique. Story twists are a matter of your imagination. Tell your (not)usual story and get the opportunity to become the winner of the Grand Prix of the Festival.

Smartfilm has been and it still remains a platform for the realization of ambitious and creative ideas. Discover (not)ordinary stories and create your movies, but remember that your movie should be filmed on a smartphone.

We have put together the best projects from previous festivals for you, we hope they will inspire you.

Grand Prix
3 000, 00 (three thousand) Belarusian rubles + smartphone.

Prizes for 1st – 3rd places

1st place –1 000,00 (one thousand) Belarusian rubles + smartphone

2nd place – smartphone.

3rd place – smartphone

Additionally, all the participants who managed to enter the main short-lists have the right to put on their works the corresponding Festival symbol (logo with garland and nomination with indication of the year 2020) and those who won in any of the above nominations are awarded with the award statuettes.

PROCEDURE FOR HOLDING OPEN PUBLIC CONTEST
“INTERNATIONAL MOBILE FILM FESTIVAL VOKA SMARTFILM”

International mobile film festival VOKA Smartfilm is an open public contest (further – Festival) held by Unitary enterprise A1 (trademark/ service A1) aimed to open creative potential of the talented youth of the Republic of Belarus, as well as to develop and promote cinematography.

Festival idea – “Un(usual) story”.

Festival organizer – Unitary enterprise on providing services “A1” (Unitary Enterprise A1).

Festival participants
Natural persons, citizens of all the countries who has reached the age of 18 years (further - Participant) are eligible to participate in the Festival.

Festival prize places

• Grand Prix of the Festival;

• 1st place;
• 2nd place;
• 3rd place;

• People’s vote


Festival time frames:
The festival is held from February 04, 2020 through March 21, 2020 inclusive and consists of following stages:

• Acceptance of works: from February 05, 2020, through March, 21 (till 10:00 аm Minsk Standard Time), 2020 inclusive. After the expiry of this time the works are accepted only with the agreement of the Organizer;
• Election of main short-list winners: from March 22, 2020 till April 3rd, 2020;
• Election of popular vote short-list winners: from March 26, 2020 till April 4, 2020;
• Election of the audience choice winner: April 9, 2020;
• Closing of Festival and awarding ceremony: April 16, 2020.

At the discretion of the Organizer the periods of acceptance of works and election of winners, as well as the date for the closing of the Festival may be changed (during the first half of the deadline). All the information about the changes in program of the Festival are stated on the site www.smartfilm.by in section “news”.
The program of works, order and place for demonstration of movies is defined by the Organizer of the Festival.

Prizes for the winners of the Festival

Grand Prix
3 000, 00 (three thousand) Belarusian rubles + smartphone.

Prizes for 1st – 3rd places

1st place –1 000,00 (one thousand) Belarusian rubles + smartphone

2nd place – smartphone.

3rd place – smartphone

Additionally, all the participants who managed to enter the main short-lists have the right to put on their works the corresponding Festival symbol (logo with garland and nomination with indication of the year 2020) and those who won in any of the above nominations are awarded with the award statuettes.

Audience choice prize – smartphone

Additionally, the participant who managed to won in this nomination is awarded with the award statuette and has the right to put on his/her work the corresponding Festival symbol (logo with garland and nomination with indication of the year 2020)and awarded with the award statuettes.

Procedure for holding of Festival

1. Participation in Festival is free.

2. The participant shall submit the film* screened with a cell phone (smartphone) or tablet computer and submit it for consideration of the jury. The movie shall comply with all the requirements to the format of film submission (see below).

Film submission format

• Idea – Unusual Story
• Film length (runtime): not over 10 minutes;
• Weight: to 200 MB;
• Necessary preview image resolution: 600х360 px;
• Recommended video format: Windows Media Video, Apple QuickTime, DivX, MPEG, 3gp. If necessary, the Organizer may require a film in better quality;
• Films produced in Russian and Belarusian languages are accepted without subtitles. Films produced in other languages are accepted in source languages with Russian, Belarusian or English subtitles.

*A film is an audiovisual work created in an artistic, chronicle-documentary, popular science, educational, animated, television or other form based on a creative intent, consisting of images captured on film or other types of media and connected in a thematic whole sequentially interconnected frames and designed to be perceived using appropriate technical devices.

3. The film may be edited with the usage of special software. The usage of special effects is allowed.

4. The film shall not violate the legislation of the Republic of Belarus; give offence to the dignity of citizens; harm the reputation and violate the rights and interests of the third parties protected by the law; stirring of religious, racial and ethnic dissention; contain graphic violence inhumane treatment of animals scenes, etc.; be obscene, offensive or pornographic; contain advertisement of alcohol, cigarettes and narcotic substances; violate rights of under aged persons; violate authorial and related rights of the third parties; contain commercial advertisement of any kind. Rights for audio, video and photo materials used in the film shall be free from any claim of any third party. Otherwise the responsibility for violation of rights of the third parties is lied with the Participant.

5. The Participant may shoot and submit for consideration of jury any number of films.

6. Only copyright holder of the film may submit his work for participation in the Festival.
For this, he/she shall register on the website www.smartfilm.by. Uploading a film the Participant shall indicate the following information:

• Full name;
• E-mail;
• Phone number;
• Name of the work;
• Description of the work;
• Genre of film
• Creative team list (not obligatory);
• Shot of video cover;
• City;
• Model of facility, with which the film was screened;
• Indicate the film access: whether it can be viewed by all or jury and organizer’s representatives only or to other competent persons participating in the decision on the selection of works on the short list;
• Confirm in registration form, placing a check mark, that he is familiar with the present Rules, accepts them and acknowledges that he/ she reached the age of 18 years.

7. The participant must download the film for moderation in accordance with the Rules from February 05 2020 to 10:00 March 21 2020. After successful moderation, the information of the film is placed on the website www.smartfilm.by in the section “Gallery of works”.

8. The Organizer reserves the right to decline a movie from participation without explaining the reasons i.e. not to publish the information about the film on the www.smartfilm.by.

9. In case of doubts that the film was screened with a cell phone/computer tablet, the Organizer has right to require source materials (results of screening to cell phone in the form of video files). If the Participant does not submit such materials, the film may be excluded from the contest.

The election of nominees and winners

1. To determine the winners the works will be selected and special short-lists formed (lists of nominees): the main one and the audience choice short-list.

2. All the short-lists are published on the web-site and loaded in VOKA application.
.
3. The winners of the 1st, 2d, 3d place and the Grand Prix winner will be chosen from the main short-list. While taking the decision the jury should give pride of place to Belarusian works.

4. Nominees / winners of the main short-list of the Festival are determined by jury members, which is composed of professional directors and experts in the field of cinematography. The Organizer of the Festival determines the jury.

5. Nominees / winners of the Festival popular vote short-list are determined through calculation of the number of votes for them given by all the registered users who wish to take part in voting on www.smartfilm.by. The works with free access for watching (see paragraph 6 of the previous chapter) can take participation in contest for this nomination.

6. The single winner of the People’s vote will be chosen from the popular vote short-list.


7. The audience choice short-list winner is chosen during the demonstration and election that will take place in April 9, 2020 at VOKA cinema through voting of all the participants who will come. Those who successfully pass the cinematest on the site www.smartfilm.by during the period from March 26 2020 until April 4 2020 could take part in these elections. Besides them there will be invited by the Organizer some film critics chaired by Vlada Sen’kova, who will take the final decision in case there would be equal quantity of votes for two or more works.

8. The winners of the Festival are determined by the members of the jury from the Participants’ short-list in accordance with the following criteria:
• idea of the film;
• production quality;
• video record quality;
• quality of the editing use (if any);
• quality of the special effects usage (if any)

9. The quality characteristics are assessed at the discretion of the jury. The participants or any other party cannot interfere in the work of the jury and revise the decision made by the jury. The jury's decision is final and not subject to change.

10. At the discretion of the jury, some works may be awarded with a special prize.

11. The information about the winners in all nominations will be published on the website www.smartfilm.by.

12. The winners of the Festival will be announced and awarded at the Festival closing ceremony.

Responsibilities of the Participants of the Festival

1. The participant guarantees that he is the author and / or copyright holder of the provided materials (video, audio, graphic images, etc.) with the exclusive right to the film, the materials are not copied from any commercial or private source, and cannot claim a third party.

2. The Organizer of the Festival (unitary enterprise A1) does not bear responsibility in case of claims to it from the third parties concerning the rights to the movie. The Participant who provided the film, takes the responsibility for the resolution of all claims of third parties arising from the use of materials provided by the Participant.

3. The Participant must provide the author's work. Upon detection of plagiarism, Participant is excluded from the number of contestants. By submitting a film to the competition, the Participant guarantees that a competitive work is established by his creative efforts, does not violate someone's copyright and does not cause damage to someone's reputation.

4. The copyright owner gives permission to use the provided material (including the use of fragments) for a competitive showing in the Festival, as well as the display in the electronic media, the Internet space and other places including VOKA application to promote the contest without the payment of royalties (including the music used in the film), for an unlimited period of time throughout the world.

5. By participating in the Festival, the Participant agrees that for free and for the entire duration of the copyright he granted the Festival Organizer the following rights in relation to his film (work): reproduction of the work; public display of the original or copies of the work; broadcasting the work; transferring the work via cable or wireless communication networks; transfer of a work using the Internet; other communication of the work to the public; processing a work to create a derivative work; translation of a work into another language; other possible ways to use the work. This permission to use the film is granted from the moment the film is uploaded to the site.

6. Festival Organizer has the right to show the films selected in the competition program (including the films of the Winners) for the entire period of existence of the Festival including the period of its activities and during the course of its next scheduled season preparation time.

The procedure of Prizes’ granting

1. The prize distribution (Grand Prix partially, 1 - 3 places, and “audience choice” nomination prize of the Festival takes place at the Festival closing ceremony. At the same time, the Winners must provide an identity document (passport).

2. "The Grand Prix of the Festival" is transferred to the current bank account / card account of the Winner. The winner must complete all the necessary documents, provided by the Organizer, related to receipt of the prize.

3. In case of achieving the Grand Prix nomination by the foreign country citizen, the prize sum will be transferred to his/her bank account/card account within the period of 45 working days since Festival closure in currency available to Organizer and at the rate stated on the date of transaction. For payment execution the winner has to provide all the necessary banking information within two weeks’ period from the moment of Festival closure. Otherwise the Organizer reserves the right to withhold the prize and reject the payment. The receiver also pays transfer fees.

4. In case of impossibility to be present at the Festival closing ceremony, prize winners in other nominations are granted with the right to take their prize at the Organizer’s office in Minsk, Internatsional’naya str. 36-2, within the period till May 2nd 2020.

5. The organizer does not pay to the winner the expenses connected with journey on the Festival closing ceremony or to the place of receipt of a prize.

6. In accordance with Chapter 16 of the Tax Code of the Republic of Belarus, at the prizes’ granting the Organizer holds from the winner and pays to the budget the income tax in accordance with established procedure. The prize awarding to the winner is performed with withholding income tax amount.

7. Participating in the Festival, the Winner agrees to the rules of the Festival, as well as the fact that his film and name, photo and video can be used by the Unitary enterprise A1 for advertising purposes without their prior consent and without any cash payments. Participants also consent to the collection, processing, storage, use, transfer of their personal data for the purposes of the Festival.

8. In case of failure to provide in the Unitary enterprise VOKA the data for registration of a prize at the scheduled time and/or refusal of the winner of receipt of a prize, the prize remains in property of the Unitary enterprise VOKA.

9. Competition procedure of “International mobile film festival VOKA Smartfilm” and the results of the Festival are published on website www.smartfilm.by.

10. The Unitary enterprise A1 reserves the right to make changes to this Procedure throughout all Festival (during the first half of the deadline).

11. The present Rules are executed in two languages – Russian and English. In case of any differences, the Russian version has the priority.