Regulation – Rules | Concept

Days of German and Russian short films
“Vkratze!” 2019

Regulations of International Short Film Competition

General provisions

1.

Days of German and Russian short films “Vkratze!” (hereinafter referred to as the Festival) aims to

• promote cultural exchange, dialogue of cultures, cooperation and creative engagement of Russia, Germany, and other countries interested in cooperation with Russian Federation;

• popularize contemporary audio-visual culture in Volgogradskaya Oblast and integrate the region into national and global space of cinematography and festival events;

• promote creative products of younger authors;

• help to develop professional skills and to establish contacts of amateur and professional audio-visual artists;

• develop communicational viewing experience of people in the sphere of contemporary cinematic culture.

The Festival is meeting platform for audio-visual artists’ discussion, education, promotion, and communication.

2.

The International competition of the festival is an annual review contest of short films. The international contest is a part of the festival program of the Days of German and Russian short films “Vkratze!”

Organizational regulations

3.

Venue of the festival and competition: Russia, Volgograd.

Dates: March-April 2019. Exact dates are published on the official website no later than one month before the festival starts.

In some cases, it is possible to hold the competition with jury working remotely without a public display, to organize shows via the Internet, to arrange screenings of the festival program in other cities of Russia by additional agreement. The shows of the festival programs after the competition can be held anywhere in the world.

4.

Organizers and contacts:

The organizer of the festival: non-profit organization Foundation for the Promotion of Children’s Creativity “Yunye Talanty” (YOUNG TALENTS FUND (ARTKIDS) NPO), hereinafter referred to as the Organizer.

Legal address: 400087, Russian Federation, Volgograd, ul. Dvinskaya, d. 15.

Operator of the competition: non-governmental organization “Open city”, hereinafter referred to as the Operator.

Legal address: 400006, Russian Federation, Volgograd, ul. Zholudeva, d.2, kv. 18.

Program director: Inessa Tropina.

Contacts for enquiries: phone# +7-937-723-55-69, email: vkratze.fest@gmail.com

Official website: http://vkratze-fest.ru

Social media: www.facebook.com/groups/vkratze.volgograd, vk.com/vkratze_volgograd

Originators of the idea: Anne-Katrin Topp, Inessa Tropina.

The Organizer has the right to engage partners to hold the Festival.

The competition regulations are approved by the Operator in coordination with the Organizer.

5.

Applications are accepted by the Operator of the competition. All films taking part in the Festival undergo a screening selection. Films are selected by the selection committee of the competition. Members of the selection committee (at least two persons referred to as Curators) are proposed by the program director of the Festival and approved by the Operator.

6.

The films are selected on the basis of the relevance to the announced theme and concept of the Festival, which are published on the Festival’s website no later than the date of the announcement of the beginning of the application process.

7.

Films selected by curators are allowed for public viewing. During the festival the films are evaluated by an international jury. Candidates for the jury are proposed by the program director of the Festival and approved by the Organizer. The list of the jury members is published on the official website of the festival no later than the date of the beginning of the festival shows (opening of the Festival).

8.

The start date and the deadline of the application process, as well as the work schedule of the selection committee of the competition are published on the festival’s website. Work schedule of the international jury is published on the website before the festival starts.

9.

The organizers reserve the right to form out-of-competition programs of films that have not passed the screening selection.

10.

It is possible to organize special program with the participation of members of the international jury (master classes, laboratories, workshops, seminars, campuses, etc.).

Nominations and prizes

11.

The competition is held among short films of the following categories:

• fiction films,

• documentaries,

• animation,

• experimental films / video art.

Winning places and/or winners in nominations are assigned by a consolidated decision of the jury on the basis of their viewing of the films. If there is a decision to award winners in nominations, the nominations correspond to the categories of the competition. If there is a decision to award places to winners, the first, second and third place can be awarded.

Additionally, there are the following nominations:

• children / family / teenager film (it is possible to announce winners in various categories),

• “30 minutes +” films category.

The jury may decide to announce special nominations. The jury and the curators may additionally award special prizes or diplomas.

12.

Prizewinners of the competition are awarded branded prizes and diplomas of the festival. The transfer of prizes and diplomas to prizewinners is at the expense of the funds allocated by the Organizer.

Participants of the competition and non-competitive programs (at the discretion of the Organizers) are awarded diplomas of participants on paper forms or in electronic form.

Film requirements and limitations

13.

The international short film competition accepts films from any country in any language. English and Russian subtitles for foreign-language films are welcome. Films in Russian and German, as well as films in any language for authors from Russia and Germany may have priority in the screening selection.

14.

Requirements for films:

• The films must be relevant to the theme / concept of the competition.

• Only works completed no earlier than January 1, 2018 are allowed to participate.

• Allowed timing is up to 30 minutes for the main competition, from 30 to 45 minutes for the nomination “30 minutes +”.

• The films should be out of public viewing at the time of the Festival.

• The film should not be freely available on the Internet at the time of the Festival.

• The number of films submitted by one author is not more than one film for each of the nominations (fiction, documentary, animation, experimental film / video art).

• Films are accepted in the following formats: AVI, MPEG4, MP4. Movies in DVD-Video format with menus are not considered.

• It is advisable that films had subtitles or a phrase-by-phrase translation with timecodes into English (for films in languages other than English, including Russian) and into Russian (for films in languages other than Russian).

• The films must not violate someone else’s copyrights.

• The films must not contain elements of racial, national, religious intransigence, calls for violence and violation of rights and humiliation of human dignity, contradict the laws of the Russian Federation, the Federal Republic of Germany, and the norms of international law.

• The films are provided only through specialized festival Internet resources (see clause 19).

• The final decision on a film’s participation in the Festival is due to the Organizers.

Conditions of participation and application process

15.

At the discretion of the Operator, participation in the competition may be chargeable. In this case application fees are determined and conducted by the Operator through a possible agency of third parties, such as specialized platforms (filmfreeway.com and others). The amount of the application fee is published in the resource through which it is implemented. After the screening selection is completed, payment is not refundable. Payment can be returned in case of withdrawal of the application before the entry is closed.

16.

Preliminary application and the film or a preview of the film is submitted through one of the specialized resources:

• filmfreeway.com:https://filmfreeway.com/festival/Days_of_short_films_VKRATZE

• festhome.com: https://festhome.com/f/3500

The official website may list other ways of submitting the application.

17.

The applicant (author) of the film fills the final application for participation in the Festival program after the film has passed the screening selection by the curators of the Festival. The form of the final application is sent to the applicant via email indicated in the preliminary application. The applicant must also sign the form must and emailed to the festival organizers at the following address: vkratze.fest@gmail.com. After that the film is included in the festival competition or out-of-competition program.

18.

The following materials must accompany the final application:

• signed application (the application form is sent via email);

• 2 or 3 still pictures from the film (in JPG format with resolution no less than 600×400);

• a portrait photo of the author;

• a link to a downloadable Full-HD version of the film suitable for viewing via standard digital equipment;

• subtitles or a dialog continuity with timecoded translation.

19.

Participation in the competition of the Festival assumes agreement with the Festival Regulations. It also assumes a consent for the submitted content (films, trailers, stills, and other materials) to be publicly demonstrated during the Festival, as well as to be used non-commercially for advertising and information purposes (TV programs, videos of the festival, announcement, etc.), including viewings in post-festival shows with a mandatory warning of the applicants (authors).

20.

All costs for forwarding documents and copies to the Festival are paid by the applicant. Copies of films sent to the Festival are not sent back and are not reviewed.

Vkratze! 2019: Concept

Borders

Art creates aesthetic and ethic frame of us experiencing the world. The emotion surfaces when we approach something bright, large, weird, frightening, meaningful, funny, escaping thorough understanding, strange. In other words, art creates borderline experience.

Cinema, being the most universal of arts, is at the heart of searching for what might be named “human”. Human is a riddle. Who am I? What are others to me? How do we live together? This search on the fringe of understanding goes through creating criteria, speech, criticism of our experience.

We stand at this borderline of the meaning of life, and it is endlessly diverse, as the art itself. Cinema speaks a variety of languages, and each of them is a new talk on human.

This talk is heard in every movie that reaches ethic and aesthetic borders. Our festival of short films offers you to say and to hear a word about human, together.

Cinema is a reflection, when the truth emerges from in the cross point of thought and artistic image.

Cinema explores relations of psyche and body.

Cinema is a search of connections between what’s ours and what’s strange, search for possibilities of conscious dialogue between the different: human and nature, different cultures, generations, social groups, languages and culture.

Cinema is disclosing limits of verges of understanding. How is trust possible, if it is impossible to say or to understand?

Cinema is a bank of common experience. What things unite us?

Festival of short films VKRATZE! – 2019 invites to participate those for whom cinema is a mirror and a possibility to see and to express the truth about oneself, about others, and about the world we live in.