CALL FOR ENTRIES
16th Balkans Beyond Borders Short Film Festival
– DISTORToΠia: Or How Do You Mirror Reality? –
Balkans Beyond Borders (BBB) announces that submissions are now open for the 16th edition of the BBB Short Film Festival, which will take place in Istanbul, Turkey, in November. This year, we invite filmmakers to apply and submit their short film under the theme DISTORToΠia: Or How Do You Mirror Reality? from March 17 until May 17.
In a world where truth bends under the weight of perceptions and the sociopolitical turbulences distort the anthropological and geopolitical landscape, we feel the deep need to stand critically and question what is real, what is a reflection and what is an illusion. Do we construct illusions to create our own utopia? Who controls the narratives that shape our understanding of justice, identity, and power? DISTORToΠia challenges you to reflect, disrupt, and reimagine the world around you.
The festival welcomes short films that creatively and boldly engage with these questions. Whether through fiction, documentary, animation, or experimental storytelling, we encourage filmmakers to break cinematic conventions and unveil the unseen.
Balkans Beyond Borders Short Film Festival is an annual thematic short-film festival that takes place in a different European city every year with a special focus in South-Eastern Europe, thus maximizing its regional impact on promoting the Balkan culture and European values. It engages new audiences and promotes inter-Balkan cooperation creating a hub for productive networking among the region’s community of filmmakers, art professionals, stakeholders, cultural organizations and partners.
Eligibility criteria:
- We accept short films (fiction, documentary, animation, experimental, video art) up to 30 minutes in length.
- Filmmakers must be up to 35 years old, or older than 35 under the condition that their submitted film is their debut.
- Submissions are open to filmmakers originating from the Balkans, and/or films produced from the Balkan region.
- Films should be related to or be inspired by this year’s theme ‘DISToRToΠia: Or How Do You Mirror Reality?’.
See the Terms of Participation for more details.
All short film submissions will be reviewed by our pre-selection committee consisting of emerging professionals from the film industry.
Selected films will compete for the BBB Best Film Award, BBB First Entry Award & BBB Audience Award, thus three Special Mentions. This year we shed light on the use of Artificial Intelligence in filmmaking, giving the opportunity to young filmmakers to creatively experience the potential that AI offers. For this reason, we will give for the first time the award titled BBB Creative AI .
Join us in redefining reality. Let your lens be a tool for disruption, reflection, and transformation. Challenge illusions, unveil realities, and inspire change!
Submit your film through FilmFreeway.
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