SR Socially Relevant Film Festival New York

FESTIVAL DATES for the next edition: March 14-27, 2022 - Hybrid edition - Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Centre (Lincoln Center), Cinema Village, neighboring venues - and online. PLEASE READ THE DESCRIPTION, THE RULES, and THE TERMS thoroughly before completing your submission. SRFF does NOT waive entry fees. In some exceptional cases, discount codes are offered. SRFF believes waiving entry fees hurts the integrity of the competition. The same rules and entry fees should apply to all applicants so no one film is favored over another. We understand the financial constraint of making films and the costs involved in submitting to Festivals. However, we also feel that submitting free does not help anyone as it takes the seriousness out. We hope you can find it in your budget to submit your film to the festivals that will best help your career and your film's career move further forward. In some exceptional cases, we offer discount waivers to individuals filmmakers from partner organizations. Special student discount waivers (with ID proof) are offered. SR Socially Relevant™ Film Festival NY is a film festival that focuses exclusively on socially relevant human interest stories that raise awareness of social problems by offering positive solutions through the powerful medium of cinema. SRFF believes that through raised awareness, knowledge about diverse cultures, and the human condition as a whole, it is possible to create a better world free of violence, hate, and crime. SR Socially Relevant™ Film Festival New York shines the spotlight on filmmakers who tell compelling, socially relevant™ narratives across a broad range of social issues without resorting to gratuitous violence and violent forms of movie-making. SRFF's human interest stories and character-driven films reflect good storytelling as shorts, documentaries, narrative features, web series, children's films, animation, and scripts in competition. SR films can be commercially viable and can become box office successes when distributed through the proper channels and platforms. We put filmmakers in touch with our distributor industry partners. SR Films are enlightening, uplifting, entertaining, but most of all artistically appealing. MISSION & OBJECTIVE SRFF - Socially Relevant Film Festival New York is a festival that focuses on socially relevant film content and human interest stories covering a broad range of social issues. SR aims to showcase socially relevant films of high artistic value that educate, enlighten, entertain, and that can be commercially viable. Socially Relevant films can be funny, dramatic, romantic, adventurous, comical, suspenseful, intellectually challenging, historical, psychologically inclined or tell a story that matters. In short, SR films can be anything BUT boring! THE MISSION of the Festival is to spotlight filmmakers and their films that tackle the social and environmental issues of the day without relying on gratuitous violence, special effects, loud soundtracks, and sensationalism to draw in an audience. The festival supports its filmmakers beyond the weeklong festival, as it showcases the selection of films in other venues, events throughout the year, and some major film markets and festivals, such as it has done at the Cannes Film Festival. ABOUT THE FESTIVAL Founded by Artistic Director Nora Armani, SRFF is based in New York. SRFF launched in Manhattan, the entertainment capital of the world in March 2014 as the festival's inaugural year at the Quad Cinema in Greenwich Village in New York City. To date, SRFF has screened an international slate of over 350 films from 35 countries since its inception in 2013. The festival offers industry panels on Distribution, Storytelling, Diversity Casting, Marketing, and Film Finance in partnership with the School of Visual Arts Social Documentary Film school, and organizes spotlight panels on such themes as Empowering women, Low Budget Film Production workshop with SAG-AFTRA, Filming in New York with the NY Governor's Office for Film and TV Development. Script readings and more. SRFF 2022 will continue the special category of the pandemic, COVID-19, and related social issues, as well as films made solely on online platforms such as Zoom during Coronavirus confinement. New categories that are added are Children's Films, Web series, and animation. Filmmaker Q&A's follow most of the screenings where filmmakers are present in the case of almost all the feature films and most short films when possible. The festival is devoted solely to filmmakers who deal with socially relevant film content. The film selections are made following the submission process on FilmFreeway. The launch of the Socially Relevant film festival coincides with the growing trends related to socially conscientious consumers who seek alternatives to the invasive films that rely on gratuitous violence and sensationalism to make a box office entry. More information can be found at https://www.ratedsrfilms.org PRODUCTION YEAR and PREMIERE STATUS: In order to qualify for competition selection, films MUST be at least NEW YORK PREMIERES, preferably US or North American or event World Premieres... For Documentary films, we go three years back (for SRFF 2022 we will go back exceptionally to 2018). The documentary submitted should be made on January 1st four years before the year of the festival, or later, meaning January 1st, 2018, or later. For narrative features, we go two years back. For SRFF 2022, we will exceptionally go back 3 years, until 2019. The feature film should be made on or after January 1st, three years before the festival year or later, meaning January 1st, 2019 or later. Shorts films follow the same guidelines, though in some cases, with shorts that we really like, we are more flexible both with the New York premiere status and the year of completion but not older than 2018. AWARDS & PRIZES: Best NARRATIVE FEATURE PRIZE: Donated by festival partner Cinema Libre Studio of Los Angeles, In-kind winning awards (a total value of $20-25K) are offered in rewards. At the Jury's discretion, a Special Jury Prize is also awarded to films in the different categories. Best DOCUMENTARY FILM PRIZE: Donated by festival partner Cinema Libre Studio of Los Angeles, a leader in the field of distribution and production. This award may not be exchanged for a monetary reward and is only in-kind. Check the festival website for past winners and also the award categories that change and development annually. At the Jury's discretion as a special Jury Mention is presented in this category. Best SHORT FILM PRIZE: Donated by festival partner digital distribution platform IndiePix, 5-6 titles curated by the festival from the slate of short films in the narrative and documentary categories will be released under the heading SR Socially Relevant Film Festival Collection. These will be promoted and streamed for pay-per-view or DVD release on the IndiePix Site. Filmmakers selected will be offered a proper distribution agreement. SCREENWRITING: Two or Three finalists of best screenplays submitted to the festival selected by a special jury are offered a prize courtesy of InkTip; a prize listing free of charge on their website for up to two winning screenplays, to be searched and discovered by producers looking for new works. A similar prize is offered by ISA (International Scriptwriting Association) which implied high visibility for the winning script. Also for Screenwriters: InkTip Script Listing: A listing of the winning script on InkTip so that producers and reps can find it. InkTip Magazine: Publication of the logline in InkTip's magazine sent to nearly 15000 producers and reps. InkTip helps writers sell their scripts and get representation. Producers have made more than 200 films from scripts and writers they found through InkTip. We also have an award offered by Network ISA, which includes a 12-month inclusion on their platform, which is normally a paying service, to the winning script. Programming of the festival is done by the collective and professionals on the advisory and selection committee, the final program is curated by the team based on these recommendations. We favor submissions that are made on our submissions platform FilmFreeway. The Jury of the different categories is composed of distinguished and established international and US professionals from all disciplines and the voting takes place confidentially and anonymously.