CineD’s newsletter popped into my email box this morning. Among the usual updates on cool new tech, less cool corporate manoeuvrings, Nanlite’s short film contest stood out.
Films should be between three and twenty minutes long. There’s five categories:
- Narrative short
- Documentary short
- Commercial short
- Experimental short
- Spark
This is a great list as it allows commercial filmmakers somewhere to compete and keeps experimental films out of the narrative and documentary category. There’s no good way to compare experimental films with the other categories, so what usually happens is that a short film festival awards all its prizes to experimental films. Or none of its prizes to experimental film. Much better to put experimental into its own ecosystem.
What also caught my eye is that Nanlite intends to give away a $20,000 in each category. That’s real money for a short film maker. Of course not everyone can win, but it’s inspiring that five filmmakers will win. There’s also another $7000 in equipment and software prizes to each grand prize winner.
If you have a worthwhile film, and there’s lots of them out there, make sure to enter it in the Nanlite competition.
There’s some fabulous films which just appear out of nowhere and deserve a prize. Here’s a current favourite of mine Dennis Rethers Dolomites Cinematic 4K Mavic Air 2, which I regularly watch as a test film.
I’ve grown so fond of it, I sometimes sit through the whole film just enjoying the extraordinary images and colours and vistas. I’ve toured the Dolomites myself on a bicycle and Rethers’ film captures the experience well.
What’s also something of a relief about the Nanlite Short Film Contest is that all the films must be new, so it won’t be other festival retreads and films from 2021. The competition is open until 31 May.
Good luck filmmakers, commercial, narrative and experimental!
Alec Kinnear
Alec has been helping businesses succeed online since 2000. Alec is an SEM expert with a background in advertising, as a former Head of Television for Grey Moscow and Senior Television Producer for Bates, Saatchi and Saatchi Russia.
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