New Voice Short Film Festival (1)

Festival start: 20 January 2020      Festival end: 15 March 2021

Celebrating Short Films, Television and New Media.
Our mission is to support filmmakers!

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have chosen to hold our awards gala and viewing at a later time. We want to ensure that everyone who wishes to participate has the opportunity to feel safe to do so. Thus we have chosen to wait until such time as treatments and hopefully a cure has been discovered. We are not canceling the festival, just prolonging it choosing to error on the side of precaution and health safety.

New Voice Short Film Festival is a unique program offering opportunities to new filmmakers to share their passion with others in their field. With the popularity of the Short Film genre increasing every year, options for festival directors have grown by leaps and bounds as the number of talented and as yet unknown filmmakers increases.

We believe that if the artist has the passion and determination to create the film, the film deserves to be seen. But with most festivals focused on entertaining local audiences, the filmmaker often falls to secondary importance. With New Voice, every film entered is judged on its own merits by our panel of professional industry personnel, helping to encourage and celebrate new and emerging filmmakers being our primary goal. ​

What kind of media we accept: ​

New Voice Short Film Festival is a powerful venue for films, documentaries, new and experimental media, television pilot programs, animation, educational programs, remixes & mashups, movie trailers, music videos (that tell an actual story), and webisodes. Your project should action adventure, biography, comedy, drama, documentary, psychological, romance, and or thriller in genre.

We are seeking three specific categories:

- Super Shorts: Films not more than 10 minutes in length.

- Center Shorts: Films longer than 10 minutes but no more than 25 minutes in length.

- Mega Shorts: Films longer than 25 minutes but no more than 45 minutes in length. ​

Where our filmmakers are from: ​

New Voice Short Film Festival is designed specifically for non-professional, non-union related filmmakers, whether currently at a university or other educational facility, part of a collaborative artists group, or dreamers who are attempting to go it alone. If the filmmaker, writer, director, and/or producer are at least 18 years of age, you are welcome to submit your film project.
Benefits of Participating:

• Being accepted into a traditional film festival can be far more difficult than most might anticipate. Having had a film project accepted to a festival often gives the filmmaker far better credibility when attempting to submit to other festivals.
• Peer Review – our judges are filmmakers who understand the craft and what audiences want.
• Having your film reviewed with feedback respectfully provided helps refine your film making ability so that you can continue to grow as you pursue your dreams.
• Winners of the three categories as well as one Best of Show winner will have their films premiered for public viewing at our premier gala on Thursday March 25, 2021 at the Brookside Golf Club next to the world famous Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA.
*There will be plenty of opportunity to speak with our industry professional judges at the gala, as well as meet other filmmakers who chose to attend.

Notification: ​

Each submission received will be confirmed by Festhome and New Voice administrators via electronic mail.

After judging is completed, winners in all categories will be notified of their award and will be provided additional information such as links to winner’s laurels etc.

Awards & Prizes
AWARDS & PRIZES - Judging and Award Levels: ​

For the purposes of ensuring the best possible response time, we are limiting submissions to 150 for Super Shorts, 100 for Center Shorts, and only 50 for Mega Shorts. The first films to be submitted will be judged and scored on several levels of creativity. Each level will be granted a first place Encouraging Excellence award, a second place Celebration of Creativity award, and a third place Meritorious Mention award. Additionally, one Best of Show award will also be given, and could be selected from any of the three categories.

The judging takes place by in-house staff and a committee of industry professionals. With New Voice Short Film Festival, entries do not compete against each other; instead all entries are judged against a high standard of merit and are scored accordingly. Judges score entries on a performance scale and highest scoring dictates each categories winner. The top ten winners will have their film shown publicly at a gala event complete with photography and interviews, and shall receive both a crystal trophy acknowledging their success as well as a cash award. Additionally, notable artistic and technical productions will also be given honorable mention at this event.

Notification: ​

Each submission received will be confirmed by Festhome and New Voice administrators via electronic mail.

After judging is completed, winners in all categories will be notified of their award and will be provided additional information such as links to winner’s laurels etc.

Rules & Terms

1. All entries must be 55 minutes or less and must be received by 6 pm on the final due date February 26, 2021, to be considered. If more entries are received than there is allowable space, only the first films received for the maximum number in each category will be judged. We are accepting no more than 150 Super Short Films, 100 Center Short Films, and 50 Mega Short Films for the 2020 New Voice Short Film Festival.

2. All submissions must be in the English language. We respect and understand that our industry and our community have a vast cultural array of individuals, however, at this time we are not accepting films in other languages even with subtitles.

3. Multiple entries are allowed from a single filmmaker. A single filmmaker may submit several films to as many different categories as they chose, however, quality and value of film submission will be taken into consideration by the festival judges for individuals or groups who chose to submit 3 or more films to the 2021 festival.

4. Online screening is mandatory. If you chose not to upload your project to Festhome site, you must provide an online link to your submission and be sure to include the password in an email correspondence sent directly to New Voice Short Film Festival. DVD submissions will not be accepted.

5. New Voice Short Film Festival does not download submissions or accept Dropbox submissions. Please only send links to your media hosted on third party servers such as Vimeo or YouTube.

6. Written comments describing entries are highly beneficial. Explaining why your film was made and or how your film is intended to grow, advance, or enlighten the world as a whole, will help our judges in understanding intentions that may otherwise be misunderstood.

7. All submissions will be deemed Student Submissions; no industry professional or union related individuals are permitted to be involved in any part of your film submission or its creation. As New Voice Short Film Festival is a rare festival focused on opening the doors of festival participation to those who would otherwise not likely be able to participate, it is essential that no union affiliation or (deemed) professional involvement be utilized. Doing so could create an unfair advantage to those who might not have access to these types of organizations or individuals. Any submission found to have violated this rule will be automatically eliminated.

8. All film submissions are required to honor and follow a standard of excellence that mandates questionable or vulgar language and/or actions be eliminated. Refusal to abide by this mandate will be grounds for removal from the festival and all judging without a return of submission fees. New Voice Short Film Festival does not believe that limiting a creators voice is ever acceptable, however, as our program is intended to inspire genuine excellence, we have taken the stance that excessive vulgar language, language that might be deemed offensive to individuals, cultures, religious beliefs, and or political affiliations is not acceptable. Please be conscious of your verbiage, and ensure that what is said is actually crucial to the development of your submission.

9. Where your work will remain yours, all persons involved with creating your film project must be noted appropriately in your film credits, and submitting your film project to the festival is also granting permission for New Voice Short Film Festival, and its festival hosts, to utilize portions of your film in advertising promotions for New Voice Short Film Festival without further documentation required.

10. Submission fees for each submission must be received with submission in order for your film project to be reviewed and judged. Best of Show Winner does not pay additional fees, this selection will genuinely be Best of Show.

11. All submissions must be in one or more of the following genres: action adventure, biography, comedy, drama, documentary, psychological, romance, and or thriller.

12. Use of excessive nudity is deemed as unacceptable. Where the human body is a beautiful thing, the New Voice Short Film Festival and judges believe that excessive nudity would be described as inappropriate, and therefore all submissions with gratuitous sexual content and or nudity will not be judged, nor will the submission fees be returned.