Open call: International and ROMANIAN SHORT Film CompetitionS 2022

Submission deadlineS: June 24 (regular) and July 23 (late)



Bucharest International Dance Film Festival is a platform for exquisite films that use movement as their primary language or the body as their main subject. Faced with the camera lenses, the body becomes the primary focus of cutting-edge arthouse films that challenge the audience to a lively exchange of stances on challenging politics, extreme emotions, concealed interpretations, and oddly beautiful aesthetics.

BIDFF encourages syncretism and dialogue between movement and diverse forms of cinema, from the more traditional ones to experimental or futuristic hybrid works. Besides film screenings, BIDFF organizes a VR showcase, lectures, public presentations, and intensive short film workshops. Each year in September, the festival takes place in multiple locations from Bucharest, Romania.

Through the (un)safe zones theme, the eighth edition of BIDFF (September 8-11, 2022) invites artists and audiences alike to witness art redefining its shapes in a world in crisis. The artistic formats undergo mandatory mutations: the film leaves the cinema, the dance leaves the stage, the stage becomes a space open to debates, and the reality is radically transformed by imaginative artistic manifestations.

BIDFF #8 questions the future’s safety in the face of current events and wonders what forms of art we are heading towards. What molds will movies accede to? What topics will gain relevance as we are forced to be more aware of national, bodily, and inner boundaries?

We are looking for daring cinematic works in which the body relates to technology, ecology, and new socio-political discourses. BIDFF also addresses recent video-art formats that examine the relationship between the strong artistic content and the fast process of digitization. The curatorial approach attempts to decipher, contextualize and shape these ideas.

HOW TO APPLY

  • The call opens on May 30. The deadlines for submissions are June 24 (regular) and July 23 (late).

  • Each director can submit a maximum of two films in the competition.

  • The films must be submitted through FilmFreeway. Before submitting, please check all the fees related to your category and deadline.

All applicants will be informed about the outcome of their submission by August 1, 2022.

RULES & TERMS

The competitional section is dedicated to short films only and is divided into International and Romanian. The board will take into consideration fiction, documentary and animation films that either use movement to explore an idea or speak about issues related to the body and the world of dance and performance. We also highly encourage you to apply if you have a short film that explores the future of art, questioning issues related to the ethics of collaboration, communication, and co-existence.

we are looking for:

  • Short dance films produced in the last two years that do not exceed 20 minutes in length and have a minimum quality of Full HD (1080p), that can be either live action or animation in genres of fiction, documentary or experimental.

we are not looking for:

  • Music videos, trailers or recordings of performances, films already submitted to previous editions of BIDFF, one-minute films, commercials.

WE offer:

  • Money awards for Best International Film (1000 Euros) and Best Romanian Film (500 Euros).

  • Free entry to all the events of the festival, excluding workshops that require a previous application.