SUNY Niagara Film & Animation Festival

In order to be considered for judging, videos must be uploaded to FilmFreeway. Note: If you’re using Vimeo, make sure you include a download button. Hard-copies will not be accepted. Videos entered in the contest must be accompanied by a fully completed entry form and payment of the $10 entry fee. On the submission form, entrants must provide the following information: name, age, title of the video, running time of the video, brief description of the video, school (if a currently enrolled high school or college student), street address, e-mail address, and phone number. Additionally, entrants must provide a brief biographical statement.

Entrants who are under the age of 18 must also provide the name and contact information of a parent or legal guardian. By entering the SUNY Niagara Film & Animation Festival, entrants agree to grant SUNY Niagara permission to screen their productions at the SUNY Niagara Film & Animation Festival, which takes place at the College’s Sanborn Campus on Saturday May 9, 2020. Entrants also agree to allow SUNY Niagara to use brief excerpts from their videos for promotional, informational, and educational use related to the festival. Prizewinners additionally agree to allow SUNY Niagara to feature an excerpt or web link to their video on the SUNY Niagara Film & Animation Festival Website for approximately one year from the date of the festival.

Entrants may submit up to two videos in each of the seven competition categories. These include: documentary, comedy, drama, music video, experimental, animation, and horror. Entrants must indicate on the submission form the category in which they want their video to be judged. (Best High School Student Video award is determined by the highest score of all films/videos submitted by High School Students)”

A separate online submission form, along with an entry fee of $10 (payable at the time of submission), must accompany each video submitted to the competition. Entries may be disqualified if not complete for any reason.

All videos must be original productions and must have been produced within the past three years. Entrants must confirm that they possess rights to all copyrighted works (i.e. images, video clips, music, etc.) used in the video as well as releases from all persons who appear in or whose voices are used in the production.

Entrants are responsible for ensuring that their videos are in compliance with all legal and copyright requirements. SUNY Niagara does not assume responsibility for phone, technical, network, electronic, computer, hardware or software failure of any kind, stolen, incomplete, garbled, or delayed Internet/e-mail computer transmission, or lost, late, misdirected, damaged, illegible, stolen, incomplete, misaddressed entries incorrectly transmitted entries, or any other entry which does not meet the contest requirements.

No. If you are a previous year’s winner, submission of your winning video to any future SUNY Niagara festival(s) will not be considered as a finalist/winner again.

The SUNY Niagara Film & Animation Festival will award a First Place prize in each of the festival’s seven categories. First-Place winners will receive $200.00.

Prizes are non-transferable. There will be no substitution of prizes and no election of cash in lieu of prizes, except at the sole discretion of SUNY Niagara.

If not present on the day of the Festival Awards ceremony, winners should allow two months for delivery of their prize after notification of winning. Prizewinners are responsible for all applicable taxes.

Videos submitted to the competition should be a maximum of 20 minutes in length.

Videos in each of the competition categories will be screened on the day of the festival. Excerpts from first prize and second prize videos will also be screened during the festival awards ceremony.

The SUNY Niagara Film & Animation Festival is open to students, amateurs, and professionals.

Judges for each category are experienced filmmaking, animation, or entertainment professionals. There are two judges for each category. Videos will be judged on the basis of creativity, originality, production aesthetics (visual and sound elements), and overall quality. Judging will take place prior to the SUNY Niagara Film & Animation Festival. Judges’ decisions are final.