Posted Tuesday 22 Mar 2011
DigiSPAA, Australia and New Zealand's platform for the celebration and acknowledgment of independent digital filmmaking, has announced the launch of its seventh annual competition, with entries now open. Filmmakers from Australia and New Zealand are invited to enter. As well as offering one of the most lucrative film prizes in Australasia, the winner receives a recognised career boost with the support of the Screen Producers Association of Australia (SPAA), the MOVIE EXTRA Channel and CineMart International Film Festival Rotterdam.
DigiSPAA is a creative project of SPAA that encourages filmmakers to enter their independently-funded digital feature films and aims to support filmmaking that is affordable, creative and appealing to audiences. The competition embraces the importance and growing prevalence of digital filmmaking in the industry. DigiSPAA 2011 will look to emulate the success of last year's competition, which received a record 28 entries.
For this year's winner, the 2011 DigiSPAA competition boasts a prize pool of $15,000 cash and $20,000 worth of post-production, a guaranteed screening of the winning film on the Movie Extra channel, plus a return airfare and free registration to the prestigious CineMart International Film Festival Rotterdam, in The Netherlands.
This year's four finalists will be announced in mid-October and the winner will be awarded at the 2011 SPAA Conference taking place at the Hilton Sydney from 13 - 16 November 2011. An expert panel of industry judges will choose the winner based on the quality of the film and the filmmaker's ability to demonstrate a clear marketing plan across a range of digital platforms.
Applications close at 5pm on Friday 16th September 2011. Eligible films are feature length, with a running time of at least 70mins, digitally produced and completed to advanced post-production stage no earlier than 30 August 2010, and independently funded.
Check out the DigiSPAA website for further info.