Early September, 2014.
Sunny days, with white, pale clouds running over Athenians’ heads and autumn’s first smells arriving along with the social and artistic events usually marking this period of time.
Film festivals consist a category of their own in the general festivals΄ circuit. They usually get a lot of the audiences’ and media’s attention, while, sometimes, the ones presenting short films attract even bigger numbers of guests and participants. In recent years, big international film festivals -like Venice IFF and others- are trying to become attuned with the new tendencies of production, screening and promotion of films by focusing their attention also on online projections.
Nowadays, screening online content has become quite popular as a simpler and, sometimes more efficient way to highlight new and talented filmmakers, something our region never lacked on. With more than 100 films from 12 countries and 4,750 registered users in its first 2 years of operations,
altcineAction! Online Short Film Festival for Balkan Filmmakers its not your ordinary short film festival. We prefer to call our event “a journey”.
The cinematic journey of a generation raised in post-war Balkans, through mass migrations to the West, during the EU-joining heat and at the peak of filmmaking’s new and accesible technologies. Nevertheless, this gloomy setting has an opposite and magical side: a profound individual and social material transformed into an artistic one by portraying it in various film works.
Bearing such events and circumstances in mind, altcineAction! Online Short Film Festival for Balkan Filmmakers was founded so this transformation could be accumulated in a single, annual and 30-days virtual journey where movie makers present their works and film lovers appreciate them. Besides appreciation and artistic satisfaction, the directors also receive a more tangible support - big prizes, range from filmmaking services by top firms and Institutions in the audio-visual sector for their next film to professional software such as Avid Media Composer or Pro Tools software and production equipment.
Organized by altcine and under the aegis of the
Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, and
Eurimages, altcineAction! runs entirely online - submission, screenings and voting, with the audience having total and free access to the content from every corner of the world. This year, the festival is offering
480 minutes of online content, 120 minutes more than the previous years. Every Balkan filmmaker of all ages can participate as long as his/her film isn΄t over 15 minutes and that they haven’t directed more than one feature film. Voting period starts along with the submissions.
The first three Grand Awards are based entirely on public voting and reviewing on the world audience’s judgment meaning that he or she with the most and best all-around reviews, beside the Best Critic Award also receives an invitation to a Balkan Film Festival..
The Juries Awards -Best Photography, Best Editing and the special Alida Dimitriou Award (consists of production and post-production services provided by top firms and Institutions in the audio-visual sector).
Ask yourself: How many Balkan films can fit in 480 minutes? A month -or even earlier- from now we’ll know the answer.
