13 EXCITING CATEGORIES OF COMPETITION TO CHOOSE FROM
11 Film Competitions ** 2 Screenplay Competitions
**Please Note: All films MUST be a premiere
**Founder's Award (Best of Fest prize) $2000 (Gifts and Award)**
Please Note: In the least, we MUST have a ** Toronto Premiere**
We do not recycle films screened at other fests in Toronto.
Feature Film – Narrative Competition
(Any Genre: Drama, Comedy, Sci-Fi, Horror, Fantasy, Film Noir, etc)
Open to all Narrative Films 70 minutes and over in length. This
category is open to directors of all levels. Films in a language other
than English must be subtitled.
1st Prize Winners will receive a personalized Medallion or Trophy
2nd Prize Winners will receive a personalized Medallion or Trophy
3rd Prize Winners will receive a personalized Medallion or Trophy
Feature Documentary Competition
Open to all documentary films 70 minutes and over
in length. This category is open to directors of all levels. Films in a
language other than English must be subtitled.
1st Prize Winners will receive a personalized Medallion or Trophy
2nd Prize Winners will receive a personalized Medallion or Trophy
3rd Prize Winners will receive a personalized Medallion or Trophy
Short or Long Form Film – Narrative Competition
(Any Genre: Drama, Comedy, Sci-Fi, Horror, Fantasy, Film Noir, etc)
Open to all Short or Long Form Films 69
minutes and under in length. This category is open to directors of all
levels, including students. Films in a language other than English must
be subtitled.
1st Prize Winners will receive a personalized Medallion or Trophy
2nd Prize Winners will receive a personalized Medallion or Trophy
3rd Prize Winners will receive a personalized Medallion or Trophy
Short or Long Form Documentary Competition
Open to all Short or Long
Form Documentary Films 69 minutes and under in length. This category is
open to directors of all levels, including students. Films in a
language other than English must be subtitled.
1st Prize Winners will receive a personalized Medallion or Trophy
2nd Prize Winners will receive a personalized Medallion or Trophy
3rd Prize Winners will receive a personalized Medallion or Trophy
Dance, or Music Related Film Competition
(Dance = Any Dance Form i.e. Ballet, Contemporary, Swing, Hip-Hop, Ballroom)
(Music Related Film = Bio Pics, Profiles, Docs on Music Scene/Artists, Bands, Concerts, etc)
Open to all Dance or Music Related Films
that are of ANY length. This category is open to directors of all
levels, including students. Films in a language other than English must
be subtitled.
1st Prize Winners will receive a personalized Medallion or Trophy
2nd Prize Winners will receive a personalized Medallion or Trophy
3rd Prize Winners will receive a personalized Medallion or Trophy
Animation or New Media Film Competition
Open to all animated, new media and highly visual films of ANY length.
This category is open to directors of all levels, including students. Films in a language other than English must be subtitled.
Best Animated Film
Winner will receive a personalized Medallion or Trophy
Experimental Film Competition
Open to all Experimental
Films that are of ANY length. This category is open to directors of all
levels, including students. Films in a language other than English must
be subtitled.
Best Experimental Film
Winners will receive a personalized Medallion or Trophy
Music Video Competition
This category is open to directors of all levels,
including students. Open to all Music Videos of any length. Music Videos
in a language other than English must be subtitled.
Best Music Video
Winner will receive a personalized Medallion or Trophy
ReelHeART Short Screenplay Competition
Do NOT miss out on submitting your script for 2012 – Here’s what
great about this competition for 2012. The Top 3 winning scripts will
receive a rehearsed cast-to-type live just like we do for our top 3
feature Screenplay Competition Winners. The only difference, all 3
scripts will be read on the same night in front of a festival audience
at our exciting Venue program. Agents will be in attendance.
Best Short Screenplay Prize
Winner will receive a personalized Trophy and a Filmmaking related gift
ALL scripts will receive written coverage via email
This competition is open to screenplay writers of all levels. This
competition is open to scripts of ALL genres. Your script must be a
“Short Film” script.
Please keep your script length to 15 pages or less
Scripts longer than 15 pages will be automatically disqualified
The script must
If sending your script by mail, Scripts must be attached with brass brads/fasteners
If sending your script by mail you MUST send 2 hard copies of your script
Save the Environment and help ReelHeART be a ‘green fest’ by sending your scripts via email
Please use ‘WARNER BROTHERS’ style set up in your Final Draft or
script writing software. If not using software, please format your
script using the guideline for script formatting at Film School Online
ReelHeART Feature Screenplay Competition
You heard the buzz from the last seasons. The excitement still hasn’t
stopped. Do NOT miss out on submitting your script for 2010 – Our 2009
2nd place screenwriter got top literary agent representation at the end
of an exciting week at ReelHeART 2009. and in 2011 TWO of the Top 3
Winners were by the same writing team and one of their scripts is on its
way to a director right now!
This competition is open to screenplay writers of all levels. This
competition is open to scripts of ALL genres. Your script must be a
“Feature Film” script.
Please try to keep your script length to 120 pages or less. We’ll
work with you to pare it down. We do have a margin that it can be over.
But the shorter the better for all. A shorter script is more
commercially viable.
If sending your script by mail, scripts must be attached with brass brads/fasteners
If sending your script by mail you MUST send 2 hard copies of your script
Save the Environment and help ReelHeART be a ‘green fest’ by sending your scripts via email
Please use ‘WARNER BROTHERS’ style set up in your Final Draft or
script writing software. If not using software, please format your
script using the guideline for script formatting at Film School Online
The Top 3 Winners will get a full
rehearsed and cast to type script read with critique and Q & A in
front of a live film festival audience.
1st Place script will win a one-on-one lunch with a top agent in Toronto to discuss possible representation
1st Place script will also receive an
award, full script coverage, (possibly goods) and possible
representation by a respected Canadian agent
2nd Place script will receive an award
(and possibly goods) and full coverage of their script and possible
representation by a respected Canadian agent
3rd Place script will receive an award
(and possibly goods) and full coverage of their script and possible
representation by a respected Canadian agent
ReelHeART“Off The Shelf”Competition
The ReelHeART “Off The Shelf” Category was introduced in 2008
for films of all genres that never saw the light of day, or never
reached an audience shortly after the film was completed. Your film has
to be more than 5 years old to be eligible-
Over the past 6 seasons, ReelHeART has been impressed with the number
of films we come across during our research that are quality films but
we’ve never heard of before. Art House films, documentaries,
experimental films and animation- We’ve seen a quite a few and liked
them.
Whether your film was created on a student/no/lo/moderate/or big
budget we’d like to see it. If your film passes our criterion for all of
our other categories, we’ll put it thought the same screening and
scoring process as our other submissions.
We know there are quite a few experimental films out there that their
loving filmmakers ‘tweaked for years’ only to be beat out by time,
technology or money to market and screen their film.
We also know there are genre specific “blaxplotation”, “avant-garde”,
“queer” “b-movie” and “underground” films that never got through the
doors of very many theaters if at all. We know there’s tons of
documentaries, quirky profiles, garage music videos, x-rated animation
and experimental mixed media out there. If your film is one of these, we
want to see it.
If your film is over 5 years old and you’d like to see how it matches
up to its contemporaries, we urge you to submit your film today. We’re
excited about this addition to ReelHeART. We hope you will be too!
Best “Off The Shelf” Prize
Winner will receive a personalized Medallion or Trophy
This prize is NOT shared with other categories
ReelHeART ReelTube Film and Video Competition
In this time of Webisodes, Point n Post
and where anyone anywhere can upload, view and share user generated
videos, ReelHeART would we’d like to take it old school.
ReelHeART has decided to introduce web videos to its film festival
audience to see if filmgoers are willing to see something on the big
screen they can see anytime they want on the Internet.
The criterion for getting in this category is fairly simple. We ask
that you DO NOT SUBMIT ANY unauthorized clips from television shows,
films and music videos.
We also ask that you DO NOT SUBMIT videos containing pornography,
nudity, defamation, harassment, commercial advertisements and material
encouraging criminal conduct. Your video has to be all original with
only “fair use” of material (i.e. music, an image, a quote).
Your video has to have production values, i.e. Clear Video, Clean
Audio and a STORY. This category also includes cinéma vérité. Other than
that, absolutely anything goes!
The Top Winner will be awarded a “Best of Prize” honor and that my
friend, you can submit to other film festivals and eventually shop
around to Hollywood…
Best “ReelTube” Prize
Winner will receive a personalized Medallion or Trophy
This prize is NOT shared with other categories
ReelHeART Thesis Film Competition
Calling all Thesis Filmmakers! Ok, so
what have you done lately with that thesis film of yours?We don’t care
what year you graduated. We just care that your film has excellent
production values and a great story– for whatever year.
Spike Lee’s thesis film was called “Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads“. Since then he’s made over 35 films. So, have you got a thesis film we should see before you make it big?
Where has it screened? If it hasn’t screened in Toronto, Canada, we may be interested in seeing it.
Your thesis film has to have production values, i.e. Clear Video,
Clean Audio and a STORY. This category also includes cinéma vérité.
The criterion for getting in the category is fairly simple. We ask
that you DO NOT SUBMIT ANY unauthorized clips from television shows,
films, books, magazines and music videos.
We also ask that you DO NOT SUBMIT videos containing defamation,
harassment, commercial advertisements and material encouraging criminal
conduct.
Your thesis film has to be all original with only “fair use” of material (i.e. music, an image, a quote).
Narrative, Animation, Documentary, Experimental, Underground – This
category is wide open. Whatever you made as your thesis film, it’s
eligible in this category. Prizes in this category are 1st, 2nd and 3rd
Place as well as in competition for Best Actor, Best Actress and Best
Venue.
You’ll need to write a brief cover letter that gives us details about
you, your school program, the year you graduated (we don’t care even if
it was in the 40s), the mark you got (high or low doesn’t matter it’s
the content we’re interested in), and what you’ve done since making your
thesis film.
If you haven’t made it to a film festival yet, why not make it one with ReelHeART…
Best “Thesis Film” Prize
Winner will receive a personalized Medallion or Trophy