Metacafe®, whose more than 30 million unique viewers each month make it one of the world’s largest video entertainment sites, and Microcinema International, a leading international rights manager, exhibitor and specialty markets distributor of the “moving image arts,” are teaming to create and curate MetaFest 2008. MetaFest is a juried online and offline film festival presenting the best in international creative and contemporary short-form video entertainment.
MetaFest combines the best of the interactive online video-viewing experience with the best of the live-audience offline film festival experience. Selected films will have a theatrical premiere in San Francisco in November 2008, will be showcased on Metacafe.com for six months, and be screened at dozens of “microcinema†events across the U.S. and around the world through the first half of 2009.
The MetaFest jury includes Hillman Curtis, an award-winning filmmaker, designer and author whose books include “Creating Short Films for the Web,” and Glenn R. Phillips, who is senior project specialist and consulting curator of contemporary programs for the Getty Research Institute and recently curated the “California Video†exhibition.
The jury will select a grand prize winner who will be awarded $5,000 cash and a “short-short†award winner for outstanding work in a video of three minutes or less who will receive $2,000 cash. Two audience-choice award winners – one selected at the theatrical premiere and one selected by Metacafe viewers – will receive $1,000 each as well as DVD selections worth $250 from the Microcinema DVD catalog. All award winners will be prominently featured on the Metacafe home page for 10 days and receive additional exposure through marketing and publicity efforts. Additionally, the creator of each film selected for the MetaFest offline program will receive a cash honorarium of $50.
MetaFest invites short video, film and digital media submissions of 10 minutes or less that are narrative, humorous, artistic, dramatic, animated, documentary, mockumentary, music, experimental, alternative or avant-garde in any genre, format or style.
Additional details are available at www.metacafe.com/metafest, where films can be uploaded for consideration through September 10th, 2008.