Festival Guidelines

ELIGIBILITY:

All entrants must either be Minnesota high school students, or Minnesota residents under the age of 19.

LENGTH:

Short film submissions should be no longer 7 minutes.
Micro-Film submissions should be no longer than 1 minute.

FORMAT:

All videos should be compressed according to the guidelines and submitted via the EDU Sparqfest Platform.

CONTENT:

Generally speaking, if the content could be aired on network television, it is probably acceptable.

More specifically:

The EDU Film Festival will not condone nor accept entries which:

• Glamorize and/or graphically depict acts of violence

• Glamorize any act of selling, consuming, or distributing drugs or alcohol

• Glamorize any act of theft

• Glamorize or emphasize any sexual act whether implied or directly stated

• Make any direct or indirect threat to an individual, group, or entity

• Harass and/or bully an individual, group, or entity

• Are performed while under the influence of drugs, alcohol, or any other intoxicating substance

• Contain profane or obscene language

Videos should not contain unauthorized copyrighted material. The EDU Film Festival is not responsible for confirming copyright permissions and any illegal use of copyrighted materials is the responsibility of the entrant. For more information about obtaining rights to copyrighted material visit copyrightkids.org.

Step 1: Create your FilmFreeway account: Be as thorough as possible when filling out the contact info. In the privacy section, make sure that you allow festivals to see your profile.

Step 2: Create your FilmFreeway project: Go to the Project Tab in your new Film Freeway Account. Here is where you will add your film. If you have more than one film, you will create multiple projects. There is a fairly long list of questions that you can answer about your film, and the better you fill this section out, the better your film looks to festivals. But, for EDU Film Festival, you only need to fill out the following information:

Project Information:

• Project type (Must be a Film/Video)

• Project Title

• Brief Synopsis

Submitter Info:

• Email (non-school works best, sometimes school emails filter out our attempts to contact you)

• Phone (cell is best, we’ll usually only contact you if there is a problem and will start with a text.

• Birthdate

Credits:

• The Director’s credit is the only one that is necessary, but if you have partners or a co-director, you can add those in the appropriate roles.

Specifications:

• Runtime

Now, hit the SAVE PROJECT button at the bottom of the page. you’ll see a pop-up telling you to add your project file. You can either upload a low-rez copy of your film to the FilmFreeway website, or you can add a link to a Vimeo or Youtube copy. If your Vimeo or Youtube is password protected, be sure to include the password.

Notes on uploads:

• If you are submitting a microfilm in a 9:16 (or vertical format), please submit a Youtube or Vimeo link - FilmFreeway upload is not optimal.

• If you are chosen as an official screener at the 2023 EDU Film Festival, you will have to provide a high-resolution copy of your short film to the festival.

Step 3: Submit to EDU Film Festival: Lastly, go to EDU Film Festival’s 2023 Submission Page. Hit SUBMIT NOW and fill out the form to enter your short film. You must fill out EDU’s custom form completely to be eligible for entry.