Call for Entry Opens: 1st September 2024
Final Deadline: 31st July 2025.
Entry fees are non-refundable.
Best Short Film Winner-Award With INR 15000 ( Fifteen Thousand Rupees)
The Short Film Mantra International Film Festival (SFMIFF)will be held on 29th June 2025 in Surat, India, and is now open for entries. SFMIFF strives to screen short films and invites both professional (established broadcasters, film or television production companies/distributors, and independent filmmakers) and non-professional filmmakers from anywhere in the world to participate in the festival. The festival and the judgment of the competition will take place in Surat, India.
Submission to the festival is open to short films, short documentaries, advertisements/commercials, and public service announcements. All films submitted by filmmakers to the festival under the categories of short film, short documentary, short animation, advertisement/commercial, and public service announcement, and created after 1st January 2020, will be included in the competition section of the festival program. If any filmmaker wants the screening of a film completed before 2019, it will be accepted but will be excluded from the competition.
The festival charges a nominal entry fee to the competition. For details, kindly see the Categories & Fees section. Entry fees are non-refundable.
Submission entry fees INR 2000
Festival Account Details:
Account Name: Short Film Mantra
Account No: 275120110000394
Branch: Bank of India, Adajan, Surat, Gujarat-395009 India
IFSC Code: BKID0002751
Filmmakers may submit any number of films under the festival’s film categories, such as short films, short documentaries, advertisements/commercials, and public service announcements.
(a) Short Film (less than 30 minutes)
(b) Long Short Film (less than 45 minutes)
(c) Short Documentaries (less than 30 minutes)
(d) Advertisement/Commercials (less than 6 minutes)
(e) Public Service Announcements (less than 6 minutes)
(f) Tickets for viewing films
Ten days before the dates of our SFMIFF we will allow the buying of tickets online.
Participation in SFMIFFF-2025 implies acceptance of the rules and regulations by filmmakers, producers, and their agents. The festival will not provide any screening fees for any films and does not cover travel expenses for any film representative.
(a) Submission Deadlines
The final deadline for submitting films is 31st May 2025. Short films submitted after the mentioned date will not be accepted by the festival authority.
(b) Press Kit / Publicity Materials
Please include HIGH-RESOLUTION photographs (JPEG, TIFF, or EPS formats). The following formats will be required for the press kit and Festival Directory:
(i) Production stills (4)
(ii) Director’s photographs (2)
(iii) Poster (1)
(iv) Movie Stills (2)
(v) Press clippings, brochures, pamphlets
(vi) 20-second trailer is to be submitted with each film.
(vii) Submission Materials
None of the above-listed submission materials will be returned.
Festival programmers select and invite all films presented at the festival. Films selected for the SFMIFFF-2025 will be announced before the festival date on our website www.ottcinemaaward.com Filmmakers selected to participate will be notified before this date. The nominated film list will be published on the website and our official Facebook page.
Participation in the festival requires unconditional adherence to its regulations as set out here.
All films selected for the competition section of the festival are required to grant full approval for a one-time screening of their film on one of the partnering satellite channels. Additionally, the authorities request that the short filmmaker winner upload their short film to our YouTube channel or share their channel link so people can watch the winning short film.
All contact persons of selected films will receive a request for catalogue materials upon confirming participation in the festival.
The press kit materials you submit will be used to compile the Festival Catalogue. If the submitted materials are low quality we will attempt to get good quality materials. But for unforeseen reasons if we do not receive good quality materials, the Festival accepts no liability if its publications reproduce inaccuracies.
In principle, the catalogue will include the following technical and artistic credits: original title, international title, country of production, year of production, premiere status, format, running time, director, production company, producer, sales company, print source, screenplay, cinematography, editing, production design, sound, music, principal cast.
Writings in the Catalogue are entirely at the discretion of the Festival.
The contact persons of the films participating in the Festival will receive a request from the Press office to send publicity materials. These materials will be used in Festival publications and for distribution to the press and the festival guests. Each film should be submitted with a trailer of 20 seconds.
After the official selection of a film, the Festival is qualified to use excerpts from the film, with a maximum of 3 minutes or a total duration of the excerpts not exceeding more than 10% of the running time of the film, for promotional purposes both nationally and internationally. In the event, that excerpts are not available, and it’s understood that under no circumstances will the entire print be lent out, the Festival is qualified to copy, under its strict supervision, one or more excerpts from the film, for promotional use, before, during, and after the Festival.
To promote the entire selection and each selected film, the Festival will use any photo or digital film clip (less than 3 minutes in duration or the total duration of the excerpt not exceeding more than 10% of the film's running time) on its website. The 20-second trailer of the film may be used for promotion.
General scheduling and the timetabling of public screenings are entirely at the discretion of the Festival Management.
Selected films will be screened in their original version. In principle, if not with English dialogues, films must be subtitled in ENGLISH. An electronic subtitling system should not be used for any film.
SFMIFF reserves the right to use submission materials for the promotion of the festival.
SFMIFFF is entitled to screen the submitted productions via online and offline methods to the public, during and after the festival for unlimited periods, also for both commercial and non-commercial purposes. If we screen your productions commercially we will inform you.
Entrants warrant that SFMIFFF is entitled to use all the submitted images for promotional activity of the Festival in the world in different digital media for unlimited periods without making any payment for such usage.
All submissions will be retained at the SFMIFF World Film Library for educational and archival purposes. For such purposes, SFMIFF does not pay any fees to entrants.
SFMIFF reserves the right to edit the information supplied by the entrants for publication in the Festival Souvenir (for both online and printed versions).
There will be three rounds of judging:
Round A: In this round, an SFMIFF jury panel will decide whether the films meet all the entry guidelines. The panel will then shortlist the best short films and prepare a list of 100 films for Round
Round B: In this round, the Screening Committee will decide the nominations. A list of nominated films will be determined in this round.
Final Round: In this round, the full bench of judges will decide the films for awards in different categories.
