Chaktomuk Short Film Festival Calls for Submissions
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- Po Sakun & Teng Yalirozy
- May 24, 2021 10:41 AM
Having cancelled last year’s festival due to the pandemic, the festival’s organizers are now accepting two years’ worth of entries for one large event in October 2021.
PHNOM PENH--In preparation for its 10th annual event, the Chaktomuk Short Film Festival (CSFF) has opened its call for submissions. Short filmmakers will have until June 8 to submit their entry which will be reviewed by the Sunflower Film Alliance.
Awards for the 10th edition of the festival will be announced in July 2021 and will be split across four categories: Best Cambodian Short Film, Second Best Cambodian Short Film, Audience Award for Local Short Film and Audience Award for International Short Film.
President of CSFF Sum Sithen said that for this year will be the first year that music videos, songs, new compositions, documentaries and animations will also be accepted.
“Fiction and animations will be put to compete while documentaries will be screened only. Music videos will compete separately from short fictions. Moreover, films shot on mobile phone will be accepted as well,” said.
Sithen said that the final films selected will have an opportunity to be screened in foreign theaters, which he hopes will provide the winners to make contacts within the film industry.
In 2020, about 70 short films were submitted, of which about 25 films were Khmer short stories.
“This was fewer than we’d hoped for, we expected to get between 35 and 40 Khmer short stories last year and I think this year we may see even fewer,” said Sithen.
“We select six short stories for the final and six others for the screening,” explained. “In 2020, we postponed the competition due to COVID-19, so this year we’ll add both the two years’ submissions together.”
The festival is set to take place by the end of October 2021 and will include a series of programs, such as Chaktomuk Films Insight and Sunflower FilmCamp, but Sithen noted that all of this hinges on Cambodia’s ability to contain COVID-19.
Previous winners, from 2019, include “Before the Rain”—a short film which follows two young Cambodian girls who are victims of domestic violence. The film received excellent reviews nationally and internationally and went on to screen at Busan Arthouse International Film Festival and the Asia for Peace Film Festival.
Interested producers can submit their short films via filmfreeway.com/CSFF or csff.co/submission/
