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by Onicia Muller 

TORONTO/CARIBBEAN — The CaribbeanTales International Film Festival (CTFF) and their partners today announced their 2017 Short Film Challenges (SFC). The SFCs throw a spotlight on important themes, new voices, and urgent current social issues, providing a platform and visibility to emerging filmmakers. For those planning on entering this, there will be a lot of competition. A lot of hard work and effort will have to go into these films, especially to win the competition. We know film production takes an extremely long time to ensure the film is perfect, which is why there will be prizes to win. However, to ensure you create some profit from this film, it might be worth looking into the software from Rebel Cinema, for example. By using their software, filmmakers can add some adverts to their film, ensuring the film is profitable for the creators.

This year there will be three (3) themes, and five (5) total challenges:

#INTERSECT – for Queer and Trans People of Colour (QTPOC), co-presented with theToronto Queer Film Festival, features diverse stories of any theme and genre from across the Caribbean Region and Diaspora. This challenge is supported by the Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention. 

#BlackLoveMatters, is presented with the Toronto-based Black Daddies Club and Young and Potential Fathers, and will explore stories of black masculinity, fatherhood, and black love. 

The three CineFAM challenges are part of CaribbeanTales the global initiative to support bold new stories by women of colour worldwide.  “CineFAM” in Haitian-Creole means “films by women”. This year there are three CineFAM challenges:

CineFAM Caribbean Smartphone Challenge – presented by Flow and in partnership with the Belize International Film Festival and the Chicago Caribbean Film Festival. This challenge is open to all Caribbean women living in the Region and Diaspora. The winner will receive a $1,500 USD prize, a combination of cash and equipment.

CineFAM Canada – presented with Trinity Square Video and Telefilm. Designed for Canadian women of colour creators through an open call for 5-minute screenplays. Two teams will be chosen to receive production support and in-kind funding up to $1500 through Trinity Square Video and CaribbeanTales.

CineFAM South Africa – presented with Sisters Working in Film and Television (SWIFT) at the Durban Film Mart (DFM).  The challenge will take place on the second week of the Durban International Film Festival 2017, where SWIFT will offer a no-budget filmmaking workshop. A theme will be announced and filmmakers will have five days to write, shoot, edit and upload their films. Enrolment in the workshop is non-mandatory. The challenge is open to all women-identified South Africans and will be open for submissions betweenJuly 18, 2017and July 23, 2017. Winners will get the opportunity to premiere their film at CTFF in September 2017.

Participants in each Challenge have the opportunity to compete for a range of prizes. 

Winning films will have their World Premiere Screening at CaribbeanTales International Film Festival (CTFF) 2017, and receive distribution through CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution on CaribbeanTales-TV-com. 

All films must be five minutes or less, must be world premieres, and must be owned, created and led by people of colour.

For more information and to submit to one of the challenges visit the website:http://caribbeantales-tv.com/short-film-challenges/.

Trinity Square Video is a space to re-imagine media arts. Founded in 1971, it is one of Canada’s first artist-run centres and its oldest media arts centre. As a not-for-profit, charitable organization Trinity Square Video aims to meaningfully engage diverse creative voices through its accessible production, post-production, and exhibition support. Trinity Square Video champions an evolving definition of video by presenting challenging contemporary art that inspires its members and audiences to expand their understanding of media art. We strive to create a supportive environment, encouraging artistic and curatorial experimentation with video that challenges notions of medium specificity and advances media art as a creative discipline. Check out their website: http://www.trinitysquarevideo.com/

Sisters Working In Film and Television is a non-profit organization established in 2017 that aims to advance the participation of women professionals in film and telelvision. The organization lobbies for inclusion, gender parity and the support of womxn in the South African audiovisual landscape while forming pan-African and global networks for womxn professionals. Connect on Facebook.

Durban Film Mart is a co-production and finance market and is a joint programme of the Durban Film Office and the Durban International Film Festival. DFM provides filmmakers from across Africa with a valuable opportunity to pitch projects to financiers, distributors, sales agents and potential co-producers, and to participate in meetings, project presentations and a series of master classes and workshops on the latest industry trends. Find out more on their website, or Facebook.

Telefilm Canada is a Crown corporation reporting to Canada’s federal government through the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Headquartered in Montreal, Telefilm provides services to the Canadian audiovisual industry with four regional offices in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax. Find out more on their website, or connect on Facebook or Twitter.

Flow us a customer brand under C&W, which is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. C&W also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network – the most extensive in the region. Learn more at http://www.cwc.com/, or follow C&W on LinkedIn,Facebook or Twitter.

CaribbeanTales is a group of companies that produces, markets, and sells Caribbean-themed film and television content for global audiences. It includes CaribbeanTales Inc. a registered Charity based in Toronto, Canada; the Caribbean-Tales International Film Festival (CTFF) that produces events around the world; the renowned CaribbeanTales Incubator Program, a development and production hub for original Caribbean content; CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution (CTWD), the largest  full-service distribution entity dedicated to the monetisation of Caribbean content; CaribbeanTalesFlix, our production arm, and CaribbeanTales-TV, a video on demand platform.