WOMEN Media Arts and Film Festival is a new screen culture and audience development initiative by Cinewest in partnership with Sydney Olympic Park Authority to be held during the month of December at the Armory Theatre and Tunnels annually. The festival’s first edition was held during December 21-23, 2013 with six sessions commencing 10.00 and ending 16.00. The installation works were held during
December 21-29, 2013 at Armory Tunnels. The main program consists of award winning short and feature length films and media arts works produced, written and directed by women from Australia and around the world. This event is an Audience Development strategy to attract specific and mainstream audiences to appreciate the art of moving images and media arts by women. The festival has already developed a series of partnerships with national and international women film festivals to undertake exchange and curatorial initiatives for further promotions. WOMEN Media Arts and Film Festival is the first event of its kind in Australia presenting both traditional format (film) and contemporary format (media arts) in one event. The festival provides a link between various time-based mediums to establish historical and contemporary perspectives artistically, socially, politically and economically for intended audiences. The target audiences are women, communities, groups and individuals in the western Sydney region and beyond and General Public. The festival is competitive deploying national and international filmmakers and media arts producers as jury members awarding in the following categories;
Best Short Film Award
Best Feature Film Award
Best Media Arts Award
The festival will also showcase online some of the final selections to obtain audience reactions locally and globally by casting votes for Best Film Award (Audience Choice) and Best Media Arts work (Audience Choice). The presentation of works were online during December 01-14, 2013. This is a strategic plan to evaluate online audiences’ responses towards certain works and promote the main event two weeks before the opening. The festival has a steering committee consisting of women from western Sydney region and beyond. The festival has no submission fee and is open from February to October annually through online entry. The festival is Admission Free in 2013. REQUIREMENTS
All works must be by women Producer(s), Director(s) and/or Author(s)
1. OPEN to all countries and nationalities
1. Register your work here
2. Accepting only Internet links to preview the works (YouTube/Vimeo)
3. No restriction on genre, length and date of production
4. No restriction on a number of films from the same digital media artist or filmmaker
5. All works with dialogue or text other than English language must have English subtitles
6. Installation works are accepted
7. The festival is competitive and has no entry fee
