New Format as of 2024
The 2025 festival will continue with the newer format established last year.
For 2024, the festival was a unique closed event, with filmmakers across the globe participating in both exhibiting and reviewing films.
Filmmakers selected their favorite films (excluding their own), and their votes were totalled with the Spoiler Alert Radio Jury voters (equal weighting to each group of voters) to determine the winners for each program, the Heartstrings and Headtrip.
Filmmakers reviewed one or both programs as they wished. It was not mandatory to review films to have a film be exhibited, but it was strongly encouraged.
Each jury member also viewed both programs in their entirety.
Films with dialog are either in spoken English or subtitled in English. Typically about half the films have no dialog, but it is preferred that you have some English ability to understand any dialog.
Participating filmmakers could provide alternative subtitles (Spanish, French, etc.) if they have them.
Films with multiple directors receive one vote, either assigned to one viewer, or by coming to a consensus as a group.
Please contact mergingartsfilmMergingArts@MergingArtsgmailMergingArts.MergingArtscom if you have questions.
Submission Requirements
There is no fee to submit a film for consideration.
The length of the film including all credits must be at least 1 minute (1:00:00) and shorter than 6 minutes (5:59:23 for 24fps).
The film must tell a story; this excludes public service announcements, trailers, music videos, non-narrative experimental pieces, etc.
Whether a piece is truly narrative is at the discretion of the submission review panel.
All genres and styles are considered, including live action and animation, documentary and fiction, drama and comedy, etc.
For 2025, we prefer films completed in 2025 or 2024. Films completed in 2023 may also be considered. Earlier films are ineligible.
Note that as we don't charge submission fees, we are also unable to pay screening fees for any film.
Technical Guidelines
Resolution/Dimensions: 1080p, 2K, or 4K.
Codec: H.264/AVC or H.265/HEVC preferred. ProRes acceptable (file will be converted before screening)
Frame rate: 24 or 25 fps
Bit Rate: Between 5 Mbps and 20 Mbps, depending on resulting file size
File Size: Ideally around 500 MB, depending on length, maximum 1.0 GB
Subtitles: Embedded preferred but can accept .srt files or similar
As of January 2023, we are not accepting DCP submissions.
Other Recommendations
None of the following criteria disqualify a film but may count against films in consideration for acceptance:
- Films under two minutes (2:00:00)
- Films from 2023
- Films available publicly online
- Films that have played extensively in the US (especially northeastern US)
- Subtitle problems (too small, poor contrast, excessive grammar/spelling errors)
Sending Film Files
To submit a file, you can send the film file to our WeTransfer page directly.
Otherwise, use a service such WeTransfer, DropBox, or Google Drive. Share with email address mergingartsfilmMergingArts@MergingArtsgmailMergingArts.MergingArtscom.