The 9th International Film Festival will be held during the week of October 23rd to the 29th of 2009 in Gothenburg Sweden. A festival committee will present a program that closely adheres to the Festival’s fundamental goals and objectives. The key objectives are as follows:• To present and acknowledge exiled and immigrant film makers, regardless of their racial, religious, cultural, and geographical affiliations.
• To present and acknowledge film makers outside of the above mentioned category that document through film the lives of immigrants, exiles, issues that address democracy, and the pursuit of social justice.
• To bring awareness to forced migration as result of tyrannical dictatorships
• To promote democracy, freedom of speech and thoughts, as well as revealing censorship and inquisition.
• To instill peace and strengthen cooperation among multi-racial and religious populations.
The Festival committee accepts films for the following programs and invites all filmmakers whose works exhibit some or all of the criteria aforementioned to participate.
Main program
Exile, a Global Experience
The International Exile Film Festival’s main program will screen films by filmmakers in exile and those that have left their countries due to political and social injustices.
Special Programs
Focal Points
The special programs consist of films that are not made by exiles and immigrants, but pertain to the theme of sectarian conflict and social justices caused by tyrannical governments. Films that document such issues in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, and Ghaza are emphasized.
Children without residency permits
This program focuses on films about children and young refugees waiting for residency permits.
Women filmmakers in exile
This is a special program for films made by exiled female filmmakers. The program exhibits unique perspectives of female filmmakers and sheds light on their anxieties.
Iran’s underground cinema
The Exile film festival takes the initiative to present and simultaneously recognize Iran’s new underground film movement through a screening of a series of selected films. These films are based on a freedom of thought that challenges the dominant political, social, cultural and artistic values governing Iran. Consequently they serve to contest these values.
These works should be made independently and be unaffiliated with the state or any institutions governed by the state. They must be free from state control or control by other parallel non-state organizations. The films should be produced through self-sustaining technical facilities with no affiliation to the Iranian government. There are no limits to film themes, forms or time periods for film submissions.
Special support grant: One goal of the International Exile Film Festival is to strengthen the underground film movement in Iran and support freedom and freedom of thought through culture, art, and especially film. To strive toward such goal, the Exile Film Festival has established a fund to support two filmmakers or production groups active in the Iranian underground film movement.
A committee with members from Swedish art and cultural organizations will evaluate works admitted into the Festival and will nominate two filmmaker or production group, whose works fulfill the criteria mentioned above to receive a cash support of $1000 each.
Side-Programs
Another View
In this section we will present films made by non-exiled filmmakers that center on immigrants and exiles, in an attempt to present an outsider’s perspective of oppressive governments.
Odyssey of Cinema – Freedom Odyssey
The Freedom Odyssey is a free film program about peoples’ movements towards the globalization of social justice and democracy.
Event
The 9th Festival will be comprised of various film presentations, debate panels, speeches and art-galleries.
Application Criteria
• The International Exile Film Festival is a non-competitive film festival.
• Only submissions by exiled and immigrant film makers will be considered for the main program (Exile, a Global Experience)
• In the special programs (Focal Points, Children without residency permits) and Side-Programs (Another View, Odyssey of Cinema Freedom’s Odyssey)
We invite submissions by non-exiled and non-immigrant film makers whose films pertain to the themes of the program.
• We accept films and videos in 35 mm, Beta SP (PAL) and DV-CAM formats
• Selected submissions will be determined by the Exile Film Festival selection committee
• A DVD (PAL) copy of the film must be submitted along with the application for preview
• All entries in languages other than English and Swedish must be subtitled or dubbed in English.
• All applications should be submitted by August 15th, 2009. Application forms can be downloaded from this website (Link to application).