You can reach the .pdf version of the regulations from this link.

SABANCI FOUNDATION SHORT FILM COMPETITION REGULATIONS

1.ABOUT

Since the day it was established, the Sabancı Foundation has been carrying out its activities with the understanding that social development is possible through unleashing the potential of individuals. With this understanding, the Foundation supports many projects and tries to spread inspiring stories in society to raise awareness about social issues. The Sabancı Foundation supports a great number of culture & art activities in order to encourage and motivate individuals, to feature their creativity, and to appreciate their achievements.

With the aim of using art to support addressing social issues, the Sabancı Foundation decided to organize the Sabancı Foundation Short Film Competition. The aim of the Competition is to create an awareness of social issues by making use of the creative perspective of cinema and its power of influence, and to trigger change for social development.

2.DATES

3.THEME

For 2025, the theme of the Sabancı Foundation Short Film Competition is “ İklim Göçü ”.

4.APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS

• The director(s) (“Owner(s)”) and/or the producer(s) of a work submitted to the Competition must be a citizen of the Republic of Turkey or the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
• The Competition is not open to legal entities.
• The competition is open to works that have not been screened anywhere else, selected for another platform or competition/festival before, or awarded a prize. No work shall be accepted if the work and/or its screenplay has been included in another competition or festival programme Owner(s) may not have any feature-length films shot until now.
• One may apply for the Competition with more than one film. In this case, one needs to fill out an application form for each film.
• The name(s) of all the director(s) (Owner(s)) of a work must be stated in the application form and film credits. For a finalist film, only the person(s) whose name(s) is (are) stated as a "Director" in the application form and film credits will be considered as an Owner and will be able to benefit from the Competition’s offerings to Owners. A list of Director(s) provided on an application form or film credits may not be changed or modified to include other names after the application form is submitted.
• Applicants have to complete their applications by filling in all the fields on the online application form until the deadline: 17:30 on Friday, December 6^th, 2024.
• An Owner shall agree that any criminal and civil liability regarding the copyrights of their film lies with them. The responsibility for any copyright issue stemming from the use of non-original texts, images, music, etc. in a short film to be sent to the Competition lies with the Owner(s). The Sabancı Foundation may not be held legally responsible for such an issue. If an Owner violates the copyrights of third parties via their work, they shall be obliged to compensate the Sabancı Foundation for any direct and indirect damages incurred by the Sabancı Foundation.
• Any liabilities related to obtaining the explicit consent of the actors featuring in a work and non-actors whose personally identifiable information features in the work, including images, voices, etc., as per the Law No. 6698 on Protection of Personal Data and other related regulations, lie with the producer(s) and the director(s) (Owner(s) of the Work). The Owner(s) shall immediately share with the Sabancı Foundation such records indicating that the explicit consents of related persons, expressed with free will based on provided information, have been obtained under this clause, if the Sabancı Foundation requires them to do so.
• The Sabancı Foundation reserves the right to abandon organizing the Competition or to cancel the Competition any time before the announcement of the competition result or to refuse to continue the Competition in the future without showing any reason. In the case that the Competition is not organized or is cancelled, no work sent or submitted to the Sabancı Foundation by any Owner may be used by the Foundation.
• The Competition is not open to the Sabancı Foundation staff.
• Applications for the competition can only be submitted through the applications tab on the website of the Sabancı Foundation Short Film Competition. No application shall be accepted via social media or the official e-mail accounts, and no link, information, etc. sent through a channel other than the website may be accepted as an application.
• You can only send an e-mail to [email protected] for any issues you may encounter during the application process and any questions you may have.
• No application may be made on behalf of the deceased. However, if the person passes away after they submit their application, their application shall be included in the evaluation.
• Applicants should avoid sharing their films and visual materials related to their films (teasers, posters, photos, etc.) in a public space or on any social media platform.
• Applicants may not have another work with a title identical to the title of the work submitted for the Competition.
• Applications that do not comply with the above-mentioned requirements shall not be evaluated.
• Applying for the Competition is free of charge.

5.TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

• The Competition is open to films with a duration of 5 minutes or less including the credits.
• Provided that they match the theme, films in the genres of fiction, documentary, experimental, animation, etc. may be eligible for the Competition.
• Applications may only be submitted through an online application form. Physical submissions delivered by courier, post, etc. shall not be evaluated.
• There are two options to choose between while submitting a film: Films can be uploaded to YouTube (.MP(E)G/ .AVI / .VOB / .MOV / .MP4 / .M4V, etc.) as an unlisted video, and the corresponding URL should be provided during the application to be submitted onwww.kisafilmuzunetki.org, or to Vimeo (.MP(E)G/ .AVI / .VOB / .MOV / .MP4 / .M4V, etc.)and password protected links must be generated for submission with the application. After the films are uploaded to Vimeo, the applicant shall open the “Privacy” tab and set a password. The set password and URL must be provided along with the application on www.kisafilmuzunetki.org.
• The resolution of the films uploaded must not be lower than 1920x1080.
• Films must be uploaded with Turkish and English subtitles.
• Turkish subtitles should be white, and English subtitles should be yellow (the required code for the colour yellow is #F9d658).
• For Subtitles to be embedded in a video, the font and font size to be used are Arial and 48, respectively, on a 75% transparent background. There should be a maximum of 40 characters per line, excluding spaces, and the subtitles should consist of a maximum of two lines, one line for Turkish and one line for English.
• Applications that do not comply with the above-mentioned requirements shall not be evaluated.

6. EVALUATION

Art Director: The Art Director is the person who creates the format of, manages and establishes the artistic criteria of the Sabancı Foundation Short Film Competition. The Art Director makes nominations for the Preliminary Jury, the Jury, and the Advisory Board.

Advisory Board: Established by the Sabancı Foundation, the Advisory Board is made up of 5 people who are nationally or internationally renowned and are experts in cinema or the “theme” of the Competition. With ideas and suggestions, the Advisory Board contributes to the events that will take place during the Competition.

Preliminary Jury: The Preliminary Jury consists of 3 people, including the Art Director, who are experts in cinema or the “theme” of the Competition and it is established by the Sabancı Foundation. It evaluates all submissions and decides on the finalists. It shortlists 10 to 15 works to be evaluated by the Jury in the final.

Main Jury: The members of the Jury to judge the finalists are elected by the Sabancı Foundation. The Jury consists of five people who are nationally or internationally renowned and are experts in cinema or the “theme” of the Competition. The Sabancı Foundation executives or staff may not be a member of the Jury. The Jury evaluates the finalist works and determines the works to be awarded the first, second, and third prizes. The Sabancı Foundation may award special prizes in addition to these prizes upon recommendation of the Jury.

Social Impact Jury: This Jury will be established by the Sabancı Foundation to evaluate the finalist works. It consists of 3 people who are experts in the theme of the Competition or representatives of NGOs. The Sabancı Foundation executives or staff may not be a member of the Jury. The aim of the Social Impact Jury is to watch all the works that made it to the finals, independently of the main jury, and to give a Social Impact Award to a film that they think best serves the theme in the field of civil society.

7. FINALIST WORKS

To be delivered via an online file transfer method (WeTransfer, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.):

• Screening copies of the film must be in Full HD quality, with Turkish and English subtitles (Turkish subtitles in white and English subtitles in yellow), and in .mov or .mp4 format. The technical details about subtitles are specified in the Technical Requirements.
• A screening copy of the film without subtitles must also be submitted. It must be in full HD quality and in .mov or .mp4 format.
• A 30-second teaser of the work must also be submitted.
• If there are dialogues, the dialogue lists (with timecodes) should be presented in Word or in SRT format.
• A 30-second teaser of the work must also be submitted.
• If there are dialogues in a film, a list of these dialogues (with timecodes) should be presented in a Word or in SRT file.
• The music used in a film must be sent with a cue sheet. (What is a cue sheet? Click here. For an example of cue sheet please click here.)
• 2 high-definition images of the work (frames from the film, not behind the scenes.).
• An A3-size poster in portrait orientation should be prepared and delivered.
• A photograph of the director with a minimum resolution of 500x500 must be submitted for publishing in the catalogue.

To be posted to the address that will be provided:

• A physically signed printout of the online application form.
• Printouts of the Sabancı Foundation Short Film Competition Regulations - each page physically signed by the director(s) and the producer(s) of a work, indicating that the Owner(s) accept the articles of the regulations.

8. AWARDS

• Three projects chosen by the Jury among the works submitted to the Sabancı Foundation Short Film Competition shall be awarded the first prize, the second prize, and the third prize.
• The candidates for an award may not be disclosed to the public by the Jury or the Sabancı Foundation before the award ceremony.
• The winners shall be announced during the Award Ceremony of Sabancı Foundation Short Film Competition that is to be organized by the Sabancı Foundation.
• The announced results shall be final and may not be objected to.
• The directors of the chosen projects shall be awarded as follows:
  • First Prize: TRY 60,000 (Sixty Thousand Turkish Liras)
  • Second Prize: TRY 40,000 (Forty Thousand Turkish Liras)
  • Third Prize: TRY 25,000 (Twenty-Five Thousand Turkish Liras)
  • Social Impact Award: TRY 25,000 (Twenty-Five Thousand Turkish Liras).
• Checks in the amount of the prize will be handed over to the directors of the selected works in the award ceremony to be held by the Sabancı Foundation.
• In the case that the Owner(s) of a Work who qualify to win an award fail to complete the procedures regarding the non-exclusive license, the Owner(s) shall accept that they renounce the awards they qualify to win. In such a case, the award in question shall be cancelled and not be given to anyone else.
• The awards shall be presented to the director(s). If the director(s) of an award-winning film is (are) not a citizen of the Republic of Turkey, the prize will be awarded to the producer of the work who is a Turkish citizen. If an award-winning film has more than one director, the amount of the award shall be evenly divided between all the directors. In case of multiple-director films, if only one of the directors is a Turkish citizen, the award shall be fully presented to that director.
• If the director of an award-winning film is not present at the award ceremony, the award shall be presented to a representative chosen and notified in advance by the director to the Sabancı Foundation in writing.
• The Sabancı Foundation may award special prizes in addition to these prizes upon recommendation of the Jury.
• If a person passes away after they have qualified to win an award, then their award shall be given to their legal inheritors.
• The owners of the works that win an award shall be obliged to include a statement in the opening and closing credits of the film, any press releases, newspaper ads and any other promotional media published related to the film that it has won the First Prize/Second Prize/Third Prize/Jury’s Special Award together with the logo of the Sabancı Foundation Short Film Platform.
• The owners of the works that win an award must deliver their recording & registration certificates issued by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism to the address to be provided in no later than fifteen days following the announcement of the awards. The type of registration that award winners are expected to obtain is Optional Recording & Registration. The Sabancı Foundation reserves the right to revoke the award of a winner who fails to submit their recording & registration certificate in due time.

9. MARKET SELECTION

• The organization team of the Sabancı Foundation Short Film Competition launched the “Market Selection” in 2021. The selection contains a group of 4 to 12 nominated films that have been short-listed and not been screened anywhere else, but do not qualify for the finals due to various reasons, and that are considered good enough given the artistic criteria. The Market Selection has been created to enable such films to meet with important cinema professionals and festival representatives at an early stage in Turkey and the whole world.
• The same selection committee and the art director that select the finalist works determine those films to be included in the Market Selection.
• All the films that are eligible to be included in this selection will be announced on January 17, 2025 on www.kisafilmuzunetki.org.
• The owners of the works selected for the market reserve the right not to be included in this selection.
• No "award" is given to any film included in this selection. A certificate of participation is given to prove that the film has been selected for the Market Selection.
• The directors of the films in this selection gain the right to directly participate in certain events of the Sabancı Foundation Short Film Platform on February 2 to 5, 2025 as deemed appropriate by the art director.
• If the owner of a work in the Market Selection does not live in Istanbul, the Sabancı Foundation will only cover the accommodation and travel expenses of that person. The Sabancı Foundation will not cover any expenses of the team members, other than the owner(s), who do not live in Istanbul and would like to attend the Short Film Platform meetings and the award ceremony.
• The directors included in the Market Selection are required to attend market events.
• A director included in the Market Selection should attend an event organized for them by themselves.
• If a director included in the Market Selection does not live in Istanbul, they can determine their own travel dates to Istanbul. If they want to extend their stay at the hotel beyond the event dates, they must cover their own accommodation expenses.
• Additional people who want to stay at the hotel with a director can stay at the hotel, provided that they cover their own expenses.
• If the owner of a work in the Market Selection is under the age of 18, they must have their accompanying parent sign a consent letter that they can participate in the event. If such an owner does not live in Istanbul and if they are to travel alone or with someone other than their parents and will stay at the Hotel with this person, they must submit to the Sabancı Foundation a letter signed by their parents stating that their parents have given their consent to the same. The Sabancı Foundation shall cover accommodation and travel expenses of such an owner under the age of 18 and of one person accompanying them.
• The number of participants that can accompany a market selection director during the award ceremony is limited to 6 people.
• The Sabancı Foundation Short Film Platform shall not apply to any festival with a film in the Market Selection, and shall not pay any application fee for any festival. The directors must submit their official applications themselves to any other festival where they want to compete.
• The owner of a work included in the Market Selection will be required to insert the Sabancı Foundation Short Film Platform’s logo and a statement in the opening and closing credits of their film, in the press releases they publish, in newspaper advertisements and in all kinds of promotional media related to the film, that their film has been included in the Market Selection.
• The directors are required to keep it confidential that they are in included the Market Selection until the Sabancı Foundation Short Film Platform officially announces it.
• The films in the Market Selection and their directors are included in a catalogue.
• The films in the Market Selection must meet the list of materials requirements set out in Article 7.
• The director(s) and/or producer(s) of a work included in the Market Selection shall notify the Sabancı Foundation about any festival for which their film has applied after the conclusion of the competition and the results thereof.