The GIRAF International Festival of Independent Animation call for applicants for 2023 is now open. Short filmmakers from all over the world are invited to submit their works and get a chance to win prizes. The organizers are looking for animation shows, in all styles, genres, lengths and mediums, to present to their audiences in Calgary, Canada.
GIRAF Festival Competition 2023 Details
GIRAF is a celebration of independent animation, a showcase of the best of what’s being created here in Canada and around the world. Each year, they scour the globe for the most astounding, inventive, beautiful, mind-altering and unexpected animated films out there.
Presented by the Quickdraw Animation Society, a non-profit dedicated to the art of animation, GIRAF is committed to creating greater awareness for animation as an art form.
The festival focuses on presenting works that push boundaries through the development of new techniques, hybrid forms of creation, and challenging subject matter, and love discovering artists and films that have been missed by other festivals.
Who can enter the competition?
Competition Entry fee
The competition is free to enter.
GIRAF Festival Competition 2023 Prizes
GIRAF believes in the payment of artist fees for all selected filmmakers. Artists will be paid a screening fee of approximately $75CAD for the presentation of their film at GIRAF.
We have two juried prizes, for best Canadian short film and best International short film. Funds raised through FilmFreeway submissions will go towards a cash prize for these two awards, which in 2022 worked out to $200CAD for each of the winners—although we still encourage you to submit for free at http://giraffest.ca. Because the prize is based on submissions, we won’t know the total value until submissions close.
The jury also has discretion to award honourable mentions to other films they find noteworthy.
An Audience Choice Award is selected through audience ballots at each screening.
Competition Application Guide
Please, only send animated short and feature films created on or after January 1, 2021.
No commercial work, please — some of those are super cool, but commercials, explainers, festival stingers and those sorts of things fall outside their festival mandate. Music videos are a grey area, and they don’t book them very often, but if you’ve made a particularly amazing one, feel free to give it a shot.
Also, this festival is aimed at adults, and so they rarely book work that is explicitly targeted to children.
Application Deadline
The deadline for submissions is 31 May 2023.
Competition Website
You can check the competition website following this link.
Check other prizes and contests following International Competitions category