March 2009.-

The Africa in Motion film festival (AiM), which takes place annually in October at Edinburgh Filmhouse, is officially inviting African filmmakers to submit short films for a high profile competition. In order to target the competition specifically towards young and emerging African talent, filmmakers who enter a film for consideration must not have completed a feature-length film previously. Films entered must have been completed in 2006 or after, and must be no longer than 30 minutes.

All shortlisted films will be screened at the 4th Africa in Motion film festival in October 2009 and the competition winner will be announced at an awards ceremony where they will receive a significant cash prize. In addition to the overall first prize selected by the jury, an audience choice award will be selected by the audience at the screenings and announced at the end of the festival.

The AiM 2009 Short Film Competition will be judged by a jury panel consisting of local film specialists and established African filmmakers.

The deadline for competition submissions is 30 JUNE 2009, and the shortlist of films will be selected by an AiM viewing committee and announced in August 2009. These films will then be viewed by all jury panel members, who will make a collective decision as to the prizewinner, based on a point scoring system that will take into account the relative merits of each of the shortlisted films.

Please see http://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/competition.html for full submission guidelines and to download an entry form. For any further enquiries please contact AiM festival director Lizelle Bisschoff at: submissions(@)africa-in-motion.org.uk

1) AiM 2008 winners:
AiM Short Film Competition winner - I Love You, Rogério Manjate, Mozambique, 2007
AiM Audience Choice Award winner - Magic Crop, Anis Lassoued, Tunisia, 2006

2) AiM is organised by Stop and Stir Arts Ltd, http://www.stopandstir.org/, a not-for-profit arts company that aims to make marginalised and underrepresented art more widely available to Scottish audiences. Lizelle Bisschoff is the artistic director of both AiM and Stop and Stir Arts Ltd, lizelle(@)africa-in-motion.org.uk.