Upcoming 2017 VR/360 Film Festivals Deadlines&Dates

It is 2017 and we have already passed “The year of VR” as many referred to 2016. However, what we’ve seen there is not the spread of VR in its best, but integration of VR360 cinematic works in the world of Big Cinema. So, in 2016 there were plenty of places to submit or to be selected with your VR or 360 films. Let’s have a look what we still can do in 2017!

Among the festivals, who showed VR and 360 films are: Sundance New Frontier, Tribeca Storyscapes/Virtual Arcade, SXSW, HotDocs, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Toronto IFF POP programs, Geneva Tous Ecrans, DOK Leipzig VR screenings, Melbourne IFF, RIDM, Festival du nouveau cinéma — FNC, IDFA DocLab, Dubai IFF Different Reality, as well as industry screenings within FIAPF ex “Class A” film festivals: European Film Market (Berlin IFF), Marche du Film (Cannes IFF), VR Theatre (Venice Film Festival).
Another part of the festivals, leaded by KALEIDOSCOPE VR Team are fully dedicated to show the best of VR — both interactive and narrative. FIVARS (Canada),Screen4all (France), Steamer Salon (Israel) are among those for sure. Sorry to my colleagues if I forgot or didn’t mention some of you, but I hope that audience got the idea.
I personally did contribute to this trend with organisation/programming of EMC VR Film Festival, MIXAR VR Film Fest, VR FEST|Stockholm and VIR:Cinema VR Day within LISTAPAD IFF in Minsk, Belarus.

Some of the projects also lead to appearance of stand-alone or dedicated VR Cinemas in Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, Toronto, New York, Melbourne and, hopefully, soon in Moscow.

But before that, let’s see what we can do right now.
Most of the readers, probably, are independent VR/360 Filmmakers who are looking for a good place to showcase your film. I personally believe that the best creative VR works comes from independent productions not limited by clients/investors/creative supervision, as 360 world is so new that we don’t have strict rules and strategies to follow. However, remember: PLEASE DON’T PUBLISH YOUR FILM ONLINE UNLESS IT WAS REJECTED BY AT LEAST THOSE FESTIVALS I’VE MENTION HERE. We, film festivals, LOVE premieres, so give us a chance to do our job by opening new titles and not showing something everyone could see on Youtube.

Let’s have a look on upcoming deadlines of the film/VR festivals:

TAMPERE FILM FESTIVAL

Deadline: January 8th, 2017
Festival dates: March 8–12th, 2017
Entry fee: no
Link: https://tamperefilmfestival.fi/tampere-film-festival-launches-open-call-vr-experiences/
The Tampere VR competition is a joint project of Tampere Film Festival and the DDD60 consortium. The consortium members will decide which projects will be shortlisted for the DDD60 production support. The shortlisted nominees, as well as the winning VR experience, will be made available for viewing at 47th edition of Tampere Film Festival from 8–12 March 2017.
Gaming projects, art pieces, immersive short films and everything and anything in between is welcome. VR experience follows a scripted narrative.
The winning VR experience will receive a 2000€ support for production, following a selection process based on the best value for money.
Max. runtime 10 minutes
• No genre restrictions
• If the project has dialogue, it must be spoken or subtitled in English
• Completed projects only
• Premiere not required, but the project must not have been made widely publicly available
Please see the regulations here. Entries must be submitted via Reelport.

HOTDOCS — DOCX

Deadline: January 9th, 2017
Festival dates: April 27 — May 7th, 2017
Entry fee: no
Link: http://www.hotdocs.ca/i/docx-submissions
Hot Docs accepts Canadian and international immersive and interactive documentary projects of all expressions and subject matter.
All submissions:
- must have been completed after January 1, 2016
- Toronto premieres preferred (i.e. cannot have been screened publicly in Toronto prior to the 2017 Festival) but exceptions may be made
- must be in English, subtitled in English or English versioned (non-English language films may be submitted with an English transcript; however, if selected for Hot Docs, it must be subtitled or dubbed into English at the applicant’s expense)

SHEFFIELD DOC|FEST — Alternate Realities

Deadline: February 7th (Regular), February 23rd, 2017 ( Last Minute)
Festival dates: 9–14 June 2017
Entry fee: Standard deadline £26+VAT, Last Minute — £30+VAT
Link: https://sheffdocfest.com/view/submissions

In 2016 the programme included 14 immersive media experiences in the Interactive Exhibition and 12 virtual reality documentaries in the Virtual Reality Arcade, allowing a depth of experience far beyond the limitations of the flat screen. The Alternate Realities Summit presented a range of engaging talks and demonstrations. Experts from documentary film and broadcast, theatre, journalism, engineering and neuroscience explored the impact of artificial intelligence and virtual reality on storytelling.

KALEIDOSCOPE VR 2017 Showcase Vol.2

Deadline: 1 February 2017
Dates: Not announced yet, but it seems that starting from March
Entry fee: no
Link: http://kaleidovr.com/submit

In 2015 Kaleidoscope produced the first Virtual Reality Film Festival earning coverage in top publications such as The New York Times, LA Times, and VICE. Partnering with Wired magazine and Wevr Transport, Kaleidoscope has since produced more than 20 high-profile events, in 5 continents, for over 10,000 attendees
.Kaleidoscope VR is a global community of VR creators powered by a team who made a huge impact on promotion of VR Technologies in 2016. It’s not only a festival/showcase, but a great database of outstanding VR projects.
I’m not sure if they are still reviewing works for 2017 Vol. 2 Showcase, but strongly advice to submit your work for consideration. The 2017 Showcase Vol. 2 will be organized by local VR creators in the following cities: NEW YORK, SAN FRANCISCO, MONTRÉAL, LONDON, BERLIN, SYDNEY , LOS ANGELES, PORTLAND, SÃO PAULO , PARIS, LEIPZIG, SEOUL

RAINDANCE 2017

Deadline: April 28, 2017 (Early), May 19, 2017 (Regular), June 2, 2017 (Late)
Dates: September 20 — October 1, 2017
Entry fee: Earlybird Deadline: $40 USD, Regular Deadline : $55 USD, Late Deadline: $80 USD
Link: https://filmfreeway.com/festival/Raindance

The Raindance Film Festival is the largest and most important independent film festival in the UK. Now in its 25th year, it is based in the heart of London’s buzzing West End film district. Virtual Reality films, of any genre and type, under 45 minutes long are considered for selection.

LICHTER Filmfest

Deadline: 31 January, 2017
Entry fee: no
Dates: 28 May — 04 April, 2017
Link: http://www.lichter-filmfest.de/en/program/virtual-reality.html
2017 the LICHTER Filmfest calls for entries from the field of fictional and non-fictional “VIRTUAL REALITY STORYTELLING”. Accepted are two- or three-dimensional 360-DEGREE FILMS either rendered or filmed in real-time and which are playable on a GearVR or similar device.

An international jury will select FIVE FINALISTS, whose works will be presented to the audience during the 10th LICHTER Filmfest from the 29th March to the 03rd April 2017. The very first LICHTER-Virtual Reality competition is endowed with a 1.000 EURO PRIZE. The winner will be announced at the great opening of the LICHTER VR-Section 2017.

As a film festival LICHTER focuses on narrative and documentary VR content, on new forms of narration in the virtual world. Apart from promising experimental works there is still a lack of good stories which let VR become an experience rather than an effect. Therefore, the competition is aimed at all those who are approaching VR with regard to the content.

The works:

• 360-degree films, rendered films and real-time films specifically made for VR can be submitted.
• Target platforms are Mobile VR devices (Cardboard, Gear VR, Google Daydream, etc.) and PC systems such as HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. For reasons of comparability and the possibilities of presentation, interactive films or games should not play any role this first year.
• The maximum length of the individual works should not exceed 10–15 minutes.

Rules and regulation — http://www.lichter-filmfest.de/files/rules_vr_2017.pdf

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Actually, that’s all about the known deadlines for now. But I strongly recommend you to have a look (or wait for the selection) of the upcoming events in the first half of 2017 with closed submissions:

• SUNDANCE NEW FRONTIER 2017 (January 19–29)
• CINEQUEST (February 28 — March 12)
• SXSW 2017 (March 10–19)
• Atlanta IFF (March 24 — April 2)
• TRIBECA IFF (April 19–30)

If you are a film festival and want to be added to this list — please, drop me a letter or comment, you know how hard it’s to keep a record of everything what happens in VR360 all around the globe. I’m pretty sure that another post with deadlines/conditions of other festivals would be posted here, so stay tuned!
So, let’s make 2017 great for VR360 films together!