Awards

Nominate a festival for MovieMaker‘s Coolest Film Festivals!

When we announced our Coolest Festival call for entries in April, we had no idea the response we’d receive. We expected to be wading through hundreds of submissions. Instead, you the readers, literally deluged us with thousands of nominations.

Because of that overwhelming response, we’ve decided to rethink our approach to the Coolest Festivals list altogether. In years past, we’ve published a list of the 25 Coolest Festivals—all chosen by the MovieMaker editors. This year, though, we’re handing over the Coolest Festivals list to you: Our moviemaking, movie-watching readers.

What’s more, we’re drastically expanding the categories. After combing through the initial data, we realized that there are a number of discreet categories (e.g. horror, comedy, environmental, LGBT, etc.) that shouldn’t necessarily be competing with dissimilar fests for the designation of Coolest Festival. The Chatanooga Comedy Film Festival isn’t vying for the same demographic as the Witchita Horror Festival of Film—so why should they be judged by the same criteria?

Therefore, for the 2013 edition of MovieMaker‘s Coolest Film Festivals list we’re accepting nominations in 15 separate categories! Ranging from the general to the specific, we’ve done our best to represent the full gamut of places you can submit your film.

Since most festivals still fall into the “general” category (Toronto, Cannes, Sundance, SXSW, San Francisco, etc.), we will be ranking the top 25, non-genre film festivals separately. For the content-specific fests (horror, comedy, LGBT, sports, student, etc.) we’ll be ranking the top five festivals in each category.

For the next month, we’re opening the nominations process back up to our readers. Whether you’re a moviemaker, a festival director, or simply a film lover, let us know about your favorite film festival by submitting your nomination using the form below. After we’ve collected all the nominations, you the readers will then help us pick the winners in each category during a vote off during July and August (more info on that, soon).

Winners in all 15 categories will receive a special laurel from MovieMaker, commemorating the win. The 24 runners-up in the general category, and the 4 runners-up in each of the sub-categories, will receive a badge designating them a “MovieMaker Coolest Film Festival.”

Let the voting begin!  Click here for more information and to vote …

2013 WGAW Awards Announces Talent

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Thursday February 14, 2013 @ 10:22pm PST