General registration and participation guidelines

Unified Filmmakers is organizing an online festival, where films can be submitted via the platform https://filmfreeway.com/UnifiedFilmmakersFestival-1 and where the best films will also be shown as guest contributions of the Unified Filmmakers at the Filmfest München. Participation in our festival is based on the information on our homepage, which is subject to change, the general conditions at www.filmfreeway.com and the following conditions, which are also expressly agreed upon when submitting films via www.filmfreeway.com if the question there, „Have you read the terms of use of unified filmmakers and do you accept them?“ is answered with „Yes“. Otherwise a submission cannot be considered and cannot participate in the festival.

Each film must be produced at your own expense and responsibility. Films that can be considered for the festival competition are

  1. not significantly longer than 15 minutes, whereby the duration of the film also determines the classification into the two price categories films up to 5 minutes and films longer than 5 minutes up to 20 minutes
  2. thematically related to the theme of the festival, as indicated at “About the Festival”, i.e. have been produced especially during or after the COVID19 pandemic and deal with this theme
  3. in English or with English subtitles
  4. produced in a technical quality that is sufficient for screen reproduction and has at least a resolution in HD standard (1920 x 1080)
  5. without any pornographic, personal rights infringing, anti-constitutional, offensive or otherwise illegal content
  6. paid for the registration fee that has been truthfully and correctly indicated depending on the country of origin of the film production.

Music videos or commercials are not admitted to the festival, unless the spots are social spots or music videos are narrative ballads that are thematically related to the festival theme (see our homepage for details).

The submission should include the title of the film and the name of the filmmaker as well as information on the director, screenplay, actors, camera, editing, music, sound and, if applicable, other contributors as well as the duration of the film, the log file and a synopsis.

The submission can be made in the file formats .mov, mp4, Xvid, H.264, H.265 at a resolution
of 1920×1080 px (Full HD) and frame rate Interlaced/ProgressiveFramerate: 25 fps.

Unified Filmmakers is not obliged to admit a film to the competition, even if it meets the above mentioned criteria.

By submitting a film via FilmFreeway, the entrant warrants that he/she
  1. has legal capacity, i.e. in particular is not a minor and is authorized to represent another or a legal entity or several authorized persons in the event of acting on behalf of another or a legal entity or several authorized persons
  2. can freely dispose of the necessary rights to the film, i.e. is the holder of all rights to the film addressed in this agreement (in particular the copyright and ancillary copyright),
  3. will not assert any further rights against Unified Filmmakers in case of rejection of the film by FilmFreeway or Unified Filmmakers (even without further explanation),
  4. keeps a copy of the film at his own disposal and indemnifies Unified Filmmakers from all claims, should the submitted copy be lost
  5. agrees to the use and transfer of the data provided by him within the framework of the festival and its processing (see also “Privacy”). Each properly submitted film will be viewed by at least 5 members of the Unified Filmmakers Team (“Jury”) and evaluated on a scale of 1-10. All films with an average rating of at least 7 points will participate in the festival. Unified Filmmakers will inform all entrants by the penultimate day before the festival begins at the contact address provided by FilmFreeway whether or not their submitted film has been selected for participation. All films selected for the festival will be downloaded to a dedicated hard disk and will be provided with a festival opening and closing credits including the names of our sponsors or patrons. In addition, all films selected for the festival will be provided with the festival logo as a watermark for the entire duration of the film, which the submitter expressly agrees to when submitting the film. Unless the filmmaker has specifically objected to this at the time of submission, the films edited for the festival will then be uploaded to our YouTube channel, made available on the Festival YouTube Channel for the duration of the festival and presented on our festival homepage (with a link to this YouTube channel embedded). Furthermore, Unified Filmmakers will use the films to promote the festival on social media channels such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or Twitter. United Filmmakers does not pursue a monetization on Youtube.

The duration of making the film accessible is limited to the duration of the festival. By submitting a film, the submitter agrees not to assert any rights against Unified Filmmakers if the film should remain accessible for a longer period of time on one of the mentioned platforms through no fault of his/her own. The online festival ends on the last day of the month of the last day of Filmfest München, usually 31 July. Within one week after this day, all films whose submitters have not agreed to remain on our homepage and the festival’s own YouTube channel will be removed. All other films will remain on our homepage or the festival’s media library and YouTube channel for archiving purposes. However, Unified Filmmakers is not obliged to maintain the accessibility.

Prize winners are determined by a jury as well as by audience vote in the categories Films up to 2 minutes and Films longer than 2 minutes up to approx. 15 minutes. There will also be an award for the best films of certain genres mentioned on our homepage.

On the festival homepage, all viewers will have the opportunity to vote for their three best films in the categories Films up to 5 minutes and Films longer than 5 minutes up to approx. 20 minutes until May 31, 2020. On May 31, 2020 the audience vote ends and the films with the most points are determined.

In addition, a jury of international filmmakers for the categories Films up to 5 minutes and Films longer than 5 minutes up to about 20 minutes will view the participating films of the festival and evaluate them on a scale of 1-10 points.

The 10 best films will be screened as guest contributions at the Munich Filmfest 2021 as far as possible. In times of the COVID19 pandemic, Unified Filmmakers cannot take responsibility for this and is not obliged to do so.

From the best films in each of the jury series, the same jury will select its three best films, which will be awarded together with the three best films in the audience series at the closing event of the Unified Filmmakers Festival. The amount of the prize money can be viewed on our homepage. Furthermore, there is the possibility of a special mention by the jury.

General registration and participation guidelines

In addition, at the closing event after the jury’s decision (same jury), we also award the best film from a total of 11 different genres. The genres are mentioned on our homepage. This award is not endowed for the time being.
In order to make this possible, the submitter grants Unified Filmmakers free of charge the simple (non-exclusive), for the duration of the festival non-revocable, easily and with the same scope transferable copyrights, ancillary copyrights and other rights to the submitted film, in terms of time, space, law and content, for comprehensive use, including the promotion of the festival within the framework of the festival as well as the Munich Film Festival in all media, in whole or in part. This includes in particular the right to make the film publicly accessible, i.e. the right to make the work accessible to the public by wire or wireless means in such a way that it can be accessed by members of the public from places and at times of their choice (this includes the right of retrieval via streaming and download, in particular video-on-demand, download-to-own, download-to-burn), the right of reproduction and distribution (in particular via image or sound carriers, the videogram right, the right to archive, the right to lecture, perform and demonstrate, the right to participate in trade fairs and exhibitions), the right to advertise in physical and non-physical form, the right to promote and merchandise, the right to self-advertise, the right to translate, the right to print and ancillary printing rights, the right to exploit parts of clips or individual images of the film in stapled form, and the right to edit, d. i.e. the right to shorten, divide, combine with other works or edit the work in any other way while respecting the moral rights of the author.
The submitter warrants that the work is free of any rights of third parties that restrict or exclude its use and that he is entitled to grant such rights to third parties. Unified Filmmakers disclaims any liability from claims of third parties due to violation of intellectual property rights in the work provided. If third parties assert claims against Unified Filmmakers due to the violation of their rights, the submitter indemnifies and holds harmless Unified Filmmakers and Filmfest München in full.
The submitter waives the assertion of any claims for prohibition by way of interim injunction. Place of performance and jurisdiction is Munich.

Further development of the films after the end of the festival

Festival-Compilation

The team of Unified Filmmakers will put together a short film program based on the festival theme from all the films submitted. The aim is to create a kind of anthology that takes into account the different temporal aspects of the Corona Pandemic. In other words, films made during the first lockdown with films from the second lockdown and films made during the second lockdown will show the perspectives for life after the pandemic, will be put in chronological order and allow the viewer to travel through this period. This program is to be offered to downstream festivals for exploitation and will travel around the world for the duration of one year. For this purpose, we will contact each submitter separately, if applicable.

Own cinema film

The team of the Unified Filmmakers will try to compile a feature film from all submitted films, which will be offered for worldwide distribution for a period of two years for worldwide exploitation. For this purpose we will contact each submitter separately.