Babelgum Announces New Updates for Online Film Festival

LONDON, September 4: The peer-to-peer-based Internet TV
platform Babelgum has revealed further information and updates regarding the
terms and conditions of its recently announced online film festival, which will
now be open to all film school students per director and festival juror Spike
Lee’s request.

The launch of the Babelgum Online Film Festival was
announced at the Venice Film Festival on September 1. The festival will now be
opened to all professionally produced short- and medium-length feature films
meeting the qualifying criteria and not solely to films screened at
international film festivals. Entries for the film competition, which will not
require an entry fee, will be accepted from September 15 through February 15.
The six festival categories include The Babelgum Looking for Genius Award, The
Babelgum Short Film Award, The Babelgum Documentary Award, The Babelgum
Animation Award, The Babelgum Social/Environment Award and The Babelgum
Spot/Advertising Award. Films must be submitted by rights-owners only. All
content must be limited to 45 minutes maximum but films competing in the Shorts
category should be approximately 20 minutes in length. Submissions must be in
English or include English subtitles if in another language.

Babelgum
will hold online rights to all accepted films for one year from March
2008-March 2009, on a non-exclusive basis, with the sole exception of
content appearing on similar peer-to-peer streaming web TV services. In
February, films submitted for the competition will first be showcased on the
Babelgum Online Film Festival Channel on Babelgum, where the public will be
able to rate each film. In March, the ten highest-rated films of each category
will then be screened by the members of the Jury. Based on the Jury’s ratings,
the top three films of each category will then be presented to Spike Lee for
personal review and final award selection.

A prize of 20,000 euros ($27,000) will be offered to winners
in each of the six categories. In addition to that, filmmakers and content
owners will also benefit from a share of any advertising revenue. Spike Lee
will present the winners with their awards at a gala ceremony currently
scheduled for May 2008 during the Cannes Film Festival.