Welcome to the SkyFest Film Festival Site!
NOW ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS! 208 AWARDS!
Mission and Objective
The mission of SkyFest is to recognize, honor, and further the career of talented filmmakers and screenwriters. This is accomplished in two ways:
1- By the awarding of numerous quality trophies and certificates of excellence
2- By awarding a significant portion of the proceeds for the entire festival as cash prizes to the winners in each of the nine categories, plus a prize for Best Overall.
Description
SkyFest was created by Ralph Roberts, a nationally-known author for the past 32 years and now a professional filmmaker and script writer. Ralph takes his experiences with film festivals in general — what he likes and what he feels is detrimental to submitters — and puts together a festival oriented toward MAXIMIZING the odds for submitters… but, let him explain it:
Hi. I love film festivals. The crowds, meeting big stars and just plain old aspiring filmmakers like me. I like entering my stuff in the festivals. I’ve won a few awards but mostly lost while spending a lot of money on travel, motels, and food. All that’s great for the folk who put on these festivals (and I love them) but not the most efficient way for us guys to get what we want and need from a festival … the two most important — in my opinion — being a return on our huge investment of time and dough in creating video, and some recognition for that work that we can build on in furthering our careers. Both would help us keep going!
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Ralph Roberts above the clouds on the Appalachian Trail |
To do this … I’ve created SkyFest.
First, the name … I live up here in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Asheville, North Carolina, long known as “the Land of the Sky.” I also own a book publishing imprint, Land of the Sky Books. So, it’s a good name. And let me hasten to say that we have no connection with the very nice Asheville Film Festival, other than (so far) spending a good amount of entry money for no wins. Maybe this year or, at least, I qualify for the Asheville Rejects Festival like last year, eh? (Didn’t win that one either but my film was shown! And, of course, I won’t win SkyFest because anyone connected with SkyFest, including me, is ineligible to win any award this festival gives out.)
Unlike most other festivals — which spend a ton of money on the actual event — SkyFest minimizes expenses by NOT having showings or banquets or hiring big name actor guests. We may or may not have an actual physical event (depending on how many submissions we get, but all awards will be awarded!
But, you don’t care about our expenses because it DOES NOT affect YOUR prize money. Here’s how SkyFest works (i.e:. a sampling of the rules, full rules are here):
1- A full fifty-percent of all money we take in — primarily entrance fees and advertising revenues — goes into the awards fund. NO expenses or anything else is charged against this fund.
2- ALL expenses come out of the other half of the money and, if that’s not enough) out of our pockets (and, so far, we’re four figures in the hole but that’s not your problem and never will be).
3- There are 208 awards!! Your odds of receiving an award are MUCH better for this festival than any other I know!
4- Trophies and certificates will be substantial and classy.
5- The awards fund is shared out in this manner:
· 10% goes to Best Overall
· In each of the nine categories, the winner gets 7% of the overall award fund, second place 2%, third place 1%. 1st – 3rd place winners get trophies and the next TWENTY finishers receive a Certificate of Excellence (remember, our goal is to give out as MANY awards as possible). In essence, there will be TWENTY 4th place winners in each category.
6- ALL money WILL be awarded. If there is just one entry in a category, that entry wins the full 10%. (This, by the way, is in response to a pet peeve of mine about film festivals … several times I’ve had the only entry in a category and NOT been awarded the prize because of ‘not enough participation’ … this will durn well NOT happen at SkyFest — if you win, you WIN!)
7- In the unlikely event of no entries in a particular category, that amount of money will be divided out and added to the other categories. And also the Certificates of Excellence will be parceled out into other categories.
8- You can enter as many films as you like in as many categories as you like. You can even enter the same film in more than one category IF there is a reasonable case it fits each area (paying the standard fee for each category, of course).
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The standard entry fee is US$35.00, regardless of length and category *(remember, all categories share equally in the award money!)* |
9- Entry fees are the same for each category because each category shares equally in the award money.
10-Judges will be professionals in the industry. All decisions of the judges are final.
11-The film festival runs for the announced time and awards will be presented as soon as judging is completed. SkyFest I regular call for entries ends midnight January 31st, 2009.
12-It’s a simple concept and no other warranties other than what is stated above, express or implied, exist.