The Museum is now accepting entries for the 2009 Festival. See below for details and to download an application form.

About the Competition

The Imperial War Museum's Film Festival is supported by The History Channel.

The Imperial War Museum Film Festival offers the opportunity for student and amateur filmmakers who have made films about the Museum’s subject matter or that incorporate archive film from the Museum’s collection to have their work screened publicly in the Museum Cinema. Each title screened in the Festival is also eligible to be entered into the competition, for which there are three categories: Annie Dodds Award for the Best Documentary, Best Imaginative Response to the Subject of War and Winner of the Audience Poll.

All the titles in the Festival are screened an equal number of times over a period in the autumn/winter of each year in the Museum's cinema.  Members of the audience will be given an opportunity to vote on each title screened. The results of these votes determine the outright winner of the third award, as well as generating the shortlist of leading contenders in the other two categories, which will then be submitted to a panel of judges drawn from Museum staff and professionals from the film and television industry. 

The winning titles will be screened exclusively in the Museum’s Cinema for a week around Christmas and New Year.  In addition:

• The Festival’s sponsor, HISTORY (formerly The History Channel), generously offers to air the winning titles (subject to rights clearance) on the Channel. 
• BSkyB will provide the winner of the Best Documentary category with six hours of full broadcast standard online editing and six hours of audio dubbing.
• October Films offer an internship opportunity to one of the winning student filmmakers.

All those whose films are screened in the Festival are invited to a prize-giving ceremony at the Museum in the spring.

'The Annie Dodds Award for the Best Documentary', sponsored by October Films The Festival competition category for the best documentary is dedicated to the memory of Annie Dodds, a highly respected filmmaker who was one of the producers of the audiovisuals made for The Holocaust Exhibition and Crimes against humanity. Following Annie's untimely death in 2005, her partner, Chris Wight, approached the Museum to establish a permanent memorial to her work and life. Following discussions with Suzanne Bardgett and colleagues in the Film and Video Archive, it was agreed that associating Annie Dodds's work with the documentary category of the Museum's annual film competion would be a most appropriate way of doing this. More details about Annie's career and the videos she produced for the Museum can be found in the biography below. Sadly, Chris Wight died in September 2007. We are very grateful for the support he gave the Festival during the last year of his life. Annie Dodds Biography

Entry Criteria and Rules of the Competition

The film must incorporate archive film from the Imperial War Museum’s collection or be made in response to the Museum’s Collections and exhibitions.  
 
Students submitting a film to the Festival must normally be studying at a registered university or college based in the United Kingdom.  
 
Entries from student filmmakers based/studying overseas will only be accepted if they incorporate film from the Museum archives or are made in direct response to some aspect of the Museum’s Collections or exhibitions. Films will not be accepted that merely tackle some aspect of warfare since the beginning of the twentieth century. 
 
Films that run for longer than 35 minutes will not be accepted. 
 
Submission of a film does not guarantee acceptance to the Festival. 
 
Films submitted for the Festival will not automatically be returned to the sender. For this reason, you are advised not to submit masters or high-quality copies (Beta, Digibeta film etc.) straight away. Filmmakers whose films are accepted for the Festival will be invited to provide superior screening copies for the Cinema.
 
The Festival organisers will not normally accept more than one entry per filmmaker.
 
The Festival organisers will not accept entries from filmmakers who are related to members of staff of the Imperial War Museum, Blue Digital Services, HISTORY, BskyB or October Films.
 
Any allegations of an attempt by participating filmmakers to bring unfair influence to bear on the audience ballot will be investigated by the Festival organisers and taken into consideration by the competition judges. 
 
Entries will be automatically disqualified if the filmmaker is found to have violated the terms and conditions for the use of archive film laid down by the Imperial War Museum.
 
The decision of the judges is final.

Selecting the Winners

The audience votes!

Production values, while important, are not the primary concern of the judges: imagination, sensitivity to the subject matter, and a coherent and disciplined use of historical source material is more likely to impress the panel. For this reason, filmmakers submitting films made using fairly basic equipment should not fear that their efforts will be overlooked when shown alongside pieces made using broadcast-quality kit.

When judging the short-listed films in the Best Documentary category, the judges will be especially looking for a responsible, historically accurate and imaginative use of archive film. 

Winners of the Best Imaginative Response to the Subject of War category could be a drama, an animated film, a mixture of these styles or a moving-image piece produced by an artist. Some artists and filmmakers have been hesitant about submitting their work for the Festival as they thought it might be too politically or creatively challenging for the Museum. Please be assured, the Festival will not reject a film because it is ‘anti-war’. The Festival organisers also welcome moving-image pieces that do not fit the conventional style of films and videos screened in the Museum’s Cinema.
 
If you would like your film to be considered for inclusion in the Festival, please complete the entry form below. 

Film Festival 2009 Application Form

Advice to student and amateur filmmakers from the broadcaster Martin Morgan, Deputy Channels Director of HISTORY

	Sponsored by HISTORY HISTORY offers a fascinating range of historical programmes, from the dawn of civilisation to the modern day. It shows programmes from around the world produced by some of history's greatest documentary film-makers. It also features British television premieres on the great events and people who have shaped our world, as well as classic series and award-winning historical dramas. HISTORY transmits via satellite and cable.
	Established in 1990 and formerly known as The Machine Room and later TMR, blue provides specialist duplication, post production, and DVD production services to all areas of the visual media industry, corporate clients and Government bodies.  Blue has a proven archival focus and a strong commitment to restoration and preservation.  Our specialist archive team has a broad knowledge of film, sound and digital technology with working experience going back over forty years, and we are happy to use this experience to encourage and advise young film makers.  We are pleased to support the IWM Student Awards and currently have a former winner on our staff.
	October Films is a leading British independent film and television production company based in London.  October Films produces content for broadcasters worldwide and has a well-established reputation for intelligent factual programming including hard-hitting current affairs, factual entertainment series, observational documentary and history and science programmes. Since 1989, our productions have received over 90 international awards. We are pleased to support the Film Festival and the Annie Dodds Award for Best Documentary