The 14th Annual Slamdance Film Festival, scheduled to take place, January 17 - 25, 2008, in Park City, Utah, officially launched its Call for Entries today. "We are currently accepting short and feature film submissions in all genres for the 2008 edition of the festival. Submission forms, rules and regulations are available on the Slamdance web site - www.Slamdance.com. The early submission deadline is August 27, 2007, and includes a significant entry fee discount. The final submission deadline is Oct. 9.

The 2007 Festival received more than 3,500 submissions from all over the world, but only 20 features in the narrative and documentary feature categories combined screened in the main competition, which is strictly devoted to films without domestic theatrical distribution, from first-time feature directors, working with relatively low budgets. Slamdance has remained true to its founding mandate that it is a Festival "by filmmakers, for filmmakers," whereby the programming team is comprised of filmmakers, many of whom are Slamdance alumni.

Slamdance will screen about 100 films in total. All film selections will be posted on the 2007 Festival page during the second week of December. Presenting sponsors of the 2008 Slamdance Film Festival are Kodak and fox21. Additional sponsors will be announced as they are confirmed.

The 14th International Animated Film Festival "The Magical Nights" will show the treasures of animated films to audiences, screening short and feature animated films not viewed on TV and in theaters. The event will feature an international short films competition, feature films competition, special programs, young audience programs, animated film methods lessons, introduction workshops to animation, teacher's day, theater administrator's day and education day. For more information contact Fabrice de la Rosa at: tel.: +33 0556517660; fax: +33 0556511286; e-mail: contact@lesnuitsmagiques.fr or Web: http://www.lesnuitsmagiques.fr.

The mission of the Vermont International Film Foundation is to foster dialogue on issues of War and Peace, Justice and Human Rights, and the Environment through film and community events. The annual event is the oldest human rights and environmental film fest in the world. The festival gives filmmakers, scholars, activists and film lovers a place to view, discuss, and celebrate the finest in socially conscious films. For more information, visit http://www.vtiff.org.

Cartoons on the Bay

March 22cnd-24th Rapallo, Italy

Cartoons on the Bay 2012 will be held from March 22nd to 25th. The 16th Edition of the Festival will take place in Rapallo, Santa Margherita Ligure and Portofino. The guest country will be India and the main theme of the year will be Sport in cartoons, to celebrate 2012 London Olympic Games.

The first day of work will be devoted to a series of meetings in which the the major animation companies will attend and a retrospective of the best products of featured and animated films in recent years.

In view of the London Olympics, the festival will focus on cartoons and sports with the celebration of the second edition of the Premio & Sport Cartoons produced in collaboration with the Circolo Sportivo della Rai. Among the novelties of the birth of the new Harlequin Award dedicated to the best cartoon taken from comic book (which is added to the Harlequin Award dedicated to cartoon and cartoon and videogames and books) and Pulcinella Award dedicated to Live Action sitcom and series for children not in animation.

With the birth of the Pulcinella Awards, we also wanted include today's growing attention to hybrid products made of flesh and blood actors and animation support.

Roberto Genovesi, artistic director of Cartoons on the Bay-concludes the process of transforming the festival that today can be considered a full member of the European reference point for cross-media animation.

The Independent Arts Festival offers space to exhibit, show and perform any form of creativity especially those in the independent scene. The event is focused to up and coming young artists who have never exhibited their art before. The festival also invites international, independent and professional artists to share their artwork. The motto of the event is: "Art is not boring." The festival also wants to give attention to the comic and zine scene. The event will feature a reading corner where visitors will be able to read comics and zines, and give comic artists and zine publishers the possibility to come and show or sell their products. For more information visit www.sztuka-fabryka.be/festival/.

The 16th Stuttgart International Festival Of Animated Film is open for submissions. The International Competition, Young Animation, Tricks For Kids animated series and AniMovie are due December 1, 2008. Categories for Under Commission films and for the German Animation Acreenplay award are due January 15, 2009. 50,000 viewers, 1,500 professional visitors, 500 films! Together with fmx -- a conference for experts and interested people dealing with animation, visual effects and digital post production -- and its 6,000 accredited guests, the Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film has emerged as one of the most important events and meeting platforms for animated film around the globe. Thus the Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film offers an ideal forum for filmmakers and producers to present their work to a wide audience. The festival awards more than 52,500 Euros in total for cash prizes in the altogether six competition categories, which, in 2009 will again be accompanied by an exciting and comprehensive supporting program. The now-established business platform Animation Production Day (APD) -- held in cooperation with Michael Schmetz Mediaconsult -- will be entering its fourth round. The Animation Coproduction Forum Eastern Europe -- held in cooperation with the Robert Bosch Foundation -- will take place for the second time. You are invited to submit films produced after October 1, 2007, for one of the following competition categories. Make sure to adhere to the above mentioned submission deadlines as well as the rules and regulations for entries. --International Competition --Young Animation (International competition for student films) --Tricks for Kids (International competition for children's films) --AniMovie (International feature film competition) --Animated Series (International competition for TV series) --Under Commission (International competition for commissioned films) You can download all submission forms, rules and regulations as well as the call for entries for the German Animation Screenplay Award at www.itfs.de. For further information contact Andrea Bauer at bauer@festival-gmbh.de. Online submissions can be made at www.reelport.com as of October 1, 2008.

The Florida Motion Picture and Television Association (FMPTA) is hosting the Crystal Reel Awards (CRA). The Crystal Reel Awards have been compared to Florida

From December 3-10, film fans flock to Leuven. For the 17th year straight, the International Short Film Festival Leuven offers a broad and very colorful selection of the best short film has to offer. Expect hundreds of new shorts, animation films, videos, documentaries and innovative cross-overs, selected out of thousands of international entries. The festival is a round-up of a great year in cinema, but also looks at the future. Besides being a platform for the short film medium, it also acts as a major talent hunt, where tomorrow’s filmmakers are able to present their first professional productions.

Festival Highlights

EUROPE IN SHORTS: Sundance, Clermont Ferrand, Regensburg, Hamburg, Locarno… our festival team travelled all over the world in search of the very best European short films. Once home, we go through over 2000 entries and select only forty, the cream of the crop of European shorts. The European competition shows films from over 17 countries.  In the non-competitive programmes dozens of new European shorts will be screened, in sections as "The Labo", "Short Films for Children", "Animation Nations" and "Finest Irish Shorts".MILESTONES IN SHORT FILM HISTORY: Milestones in Short Film History” is a collection of the most influential short films made throughout a century of cinematic history. It entails thirty movies produced between 1900 en 2000 that are typical of certain movements and evolutions in movie history or that introduced new techniques, procedures, styles, genres or directors. Together with the programma, the ISFFL presents a publication with the same title (Dutch-English) in witch all films are discussed.SHORT FILM COMPETITION:The ISFFL organises a Flemish and European Short Film Competition in which audience awards and jury awards are being granted. Besides the ISFFL awards the Flanders Audiovisual Fund grants 5 “Wildcards” for new Flemish film talent. The value of the prizes reaches almost 300.000 euro. The winners are announced at the award ceremony, on the last day of the festival, December 10thINDUSTRY ACTIVITIES: Each year, the International Short Film Festival welcomes countless young filmmakers and film professionals from all over the world. This edition boasts quite a few professional activities this year: an info session about Crowdfunding (organised by MEDIA Desk Flanders and SACD), a 2-day seminar about the Short Film in Flanders, a lecture by the Danish-American short film professor Richard Raskin “Story Design in Short fiction Film” and many more.

The 17th Woods Hole Film Festival is one of the premiere independent film festivals in New England and is dedicated to showcasing the work of emerging filmmakers, with a special section for filmmakers from New England. Held each summer on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, the Woods Hole Film Festival is seeking film and screenplay entries. More information can be found at www.woodsholefilmfestival.org or by emailing info@woodsholefilmfestival.org.

The 18th annual Dusty Film and Animation Festival and Awards will showcase more than 100 films by students graduating from the BFA Film, Video and Animation Department at the School of Visual Arts. The program includes three days of screenings of short films, videos and animations; a screenwriters night, where professional actors read excerpts of screenplays by graduating seniors; and an awards ceremony and gala reception with notable presenters from the film industry.

Each year, outstanding achievements awards are presented in the following categories: screenwriting, cinematography, video, editing, directing, film, acting, traditional animation and stop-motion animation.

2007 Festival Schedule
* Tuesday, April 24: Screenwriters Night
The National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South, 7:00 pm

* April 25 - 27: Screenings
Directors Guild Theater, 110 West 57 Street, 10:00 am - 10:00 pm

* Monday, April 30: Awards Ceremony
Directors Guild Theater, 110 West 57 Street, 6:30 pm

* Monday, April 30: Gala Reception
Le Parker Meridien Hotel, 118 West 57 Street, 8:30 - 10:30 pm

All events are free and open to the public. For more information, visit www.sva.edu.