8th of June is the film submission deadline for the three competition programmes of the Riga International Film Festival. The filmmakers have less than seven days to get their entries in for the RIGA IFF Feature Film Competition, SHORT RIGA International Competition and SHORT RIGA Baltic Music Video Competition.

There are up to ten titles selected for the RIGA IFF Feature Film Competition each year. The majority of funding must originate in the Baltic Sea Region (Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and Sweden). Other than that, this category sets no restrictions regarding the genre or style. The programme welcomes documentaries, fiction films, animation works and mixed creations. This competition seeks productions that use innovative cinematic language as an expression of the auteur.

The members of the international jury this year – Anna Möttölä, Executive Director of the Helsinki International Film Festival Love & Anarchy, Barbora Ligasová, representative of the Czech Film Center, Rainer Sarnet, Estonian theatre and film director, winner of the RIGA IFF Award 2017, and Andrei Tănăsescu, representative of the prominent Toronto International Film Festival.

The winner of the competition is presented with the RIGA IFF Award –  a bronze sculpture comprised of eight pieces (author – artists Ervīns Broks), thus allowing for distribution among the team in acknowledgement of the collective effort, – and a prize of EUR 2000.

Up to 35 most interesting submissions of short films are selected for the SHORT RIGA International Competition and will be presented to the panel of international jury: Chintis Lundgren, animation director and animator from Estonia, currently working in Croatia, Enrico Vannucci, festival advisor and film programme curator from Italy,  Ieva Viese-Vigula, Latvian writer and film critic, Jānis Putniņš, Latvian filmmaker and film scholar, and Per Fikse, director of the Minimalen Short Film Festival in Trondheim. The winner of this competition is awarded Silver Grass Snake (symbol of the SHORT RIGA programme) pin and also receives a monetary reward of 1000 eur.

The SHORT RIGA Baltic Music Video Competition comprises a selection of video productions from the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania). Three of this year’s jury members can be revealed already: Jessica Manstetten, curator of the MuVi Prize competition programme and MuVi International programme at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Juris Simanovičs, musician that represents the Latvian musical underground scene, and Inese Vēriņa-Lubiņa, audiovisual media artist from Latvia. The award – Silver Grass Snake (symbol of SHORT RIGA programme) pin – goes to the winner of this competition during the RIGA IFF Award Ceremony.

Please find more on the three above mentioned competitions here

The festival is organized with the support of the State Culture Capital Foundation, the European Commission’s programme ‘Creative Europe – MEDIA’, the National Film Centre of Latvia, and the Riga City Council.