film festival

five x five

project

2009 project

The FiveXFive New York State of Mind DV Project has been an incredibly satisfying and very successful initiative for both, VISIONFEST and the Domani Vision Film Society, since its inception in 2003. But due to its overwhelmingly ambitious demands, VISIONFEST has only created FiveXFive line-ups during its 2003, 2004, and 2005 editions. Each of those years, five specially selected filmmakers (which have included a slew of talented, New York-based auteurs, as well as some very remarkable VISIONFEST alumni) were commissioned to create unique, innovative, and incredibly entertaining digital shorts - some which have been featured on the IFC Channel and many notable U.S. film festivals.

After a three-year hiatus of this project, VISIONFEST has elected to take this exclusive film festival initiative one step further by offering eligible filmmakers across the country an opportunity to apply for consideration in the 2009 Project (specific qualifications apply and are listed below)

All you need is a filmmaker reel, a desire to take a cinematic bite out of the Big Apple, and a $5 entry fee to process your application and submission...

In keeping with good ol' FiveXFive tradition, the rules and guidelines have been slightly revised to offer participating filmmakers some new challenges.

As always, the primary rules of creating the Project within a five-day schedule (including production and post) and delivering a screening print whose running time does not exceed five minutes (excluding end titles), remain unaltered. The one major guideline that applies to this year's Project is as follows:

Selected filmmakers have the complete freedom to engage their characters in any story line they choose. However, the tale must unfold in New York City and must include one or more verbal references to a 'New York thing' and at least one exterior shot establishing the authenticity of the location.
Also: all characters appearing in the short must be played by cast members that are of the opposite gender than that of the filmmaker.

To be eligible for consideration in the 2009 Project, prospective participants must meet the following qualifications:

Filmmaker must be at least 21 years of age (proof of I.D. required), and must either be a resident of New York City or willing to travel at own expenses to be available in NYC during the production of the Project (time estimated to be between June-August 2009) and its first public exhibition.
Filmmaker must have completed at least (1) feature-length motion picture (narrative, documentary, or experimental), which has been officially selected to at least (3) film festivals in the U.S.; or has been honored with one or more major awards in at least (1) film festival in the U.S.; or has received a limited theatrical distribution in a major U.S. city for a period of at least 7 consecutive days; or filmmaker must have a project that was accepted in a competitive forum of a previous edition of VISIONFEST.

If you qualify, based on the above-stated guidelines, and would like a .PDF copy of our 2009 Project Application, which also includes more in-depth details defining the nature of the selection process, please e-mail your request with "5x5" written in the subject title heading, to: submit@visionfest.com