YARAT launches open call for Short Film Festival

YARAT Contemporary Art Space has launched an open call for emerging and mid-career Azerbaijani filmmakers, who wants to demonstrate their short feature films at YARAT Shorts Festival to be launched this year.

The main goal of the project is to create a platform for emerging talent from Azerbaijan, Georgia and UK, provide visibility for local filmmakers and audiences for films, Azernews reports.

Its main mission will be implemented through open air/indoors screenings in all YARAT venues and a program of educational events (workshops/lectures/talks) by international directors, scriptwriters, actors.

YARAT Shorts Festival aims at empowerment of young filmmakers through intensive trainings and screening directorial debuts.

The festival will see films on the following themes: Women and their role in society, Solitude and self-growth, Memory and mental landscapes.

Deadline for submitting your film: August 20. If interested, please, send a private link to your film to [email protected]. Selected films will be screened in September.

Partners: Georgian entry will be provided by Nino Anjaparidze from Tbilisi International Film Festival (Cinema Art Center Prometheus).

British cinematography will be represented by winners of BAFTA Film Awards (partnership will be enabled by British Council).

To be eligible for participation your film should also comply with the pre-selection conditions:

• Any film or video project originating from Azerbaijan or co-produced/directed/written by Azerbaijani cinematographers with a running time of less than 30 minutes, including credits. This includes scripted or improvisational fiction, experimental film or video and animation.

• Short films have no premiere requirements or prior screening restrictions that impact Festival eligibility and may have been screened at any number of festivals or other public theatrical exhibitions, broadcast or streamed on television or the Internet, and/or released via any home video or other public distribution platform anywhere in the world.

YARAT is an artist-founded, not-for-profit art organization based in Baku, Azerbaijan, established by Aida Mahmudova in 2011. YARAT (which means 'create' in Azerbaijani) is dedicated to contemporary art with a long-term commitment to creating a hub for artistic practice, research, thinking, and education in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the surrounding region.

YARAT comprises YARAT Art Centre, ARTIM Project Space, YARAT Studios, and an extended educational and public program. YARAT Art Centre, a 2000m2 converted Soviet-era naval building, opened in March 2015 and is the organization’s main exhibition space. The exhibition program features new commissions by artists responding to the region. It supports and provides access to artists from the region while engaging and introducing established, international artists.

In October 2015, YARAT opened ARTIM, a central, accessible, and dynamic space in Baku's Old City. ARTIM (meaning 'progress' in Azerbaijani) shows experimental practices and new work by emerging Azeri art professionals (selected through open call) and the international artists from the residency program. It features multiple small-scale projects each year and hosts ARTIM Lab, a program enabling young artists to engage in workshops and daily studio practice to generate new ideas and works.