FYI: FILM YOUR ISSUE
If you're an American resident between the ages of 18 and 26, shoot and submit your film to FILM YOUR ISSUE, an unprecedented short film competition focusing on films dealing with social issues. Students are invited to create a 30-to-60 second film—live action or animated—as a way of engaging them in current issues, empowering them to add their voices to the public dialogue, via film. It's ultimately an exercise in democracy and being an engaged, informed citizen.
FYI is free to enter and the rewards are pretty cool (an awards ceremony at the UN, an 8-week paid internship in Los Angeles during the summer at Paramount Pictures or Walt Disney Co., a laptop, cell phone, and other prizes).
Films will be partially judged by a VIP Jury including actors George Clooney and Philip Seymour Hoffman; television news legend Walter Cronkite; Senator Barack Obama; Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa; CNN's Anderson Cooper; MSNBC's Brian Williams and others.
Some participating media and academic partners in this venture include Microsoft/MSN Spaces/MSN Video/MSNBC.com, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly , MTV, The United Nations, The Humane Society of the United States, ASCAP, The Maui Film Festival, The Vail Film Festival, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, the Association of American Colleges and Universities, the American Association of University Professors, Campus Compact and Imagining America.
For more information and to submit entries, go to www.filmyourissue.com, or contact Zadi Diaz.
The deadline is May 1, 2006 so start filming!