Ottawa International Animation Festival is Now Accepting Submissions

Feast was an OIAF 2014 hit.

The Ottawa International Animation Festival is now accepting submissions! OIAF invites filmmakers to submit their films for the upcoming festival, which runs September 16-20. OIAF is the largest animation showcase in North America and far and away the biggest and best film event in the National Capital. Last year’s festival boasted impressive numbers with animation fans from home and abroad flocking to The ByTowne to enjoy the latest animated offerings from Canadian and international filmmakers. Notable OIAF 2014 selections include a trio of Oscar nominees for Best Animated Short—The Bigger Picture, Me and My Moulton, and the eventual winner Feast—plus a handful of Canadian Screen Award nominees including the animated documentary Seth’s Dominion, and a grand showcase of Disney work including series curated by Leonard Maltin and Jerry Beck and a retro screening of The Little Mermaid.

This year’s submission process includes a few category changes to streamline and strengthen the competition selections. On bit of housekeeping is that the school showreel and high school categories have been eliminated. (I’ll admit that I’ve skipped those categories every year.) Additionally, OIAF 2015 includes the new category of Commissioned Animation to combine the previously unique groups of series, promotional animation, and music videos. As Artistic Director Chris Robinson notes in a statement released today by the festival, “We think this will strengthen an already strong competition selection.” (OIAF's been consistently great during my years covering it.) OIAF once again plans to screen over 150 films in both Official Competition and Out of Competition Showcase Screenings during across the five days of the festival.

All animators are invited to submit their recent work into one of the Festival’s eight categories:

1. Feature Animation

2. Narrative Short Animation

3. Experimental/Abstract Animation

4. Undergraduate Animation

5. Graduate Animation

6. Commissioned Animation

7. Short Animation for Children

8. Animated Series for Children

Prizes are awarded in each category. This year’s jury for the Official Competition includes Chris Dainty (Ottawa, Canada), Kasper Jancis (Tallinn, Estonia), Maral Mohammadian (Montreal, Canada), Igor Prassel (Slovenia), Leah Shore (Brooklyn, NY, USA), and Saschka Unseld (Hamburg, Germany).

Please visit www.animationfestival.ca for the submission guidelines and details on this year’s festival.