Vancouver's Short Film and Singapore Film Festivals: call for submissions

It's VSFF squared!

Two local film festivals that are both known as VSFF have announced calls for submissions.

But their initials are where their similarities end.

The Vancouver Short Film Festival originally began as the Vancouver Student Film Festival in 2005, but was relaunched last year to include professional artists.

This year's second annual edition will be held from October 28 to 29 at Vancity Theatre. British Columbian post-secondary student and professional filmmakers can submit their short films by August 1. Films which have been made in 2008 or later, have been produced in B.C. or made by a B.C. producer or director, and are up to 15 minutes long are eligible.

For full details, visit the Vancouver Short Film Festival Web site.

Meanwhile, the other VSFF, the Vancouver Singapore Film Festival, is also looking for feature length and short films of all genres (narrative, documentary, experimental, animation, and more). This year's festival will be held on September 17 and 18 (also at Vancity Theatre), and the submission deadline is July 15.

Films made by filmmakers who are citizens or permanent residents of Singapore or were born in Singapore are eligible. Films with Singapore as the country of production or contains 50 percent Singaporean content are also eligible.

Submissions must be produced after January 1, 2008.

For entry forms and detailed instructions, visit the Vancouver Singapore Film Festival Web site.

(On a personal note, I visited Singapore briefly last year and really enjoyed exploring the bustling Southeast Asian city-state with its vibrant food, endless shopping malls, and intriguing districts. I'd never seen so much construction going on; one particular bay was completely surrounded by cranes. I'd like to go back one day, but I suppose the easiest—and cheapest—thing for me would be to attend the next Vancouver Singapore Film Festival.)

Something to note about the two festivals is that the Web site addresses are quite similar as both use "vsff". However, the Vancouver Short Film Festival ends in .com (www.vsff.com) while the Vancouver Singapore Film Festival ends in .org (www.vsff.org).