Rock The Boat Film Festival has a vision of helping underrepresented communities share their voice so they can be seen, heard and witnessed creatively. The festival enables anyone of any age, ability, experience, and using any equipment, to have equal opportunity to share their voice and have their story be seen on the big screen.

This festival will not only help amplify the voices of young, emerging, aspiring and underrepresented storytellers and bring communities closer together through film, they will also help others learn about people and places in their own community they otherwise would not have been aware of, as well as help build a historical archive through film.

At the culmination of the festival season is a Gala Awards Night. Storytellers have the opportunity to walk the red carpet, interact with peers, and connect with representatives of local organisations and community, and have their stories be witnessed and celebrated by an audience from across different Perth regions, before being awarded for their efforts and encouraged to pursue their passions.

You can enter your projects for free (and submit as many different entries as you like) before our Regular Deadline for entries on 11th August, 2024.

To help encourage early entries, we have an incentive for filmmakers who submit before the 16th June: if any of your "Early Bird" entries are shortlisted for screening, you will receive *one free ticket* per each shortlisted project.

Additionally, we will accept entries until before the 31st of August at the latest, however, please note that there will be a $20 submission fee for each late entry after 11th August (using which, we will help pay for the tickets of shortlisted Early Birds).

Awards & Prizes

A REQUIREMENT FOR 2024:
To make this film festival as accessible as possible, we require you to either add subtitles to your project, OR, provide us with a text document with a transcript for all speech/dialogue, so that our editor can add them. All non-English entries must have English subtitles to be considered for shortlisting.

MAIN CATEGORIES:

• OPEN Short Film or Documentary (7 Minutes or Less)
• UNDER 18s Short Film or Documentary (5 Minutes or Less)*
• OPEN Super Short Film (2 Minutes or Less)
• SCHOOLS Short Film or Documentary (5 Minutes or Less)
• OPEN Local History Documentary or Non-Fiction Short Film (7 Minutes or Less)**

For each of these five main categories, the winner will receive a $1,000 1st place prize. There will also be Awards of Recognition to be announced at a later date and awarded at our Gala Awards Night.

*(Please note: for the Under 18s category, the lead creative must have been under 18 at the time of writing, directing, and editing the project, and still under 18 upon submitting their entry to the film festival.)

* *(Please note: for the Local History category, the short film or documentary must almost exclusively revolve around a pre-2000s event or story.)

Rules & Terms

2024 TERMS & CONDITIONS:

By submitting to this festival, you agree and acknowledge that:

1. You own the rights to, or have any of the necessary permissions and/or licenses to feature and publicly broadcast all visual and audio content within your entry (including graphics, music, and trademarks).

2. To be eligible, your project must have been filmed or animated within one of the regions of the festival in Western Australia (anywhere between SOUTH of the Swan River and WEST of the Kwinana Freeway. This includes: City of Rockingham, City of Fremantle, Town of East Fremantle, City of Kwinana, City of Melville, City of Cockburn (including Rottnest Island), and City of Mandurah (up until the Pinjarra Road cutoff point North of the Murray River). If it does not visibly depict or feature a locally recognisable landmark from any of these regions, then please include in your submission the place(s) it was filmed, for us to verify. (A map of this area can be found on our Rock The Boat Film Festival website.)

3. You give permission for your entry (or parts of your entry) to be used for promotional purposes by Rock The Boat Film Festival before and after the entry deadline and pre and post event (such as social media posts or a festival trailer).

4. While projects which have been entered into other competitions may be accepted and shortlisted, projects which have previously won first-place or monetary awards will not be eligible for being a main category finalist.

5. Projects submitted by the August 11th regular deadline cannot be withdrawn afterwards, unless for exceptional circumstances.

6. You, as the entrant, must have an Australian residential or postal address.

7. The film festival and its organisers shall not be held liable for any claims, damages, losses, or disputes arising from the content of the short films or documentaries screened during the event. You agree to release the Event and its associates, partners, and affiliates from any legal action whatsoever.

8. We reserve the right to make amendments to any festival guidelines or proceedings or categories at our sole discretion.

Filmmakers retain the copyright of their projects.
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  • Selina P

    What a wonderful experience that I will always cherish! Such a supportive and encouraging event that was all about celebrating the "everyperson" - i wish there were more events like this!

    December 2023
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