Geneva – Facing a deadline of 21 June for submissions to IOM’s 2018 Global Migration Film Festival (GMFF), organizers of the December event are ecstatic to report this week that they have received over 400 feature, documentary and short films for consideration.

“To be exact: 456 films. From 75 countries!” said Amanda Nero, director of the GMFF, who this week is working in her native Brazil. “How great is that? Last year, the total number of submissions we received was 303 films. We’re on our way to doubling that total, and we still have three weeks to go!”

Filmmakers can submit films in all genres, including: fiction, documentary, animation, and more. The submitted films will be divided by the lengths of the films into Full-Length Feature and Short Films. All lengths are accepted.

Only films submitted through the festival’s designated platform, FilmFreeway, will be considered. 

GMFF programmers currently are evaluating the submitted films, while also in the process of confirming countries’ participation. Last year, the Festival was present in 100 countries, we are expecting more countries’ participation this year.

GMFF is an annual festival, launched in 2016, and it is a part of the UN Together campaign to promote diversity worldwide. “Films that defy stereotypes, and portray positive and welcoming actions by and toward migrants are welcomed,” Nero explained.

The GMFF also is an inclusive festival: anyone who is interested in migration or film is welcomed; the entrance to all events is free. Screenings begin 28 November and run through 18 December – the UN’s international day of the migrant – with events scheduled in some 100 countries.

The Festival also serves as a place for migrants to show their artistic talents. Last year, the award statue created for the Festival’s top film was created by the Syrian artist Mwafak, who was also portrayed (playing himself) as among the principal protagonists of the documentary Lost in Lebanon, also the opening film of GMFF 2017.

Nero and her team say about one-third of the submissions so far are shorts, the rest divided between features and documentaries.  The list of entries at the GMFF offices in Geneva resembles an Olympics medals chart – with countries with the most entries on top, followed in descending order to those with the fewest.

So far the ‘I’ countries are the most prolific. Italy leads all countries with 36 submissions (15 features; 21 shorts), followed by India with 30 (6; 24), followed by the Islamic Republic of Iran 28 (5; 23), then the US with 27 (9; 18). Rounding out the field of others with submissions in double figures are include Canada, Turkey, France, Germany, the UK and Spain.

Among the films Nero has enjoyed as she reviews the submissions is an Italian submission, the story of the last six teenagers remaining in Sicily’s Città Giardino migrant reception centre, which is about to close. Each has arrived from Africa, walking through the desert, and then risk their lives crossing to Europe by sea. Now they are there, stuck in the Sicilian hinterland, waiting desperately for a visa that might never come. One character, Sahid, can’t wait anymore, idling around. With the help of his friend, Farouq, he plots an escape plan.

Another film Nero enjoyed came from Iraq, telling the story of Bavi, who left Kurdistan with her family as a child to live in Belgium. After graduating from a film academy she returned to Kurdistan to find her lost identity via the making of a documentary. Instead, what she found was a difficult quest, between culture shock and the lost memory of a country she once knew. A brutal war – leaving thousands, even millions of refugees and displaced persons – arrived in Kurdistan. Once a refugee herself, Bavi decided to change her direction towards the refugees. Her documentary began as a personal quest for identity, but ends up telling a universal story of refugees everywhere.

Submissions are being accepted until June 21 by the Geneva-based film festival. 

For more information, please contact IOM HQ at Tel: +41 227 179 482, Email: migfilmfest@iom.int