HAYAH Festival Internacional de Cortometrajes de Panamá ()

Festival start: 13 November 2024      Festival end: 17 November 2024

16th Hayah International Short Film Festival of Panama, the oldest short film festival in Central America that rewards local and international talent.
Our mission is to show and reward the best shorts each year and bring local filmmakers closer to the international industry.

Participating short films in the OFFICIAL COMPETITION SECTION will compete for the Festival Trophys:

Best Short Film Fiction
Best Short Film Documentary
Best Short Film Animation
Best Music Video
New Directors Award (for Panamanian filmmakers only)
Best National Short Film (for Panamanian filmmakers only)
Audience Award

GENERAL RULES

Call for entries

HAYAH PROFILE
Hayah International Short Film Festival, in its 16th edition, invites filmmakers of Panama and the world to participate in its short film competition. Hayah is the only short film festival in Panama and Central America, calls for entries annually to reward the local and international short films. The short film competition will be held following the rules below:

FESTIVAL DATE
The 16th Hayah International Short Film Festival will be held in November 2024 in Panama City.

CATEGORIES
There are FIVE (5) COMPETITION SECTIONS to participate in:
Fiction
Documentary
Animated
Music Video
New Directors Award (for Panamanian filmmakers only)

awards
The Filmmakers who aspire to take part of the competitive categories, but do not get selected, will be taken in consideration to participate in the out of competition sections of the Festival.

The Hayah Short Film Festival will award honorable mentions if the jury deems so.

The jury reserves the right of not awarding all the prizes if within the proposals there is no Short film that goes along the lines of the Hayah International Short Film Festival.

The prizes are personal and not transferable. The Hayah International Short Film Festival organization can deem some categories as deserted if the call does not meet a minimal participation.

Participating short films in the OFFICIAL COMPETITION SECTION will compete for the Festival Trophys:

Best Short Film Fiction
Best Short Film Documentary
Best Short Film Animation
Best Music Video
New Directors Award (for Panamanian filmmakers only)
Best National Short Film (for Panamanian filmmakers only)
Audience Award

REQUIREMENTS
To participate in the Short Films Official Competition you must meet the following requirements:

Natural or legal entities of any nationality can participate

The number of short films that you can enter into competition is limited to 4 short films per director.

Only short films that have not been previously exhibited in Panama will be accepted.

The film must not have been broadcast or available online in Panama (including platforms such as Vimeo, YouTube, or streaming services) prior to the festival dates. In exceptional cases, the Festival may consider films with limited prior exposure. Please contact us for further information.

Your film can not be a reduced or extended version of another short film made previously for this festival.

Only short films with completion date after 1st of January, 2022 can compete.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS
The maximum duration for the short films in all categories is 20 minutes and may have been shot in any system.

Entries must have completed production after January 1st, 2022.

All those short films whose original dialogues are not in Spanish, is preferably subtitled in Spanish. Otherwise, they will might be refused as the Festival has limited resources.

The short films whose dialogues are in Spanish, should have english subtitles.

The Organization will agree upon selection, date and display order of the short films participating in Hayah International Short Film Festival and any Itinerant project after the 16th edition of the Festival. In the latter case only those short films in which the responsible person for each work expressly authorizes will be displayed.

Proposals received after the specified date are excluded from participating.

For local filmmakers participation in all activities of the Festival is mandatory. For foreign filmmakers the Festival will arrange for lodging discounts in Panama City, if they can attend to the Festival activities, depending of Covid-19 situation.
REGISTRATION AND MATERIAL SUBMISSION
The Festival Call will take place only
FROM APRIL 22nd TO JUNE 7th, 2024
EARLY BIRD: APRIL 22nd TO MAY 3rd 2024
REGULAR deadline: MAY 4th TO JUNE 7th, 2024

The cost varies depending on the current currency exchange. The cost may be paid via the methods offered by the platform.

EARLY BIRD: APRIL 22nd TO MAY 3rd 2024
International: $10.00 USD
Panamá: FREE
REGULAR deadline: MAY 4th, 2024 TO JUNE 7th, 2024
International: $15.00 USD
Panamá: $8.00 USD

Submission of materials will be online through Festhome, following the platform’s rules.

Once the work is uploaded, you will be asked a series of information that makes up the registration form, the participant does not have to send anything else by post or e-mail. The content is private and only accessible by the festival and its contributors.

Upon enrollment the information must be complete and ready to attach, such as:
-Short film's still photo
-Poster
-Director's photo
-Short synopsis, both in english and Spanish
-Trailer

SENDING BY EMAIL
Will only be admitted for film schools and distributors who prefer to send their material via mail. They should contact the Festival directly using the following email address:
programacion@festivalhayah.com

JURY
The Official Jury, composed by professionals from the film, culture and communication industry, will be in charge of awarding the prizes. The awards will be for the film's Director.

Decisions of both the Selection Committee and the Official Jury will be final.

The Jury reserves the right to declare awards and mentions deserted, if they don't find works that go along with what the Festival represents.

The jury's decision will be public at the end of the 2022 Festival.

The Jury will evaluate the script, producing, directing, technical and artistic resources with which the participant short was made.

FINAL
The registration implies acceptance of all the rules.

Each short film must have script registration rights and will be responsible for the image rights of the people who appear in their videos, as well as the rights of the soundtrack and/or original music.

If selected to participate in the Festival, it is mandatory to have a Trailer of the short film, 1 minute long max, which will be required by the programming team. The information about the short film (synopsis and technical datasheet) will be required both in english and Spanish.