Sarasota Film Festival calls for 2014 festival submissions

The 2014 Sarasota Film Festival screening team is seeking film submissions for the 16th annual Sarasota Film Festival taking place April 4 through 13. Each year, the festival screens more than 230 films spanning 10 days.

Festival staff is seeking films for the categories of shorts, documentaries, world cinema, narrative feature, young filmmakers showcase (filmmakers age 18 and under) and Sarasota and Florida Filmmakers.

SFF Artistic Director Tom Hall says they’re looking for “great stories, told well, that use the cinematic form at its best and most interesting. It doesn’t matter what kind of film, if the film is artfully made, with a real creative voice, a point of view and with clear artistic intent, we are likely to be interested.”

Hall says last year’s festival featured more than a dozen films from Sarasota and Florida filmmakers in addition to the student projects made through the festival’s growing education program. But, he says, it’s always on their agenda to feature local work.

Submissions open today and are due by Jan. 3. Young filmmakers showcase submissions are open until March 1. The screening team consists of more than a dozen people in Sarasota in addition to a New York City screening committee — each film is screened twice, and the programming staff also watch the submissions. You can submit at Sarasotafilmfestival.com.

As far as additional 2014 festival news? “We have a lot of ideas up our sleeves for this year. How many can we pull off? I’m looking forward to finding out,” Hall says. Stay tuned to YourObserver.com for more SFF news.