Participation Criteria:
To allow and encourage the participants in this category to be part of the rare opportunity of preserving and investing in the arts and humanities, the BHFF invites all K-12, undergraduate, and graduate students to participate in this remarkable competition by sharing their film or screenplay with uniquely chosen artists from around the globe. All student participants are to comply with the following eligibility requirements:
- All student participants must pay the required submission fee. The BHFF does not wave or refund submission fees to preserve the integrity of the competition and its participants’ artistic value.
- Any student attending an accredited K-12 institution within and outside of the United States of America is eligible to participate. Foreign institutional accreditation laws must comply with the national accreditation regulations of the chosen institution.
- Any undergraduate student attending an accredited two or four-year higher education institution within and outside of the United States of America is eligible to participate. An undergraduate student is defined as one who has not yet received a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) or Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree or has applied for graduation in the current academic year.
- Any graduate student attending an accredited four-year higher education institution within and outside of the United States of America is eligible to participate. A graduate student is defined as one who has not yet received a Master of Arts (M.A.) or Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) degree or has applied for graduation in the current academic year.
- All student participants must submit a signed and dated letter of reference from a faculty member, program director, department chair, department dean, vice president, or president of their home institution. The reference letter must officially introduce the student participant by his/her legal name, providing his/her student identification number/code, the official title of the student film or screenplay, the eligible BHFF film category the student would like to participate in, and a brief description of the student’s artistic intention and future academic and career goals. All letters must be in PDF form. The student participants in the film competition should email their letters of reference to films@beverlyhillsfilmfestival.com , and the student participants in the screenplay competition should email their letters of reference to screenplays@beverlyhillsfilmfestival.com by the submission deadline. Letters received after the submission deadline, along with letters without an official signature and date will automatically disqualify the submitted film or screenplay from any form of participation.
- The BHFF only accepts student submissions in the following film categories: documentary, short subject, and animation.
- The BHFF accepts multiple film OR screenplay submissions per student. Each participant must pay the required submission fee for each entry separately. If chosen as an Official Selection, the BHFF only accepts ONE submission per participant.
- Upon being accepted as an Official Selection for the upcoming festival, each accepted student filmmaker or writer must agree to the Terms and Conditions of the BHFF if he/she wishes to have the film screened during the festival, or if he/she wishes to have the accepted screenplay title and author(s) published on the BHFF official website.
- Upon agreeing to the BHFF Terms and Conditions of film screening, each accepted student film must have an in-person representation. The BHFF does not screen films that do not have, at least, one person representing them at the assigned theater.
- Student films selected as Official Selections that have successfully been screened during the festival with proper, in-person representation, are eligible for being considered for the prestigious Beverly Hills Film Festival Student Filmmaker Award during the Awards Night Gala.
- The BHFF does not provide any form of legal and/or travel assistance to international student filmmakers and/or writers who wish to either attend the festival or represent their accepted film during the festival. The student filmmakers and writers must accept full responsibility for all their legal travel requirements.
