MWFF x Heat Safe City
48hr Film Challenge
Supported by the City of Melbourne
and in collaboration with
King’s Artist Run & The Sticky Institute
Image: Ed Hawkins
CC BY 4.0 Deed
What’s it about?
The MWFF x Heat Safe City 48hr Film Challenge is a great way to get your creative juices flowing and do your part to spread the word about the impacts of extreme heat. Over a weekend, we want you to script, shoot and edit a short film that connects with the theme of extreme heat. You also need to include a specific object that will be announced to participating teams closer to the start time.
The 48hr Film Challenge is a fun and creative way to spend your weekend plus your film may be in the running to win one of our 1st, 2nd or 3rd place cash prizes!
Winning film: $3,000
2nd place runner up: $2,000
3rd place runner up: $1,000
Prizes will be awarded at the closing night event in February. Winning films be selected by a jury (90% decision) and audience votes (10% decision).
48hr Film Challenge Rules
The 48Hr Film Challenge runs between Friday Dec 8th, 5pm local time and the following Sunday Dec 10th, 5pm local time.
The participating group/team must complete its film/video work in time to submit it on Sunday 10th by 5:30pm AEDT.
Only works that meet the deadline will be officially considered for the competition with the best films are then chosen and curated by the MWFF programming team.
Teams must have a majority (over 50%) women and/or gender diverse people in key creative roles (e.g. director, writer, producer, DOP/camera, editor, sound). All entries must be accompanied by a statement detailing the team makeup.
Submissions/teams from across Australia are eligible to enter.
Films must be for a general audience and comply with a PG or lower rating based on the Classification Rating Guidelines.
Some pre-production organisation may happen beforehand the official 48hr challenge period. This includes:
developing a general story concept
organising equipment and locations
organising cast and crew
All other production work must occur over the designated weekend including scripting, rehearsing, shooting, editing, and exporting for delivery.
Films should be uploaded to a Cloud storage site (e.g. Dropbox, WeTransfer) and shared to the festival’s email address (see below).
Films can be any genre or style and no more than 7 minutes including credits.
The required object/prop must be seen on-screen. This can include a picture of the required object/prop somewhere in the film.
End title card/credits must include Acknowledgment of the Country on which the film was made plus the City of Melbourne and MWFF logos, which will be supplied to after registering.
Challenge Timeline & Delivery
Registration to participate open Fri 17th Nov, 9am - Fri 8th Dec, 5pm.
48hr challenge weekend: Dec 8-10, 2023.
Delivery format: Maximum File Size: 2GB. An mp4 or mov file should be shared to 48hrfilm@mwff.org.au by the deadline.
Screening Information
Films will be screened across December, January and February for four days each month (total of 12 days) at selected venues across the City of Melbourne.
Films may also have the opportunity to be screened as part of MWFF 2024 scheduled for March.
Some filmmakers based in Melbourne will be asked to attend a launch event run by the City of Melbourne and speak briefly about their films. This event will be attended by the Lord Mayor, City of Melbourne Councillors, invited artists and guests.
Films, stills and behind-the-scenes pics may also be used on City of Melbourne and MWFF social media platforms to generate further reach for the project’s awareness raising objective
The Legal Stuff
Copyright of the films will be held by the filmmaker/s. The City of Melbourne and MWFF reserves the right to use part of or the whole film for promotional purposes.
To be eligible to enter, your film must be an original work, must not infringe third-party's rights or contain any copyrighted materials; and must be suitable to be screened for a general audience, so nothing obscene. The film may not contain defamatory statements about any person, company, organisation or entity.
You must have rights to any footage, music or images used in your film. You are able to work with a composer and/or music artists to include original music works in your films and ensure you have the appropriate rights to do so. You can also use pre-recorded music, however, you must hold the rights for its use in film.
Releases/agreements will be required for all music and third-party-sourced sound effects used.
Filmmakers/teams take on full responsibility and liability for the making of their films.
Entry is voluntary and free. No compensation will be distributed for production costs by the Challenge coordinators.