The 2020 US International Film & Video Festival (FilmFest) competition is now accepting entries through March 15. Productions for all venues are eligible if they are produced or reintroduced between Sept. 1, 2019, and March 1, 2020. New categories in Craft/Production include Extended and Mixed Reality

Students also are invited to enter. They may submit individual or group work done for a class project, an internship, or as spec or client work as long as the student is not a paid employee in the film industry.

Awards include Gold Camera, Silver Screen, Certificate for Creative Excellence, Student Award Certificate, Best of Festival (Grand Prix) and the IQ One World Award.

The IQ One World Award honors a production that best exhibits cinematic excellence and innovative storytelling within a universal humanitarian theme. It is sponsored and presented by the International Quorum of Motion Picture Producers (IQ), a group that works to support and improve international communications. In 2019, the award went to “What Goes Unsaid,” from the National LGBT Cancer Network, New York City. The production addresses disparities in healthcare for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons.

Best of Festival awards are given at the discretion of judges. In 2019, two films won that designation. In Corporate, “Insider’s Guide to Riga,” from the Riga Tourism Development Bureau, was produced by DDB Latvia as part of a campaign to promote Riga, Latvia, as a city-break destination. The Documentary winner was “Whale Wisdom,” produced by Terra Mater Factual Studios GmbH, Vienna, Austria. The work is a co-production with Doclights/NDR Naturfilm in association with ARTE France/Unité Découverte et Connaissance produced by Wild Logic.

US International Film & Video Festival emphasizes its judging process. Each entry is evaluated on its own merits, which means the top award in a category is not necessarily a Gold Camera First Place, and more than one Gold, Silver or Certificate may be awarded in a category. The competition got its start in Chicago in 1967 and has remained independent since.

Full information and a look at past winners can be found at www.filmfestawards.com.