GIRAF19 Call for Submissions

We're looking for independent and artful animated films to share with our audience in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

In 2022 we were happy to bring the festival back to the cinema with in-person screenings, however we learned over the pandemic that GIRAF serves an online audience as well. Screening a festival through secure online platforms does make these films accessible to communities of people that might not be able to make it to the cinema. So in 2022, GIRAF was offered in a hybrid (online and in-person) festival format for the first time in it's 18 year history. We are hoping to keep this mix of in-person and online format for GIRAF 19!

We've added a couple questions where you can let us know what kinds of screenings you'd be comfortable with.

We're looking for independent and artful animated films to share with our audience in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. That's intentionally pretty general: it can mean abstract or narrative, hand-drawn or computer-generated, student films or well-established professionals, or anywhere in between. We want films we can be excited about, films that are expanding what animation can do, and films that make us feel things.

If you want a better sense of what we love, feel free to check out our Vimeo channel (https://vimeo.com/channels/indiemixtape), our festival site (https://giraffest.ca) and our ongoing Monday Short blog series (https://quickdrawanimation.ca/discover/monday-shorts).

No commercial work, please — there are definitely commercials, trailers, mo-graph pieces etc that we love, but commercials, explainers, festival stingers and those sorts of things fall outside our mandate. The festival is also aimed at an adult audience, so children's films aren't the right fit. Music videos are admittedly a bit of a grey area; we don't book them very often but have made exceptions in the past.

Submissions close May 31, 2023, but early submissions are always appreciated. It's a lot easier for us to bunker down and watch these in winter than when the sun's inviting us outside. And we will try to notify you of results by mid-October. Because we pay every filmmaker we show, we're a pretty small fest—don't take it personally if we don't select your film, it doesn't mean we didn't absolutely love it. At the best of times we can only include about 10% or fewer of the films we receive, and it kind of breaks our heart.That should cover it, but if you have any questions, please drop us a line at programming@quickdrawanimation.ca.