Applications for The Hot House: Shorts, a production award for short films about climate change, are now open and close Monday 19th June at 5pm.
Climate Spring in partnership with Film London are pleased to announce the launch of The Hot House: Shorts: a short film competition for scripted live action short films about climate change. The partners will select a project to receive a production award of £10,000, development and executive producer support, as well as sustainable production guidance and certification to make their film.
Special thanks to Danusia Samal for her donation which made this award possible. Despite our societies being at crisis point, just 2.8% of scripted TV and films released 2016-2020 mentioned anything related to climate change, and just 0.56% mentioned it directly.
Who is it for?
Hot House is for filmmaking teams (producer, director and writer), and is open to all creators over 18 not in full time education. At least one of the filmmaking team must self identify as coming from a marginalised background. By this, they mean an individual who has lived experience of racial inequity, a disability, economic or educational disadvantage, LGBTQI+, caring responsibilities. The writer can also be the producer or the director, but the producer may not be the director.
How does it work?
Teams will submit a draft script, samples of previous work and information about the team. Projects will be assessed by the organisers and shortlisted. Teams of shortlisted projects will have an interview with a panel of judges and will be asked to submit additional materials regarding the production. The successful project will receive a non-recoupable production award of £10,000, executive producer and development support, as well as sustainable production consultancy and certification to make the film.
Teams are welcome to raise additional funds or in kind support towards the production.
What they are looking for
They are interested in stories that explore climate change creatively. They are not interested in apocalyptic dystopias. They would like to see projects that are engaging in the challenge of navigating away from a high consumption, fossil fuel and extractive based society to one that is regenerative and renewable. The projects do not have to be explicitly about climate. In fact, they are interested in stories that might not obviously be about climate. They can use metaphors or explore issues subtlety.
There are different types of stories they are interested in:
World Building: Great stories that have nothing to do with climate change, they could be a love story, comedy, crime or adventure, but are set in a world without fossil fuels and extractive economies. The near future world would be one that is regenerative but that is merely the background to the main story which is not about environmental issues.
Impacts: Stories that are about navigating the impacts of climate change while trying to solve worsening impacts
Collective Heroes: Stories that are about people coming together to create renewable, regenerative solutions to energy, food, water, housing or transport need. This could be the core of the story or incidental to the main story.
Reveal the truth: stories about confronting the bad actors holding back progress on climate and challenging corruption, lies and greenwash.
Stories can be any genre, but must be live action, scripted, and less than 20 minutes.
Applications
Applications for The Hot House: Shorts are now open and close at 5pm on Monday 19th June 2023. Applicants will need to submit a draft script, alongside a sample of completed work for each member of the team. This can be any filmed work, including a filmed recording of a stage play. For the writer this may be a script which has not been produced.
Full terms and conditions are available here.
You can submit your application form here.
Eligibility
The Hot House: Shorts is open to filmmaking teams (producer, director and writer), and is open to all creators over 18 not in full time education. At least one of the filmmaking team must self identify as coming from a marginalised background. By this, they mean an individual who has lived experience of racial inequity, a disability, economic or educational disadvantage, LGBTQI+, caring responsibilities. The writer can also be the producer or the director, but the producer may not be the director.
Projects must be submitted in English. Projects must not be subject to a contractual agreement with a production company, but can be under consideration by a production company. Projects selected or shortlisted in other programmes by BBC and BFI Network are eligible to submit to Hot House.
April 17th 2023 – Applications open
June 19th 2023 – Applications close
July 3rd – 8th – Shortlist Interviews
July 17th – Award announced
Enquiries
If you have any questions regarding The Hot House please email hot-house@climate-spring.org
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