Straight 8 2020: open call

Straight 8, the global super 8 film competition, invites anyone anywhere to make a short film on one cartridge of super 8 film - editing only with each pull of their camera’s trigger. No post-production, no grading, no fiddling or fixing. The soundtrack is created without having seen the film and must be original. 

The first time successful entrants see even their own work is at one of straight 8’s packed and riotous premieres. Since 2003, the best entries have screened at straight 8 premieres at Cannes Film Festival, again without anyone seeing their work first.

May 2020 will mark straight 8’s 15th Cannes premiere.

This is the earliest straight 8 has opened the doors to its annual competition, allowing entrants worldwide to choose the warmth of summer or the cool sharp light of winter, no matter where in the world they are. 

With limited places opening on the 8th of every month, a new rolling deadline gives filmmakers 3 months from sign up to film delivery. Each month the price increases to encourage creative types to get their skates on. Or their sun-hats.

Entry is open now and only available at: straight 8 2020

To accommodate more animation enthusiasts, entrants creating stop-frame films get longer than anyone to craft their creations.

There is no theme set. Filmmakers from all backgrounds and levels of experience, including first-timers, are encouraged to embrace the level playing field that straight 8 represents and to tell the story they want to tell. Each film’s maximum length is 3 minute 20 seconds which is enforced by the 50 feet / 15 metres of celluloid film in one Super 8 cartridge.

straight 8 2019 entry places sold out in just two months and people from 17 countries across 5 continents made films. See how you measure up by watching the best 25 straight 8 2019 films available now at: straight 8 vimeo on demand. 

Ed Sayers, straight 8 founder, comments: “straight 8 is 20 now and continues to grow by word of mouth. We love the fact that each year more filmmakers are attracted to our challenge: to make a film in one of the hardest ways on earth. We never set a theme so people get to make the film they want to make and the films we receive feel like a massive barometer of the times. So we’re starting the next twenty years saying exactly what we’ve said for the first twenty years: if you have a straight 8 in you, we want to see it. That applies to every kind of human anywhere on the planet.”

Jury announcements to follow. Last year’s jury included: Asif Kapadia, Academy Award and BAFTA winning director of Amy, Senna, and Diego Maradona and Robbie Ryan BSC ISC, Academy Award nominated director of photography of The Favourite, I, Daniel Blake, American Honey, Fish Tank.