Viva la Focus!
Dutch Mobile Film Festival

Viva la Focus! Dutch Mobile Film Festival is a day and an evening devoted to films created with a mobile phone. The first edition of the Festival took place in 2008.
The Festival consists of two parts: an online competition and a film-packed Festival day itself on 17 April. The Festival will be held in Images Film Theatre in Groningen.

Festival 2009
Viva la Focus! 2009 zooms in on the amazingly rapid developments and enormous surfeit in the new media and information technology, and their effects on everyone – young and old.
People who previously read books are now hooked on Internet. They blog, maintain an international network via LinkedIn, present their opinions on countless forums, listen on Fabchannel to a concert they were unable to attend, catch up on missed broadcasts, and place their holiday snaps on Flickr. Online encyclopaedias such as Wikipedia are based on the principle of the participation culture (user-generated content), the so-called ‘wisdom of crowds’.

But how do you see the wood through the trees, how can you distinguish the good, the authentic and the beautiful from the vast amount of pulp on Internet, without completely suffocating in it? And how do the different generations cope with this problem?

With these facts and questions in the background, we have taken the title: ‘What is true? Fact and fiction in the digital age’ as the overarching theme of this second edition of the Festival.
The programme of the day itself will be filled with films, documentaries, workshops, shorts, speakers, presentations and debates that deal with the main issue. There will also be presentations of mobile films from other festivals (Paris, Brussels, Toronto, etc.) as well as other more general aspects directly related to shooting films with your mobile phone.
The complete programme will be announced at the end of March.

Viva la Focus!
17 April 2009
Images Film Theatre, Groningen

Viva la Focus! is a Groninger Forum project.
More information on the Groninger Forum.

Competition
Why not participate in the Viva la Focus! competition? Use your mobile phone to shoot a film and upload the result to this website. You are totally free in your choice of theme. However, we can also imagine that you will be stimulated and challenged by the focus of this edition: ‘What is true? Fact and fiction in the digital age’.

Prizes 2009
Participants have the chance to win:
• the main prize of € 1,000
• 2nd prize: mobile (multimedia) telephone or Full-HD camera
• 3rd prize: photo camera or game console
In addition, your film may be so highly appreciated by the general public that you may receive the Public Award. And you have the chance of eternal fame …

Manual
The only thing you have to do to participate in the competition is to enrol and then upload your film(s).
So enrol here and create your own profile.
After enrolling, click on UPLOAD and then BROWSE FILE to select the film on your computer that you wish to enter in the competition. You can upload the following film formats: MP4, AVI, MOV, 3GP.
Add a suitable title and description, and select today’s date. Make sure that your file is not too large (maximum c. 32 MB).
In your profile you can list which films you have uploaded, record whether or not they have been admitted to the competition, and you can also remove films again if you wish. Do not forget to read the conditions of entry prior to beginning.

Please note: the editors reserve the right to refuse any films whose content they find too radical. For this reason, all films will be screened before they are actually placed on the website.

Rules and tips
Your film should not be too long, and should be interesting to others.
You can upload as many films as you wish.
As soon as it has been uploaded, your film will be viewed by the editors of Viva la Focus!
As soon as your film has been screened and has been selected to participate in the competition, it will be placed on the website. This means that your film is in the running for the Grand Final on 17 April. From that moment onward, everyone can view and assess your film.
Assessment means that every website visitor can give your film a score ranging from 1 to 5. At any moment you can see the current average score of every film. The possibility for assessment extends until 15 April.
The best films form a longlist from which a jury will compile a shortlist.
During the Festival on 17 April in Images Film Theatre, the general public will determine which shortlisted films will receive the awards.

Contact? Send an email to info@vivalafocus.nl