e-flux Film Award is a prize for artists’ films that push the boundaries of the aesthetic and critical potential of moving images in the age of planetary circulation of information. Selected by a jury of distinguished artists, filmmakers, and film selectors and curators from open submissions, it will be awarded annually, with three awards given: a first prize of $3000 USD, a second prize of $2000 USD, and an honorable mention. Awarded films will be screened at the e-flux Screening Room in New York.

e-flux Film Award welcomes submissions from both emerging and established artists who subvert and redefine traditional narrative forms and broaden our understanding and perception through the mastery of both film form and content. “How does one see what is hidden behind the images?,” Harun Farocki once asked. In line with e-flux Film’s programming that aims to challenge the expectations established by the commodification of moving-image art and to facilitate the critical discussion of artists’ films, e-flux Film Award is committed to recognizing works that deviate from the dominant and conventional regimes of visibility providing insightful and critical perspectives on today’s world.

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Open call: 2024 edition

The second edition of e-flux Film Award will be juried by Saodat Ismailova, Shana Moulton, and Elena Vogman. Submissions will be reviewed for preselection by Lukas BrasiskisDmitry Frolov, and Steff Hui Ci Ling.

Eligibility and submission guidelines

-The deadline for submissions is August 15, 2024 at midnight ET.

-All submissions must be made via e-flux’s FilmFreeway platform, on this link. A submission fee of 5 USD applies.

-Submitted works must have been completed on or after January 1, 2023, and must be no more than 35 minutes in duration.

-Previously screened as well as never-before screened works are eligible. 

-Only one submission per author per award cycle will be considered. 

-Submissions are accepted by emerging or established artists and filmmakers, individuals or collectives; a demonstrated history of exhibitions and/or public screenings of previous work is expected. 

-Only digital, single-channel files are accepted. 

-Authors must have copyright of the work they are submitting. 

-Submissions must be made directly by the author; submissions by production companies or distributors will not be considered. 

-Subtitles in English are required for all submissions featuring non-English dialogue or voice-over; subtitles must be burned in. 

-All submissions must clearly include title, year, duration, country or countries of production, and film synopsis; and the author’s bio, year and place of birth, and list of recent presentations of work. 

-Submissions that fail to meet the above requirements may be automatically disqualified.

Jury 2024

Saodat Ismailova is a filmmaker and artist who came of age in the post-Soviet era in Central Asia. She graduated from Tashkent State Art Institute in Uzbekistan and Le Fresnoy, National Studio of Contemporary Arts in France. Her films and video installations have been presented at the Venice Biennial, Sharjah Biennial, documenta fifteen (Kassel), Shanghai Biennial, Berlinale International Film Festival, Rotterdam International Film Festival, CPH DOX (Copenhagen), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels), and Parasite (Hong Kong). Her stage work has appeared at New York’s Brooklyn Academy of Music, Musée du Quai Branly (Paris), and other venues around the world.

Shana Moulton is a California-born-and-based artist who works in video, performance, and installation. In 2002, Moulton began the video series Whispering Pines, in which she performs as Cynthia, an alter-ego searching for purpose and fulfillment through home decor, self-help paraphernalia, and cosmetic rituals. Moulton has had solo exhibitions at international institutions including Palais De Tokyo in Paris, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Kunsthaus Glarus in Switzerland, the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Her work has been featured in Artforum, the New York Times, Art in America, Flash Art, BOMB, and Frieze, among others. Her work has been featured on Art21 and her single-channel videos are distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix.

Elena Vogman is a media theorist and independent curator. Since 2021, she directs the research project “Madness, Media, Milieus. Reconfiguring the Humanities in Postwar Europe” at Bauhaus University Weimar and is a visiting fellow at the ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry. Her research focuses on the fields of critical psychiatry, feminist, and postcolonial theory with an emphasis on film and media. She has published in Grey RoomOctober, and e-flux journal, and is the author of two books: Sinnliches Denken. Eisensteins exzentrische Methode (Sensuous Thinking, Eisenstein’s Eccentric Method, 2018) and Dance of Values. Sergei Eisenstein’s Capital Project (2019). She was a Visiting Professor at the École normale supérieure, Paris, and at New York University Shanghai, and has held postdoctoral positions at the International Research Institute for Cultural Technology and Media Philosophy (IKKM), Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, and in the DFG project “Rhythm and Projection” at the Peter Szondi Institute of Comparative Literature at Freie Universität Berlin.

Preselection committee 2024

Lukas Brasiskis is a curator of video and film at e-flux.

Dmitry Frolov is an art and film curator and researcher based in Berlin. From 2017 to 2022, he worked as a curator at the Moscow International Experimental Film Festival. He has collaborated with numerous international festivals and cultural institutions, focusing primarily on artists’ moving image.

Steff Hui Ci Ling is a cultural worker, labor researcher, and occasional critic and film programmer living as a guest on the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations. She is currently organizing the circulation of an Art Workers’ Inquiry for Decolonial Potential. The Inquiry is concerned with the political tradition of workers’ inquiries and its application in the cultural sector and our labor’s relationship to settler-colonial property.

Previous editions

The inaugural edition of e-flux Film Award was launched in 2023 and juried by Charles MudedeAnri Sala, and Anocha Suwichakornpong. The preselection of submissions was reviewed by Lukas BrasiskisDmitry Frolov, and Steff Hui Ci Ling.

The e-flux Film Award 2023 first prize was awarded to Maurício Chades, Green Cemetery (Brazil, 2023, 25 minutes) and second prize to Eri Saito, May All Your Wounds Heal (Japan, 2021, 5 minutes), with an honorable mention awarded to Bo Wang, An Asian Ghost Story (Hong Kong/The Netherlands, 2023, 37 minutes).

For more information, contact program@e-flux.com.

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