The Bitfilm Festival, Mother of "Bitfilm of the Day"

Hi Steemians, 

we are busy preparing the programme for the first weeks of our film competition "Bitfilm of the Day" that will start next Monday (August 29th).

I think it is the first film competition on Steemit, am I right? In any case, I suppose we can do something cool, as we have some years of experience in curating film programmes and organising online film competitions. 

Since 2000 we have been organising the Bitfilm Festival, both online and in the real world. The name has nothing to do with Bitcoin, it just stands for digital film, but we did use Bitcoin as early as 2011 as prize money and as a voting tool. In 2014 and 2015 we even focussed the whole festival on films about Bitcoin.

From 2000 onwards, we screened all kinds of digital animations: classical 3D and 2D animation, digital hybrids which mix animation and live action, as well as films that are shot live inside computer games ("Machinima"). Even back then we showed all films not only in the cinema, but also online. Not many people had enough bandwidth to watch videos online and the quality was lousy, but we didn't care.

In 2004 we moved into a cool night club in Hamburg's red light district St. Pauli, the Mojo Club. We turned it into a multi-screen cinema, with big cushions on the dancefloor. People loved that special atmosphere!

Here are some video documentaries from 2004 to 2006.

From 2007 onwards we tried out something new. Our home town Hamburg would only be one of two cities for real life events which framed our online film competition. So we organised the festival's award shows in Barcelona, Tel Aviv and Bangalore. Here are some more short documentaries:

In 2011 we started to experiment with Bitcoin, offering to pay out our modest prize money in Bitcoin. Back then, all award winners preferred the prize money to be paid in Euros - at a time when one Bitcoin was worth about 3 Euros. So I guess they regret their decision now, with a Bitcoin price of over 500 Euros! In 2013 we installed a Bitcoin voting system: people could vote by sending Bitcoins to a film's individual address.

In 2014 we completely re-invented the festival and only showed films about Bitcoin: The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin as a European premiere and many short films. In 2015 there were even more full length feature films about Bitcoin, so we did it again, showing films like The End of Money as We Know it and Life on Bitcoin.

After opening events in Berlin, the local Bitcoin communities around the world used our film programmes to organise their own film events in Budapest, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Saigon and Ubud / Bali.

We are very excited about Steemit and the new possibilites it brings! So we want to try out this new ongoing competition for film makers and hope you like it. 

If you are a film maker and you want to submit your own film, or if you know a film that we should present, please use our submission form. There are no restrictions regarding topic, genre or technique. The maximum length is (roughly) 5 minutes. And of course the film needs to be available online.

We are looking forward to watching your film!