Each package includes a set number of submissions and, for the Learner, Advanced, and Complete packages, professional written feedback from one of our judges.

With two submissions (Double, Advanced, Complete), you can score both films — the animated and the live-action one — and compete with both. Each submission is evaluated separately by a judge.

Feedback means one of your submissions receives a detailed, scene-by-scene written evaluation from a judge. If you have two submissions but only one feedback (the Advanced package), you choose which submission gets the feedback when you submit. You can only get one feedback per submission.

You can always upgrade your package later — just reply to your confirmation email and we’ll help you.

For several reasons explained below, we unfortunately can’t show you the films before registering.
However, if you honestly don’t like any of the films after registering, you can just contact us within five days and we’ll be happy to send you a refund! Therefore there’s no risk for you.
Just send us an email with your order number at: films@indiefilmmusiccontest.com and we’ll send the refund within 24h.

We had the experience that many people just use the preview film to work on their score. The problem with that is that they are technically not allowed to do this by the people who give us the rights to use these films. These rights holders are generally very protective of their rights and were not exactly happy about the films being used by non-participants so we want to avoid this from happening again. Since we are dependent on cooperating with them to keep providing you with good quality films to score we, unfortunately, can’t show the films before you register anymore.

Moreover, as the contest is growing in numbers and attention, we just need to be generally more careful in legal matters especially concerning copyright which is a very complicated topic that we’re no experts on. So we’re rather a little bit too careful than to be liable for any copyright infringements which could cause the contest to end permanently.

However, we spent a lot of time handpicking these films for you and we are sure that there is at least one film in our selection that you’ll be able to work with. Moreover,  it’s only realistic to not be able to choose what project you work on, and trying something you haven’t done before can push you in new creative directions. Also, our surveys said that a big part of the participants actually likes the surprise.

If you are currently 23 years or older, join the standard competition. If you are currently under the age of 23 you can choose which one you would like to join. The young one has fewer participants and therefore less competition but the standard one has slightly better prizes. In the rare case that you are 22 now but turn 23 until the winners are announced you are also allowed to choose and the moment you register will count.

Yes. We bill in EUR, but you can pay with any credit or debit card regardless of your country. Your card or bank will convert the amount to your local currency at their standard exchange rate, which typically adds around 1–3%. We don’t add any markup beyond the listed price.

This time we have a two films for you to compete with and three additional one to practice. There is one live-action and one animated short film for both of the Young and the Standard divisions. You can choose to compete with one one of the or do both if you register with an additional submission.

The films are usually between 3 and 4 mintues long

Yes, you can! You of course, keep full ownership of the music you created and can do whatever you want with it.
If you want to share the music wit h the film, it’s important that it is obvious that it is not the original and was created in context of this competition and that the creators are sufficiently credited. 
The creators may ask for specific requirements for the films to be published, but you can use it in your portfolio and anywhere else online.

Yes, you can! One of you needs to register and create an account at our website. Once you submit, you will be able to enter both of your names in the submission form which late appear on your certificate. 
In case you win a prize you will be responsible to split the prizes how you see fit though.

After the competition, you will now receive a verifiable certificate with your placement in the competition.
Verifiable means that there is a code on the certificate that can be entered on our website which will then verify its authenticity. So you can easily prove that you successfully entered the competition and achieved a specific placement and anyone who sees your certificate (if you put it on your website for example) can confirm that it’s real.

The reason why we can not make it free for you is that there are 5 Judges and our team that put a lot of time and work into this and we think everyone in this industry agrees that working for free is not cool. Especially our highly qualified judges deserve appropriate compensation.

In addition to that, there are costs like website hosting and development, marketing, the cash prizes, etc. All of this is quite expensive and there is no other company behind this that can use it as marketing for their brand/products or something. 

The money needs to come somewhere so we have to charge everyone a fee to participate but because of this, we are only dedicated to making this contest the best possible experience for everyone that we think is worth the cost and we don’t have to pursue any other goals under which the quality of the contest could suffer like any free competition!
This for example also allows us to offer you opportunities like the personal feedback which you won’t get in any other competition. Moreover, we guarantee that every submission is evaluated by our judges and not by any other inexperienced panel which is done in most competitions to lower the costs.

If you can not afford it that’s ok and we understand that. We just hope that you can also understand that we too can not afford to make it free even though everyone deserves to compete.
We’re also trying to find ways to lower our costs so we can lower the fee for you in the future. So if you can’t participate this time maybe it will be possible the next time.

You can find the winners of our previous contests on this page: https://indiefilmmusiccontest.com/previous-competitions/

We’re hosting the competition twice a year with one summer and one winter edition.

The “Indie” is short for independent. The contest is for independent film composers and it also is independently organized which means that there is no other company behind this. We’re hosting the contest just for its own sake with no other motives.

After you registered go on your account page and click on the “Contest” button. Then you will be redirected to your contest page. There you’ll find instructions for the contest including the download link. This is also where you can submit your composition and find the results after the competition ends.
You can also just click on this link (https://indiefilmmusiccontest.com/submission/) but be aware that if you’re not logged in and haven’t registered already you’ll be redirected to the registration page.

Everyone who registered with the feedback option will be able to see the feedback in their accounts the moment we announce the winners of the competition.

Currently, our system only allows it to get one feedback for each submission.