Call for Submissions: 4th Annual Small-File Media Festival

Festival Dates: October 20-21, 2023
Submission Deadline: July 1, 2023
www.smallfile.ca/submit

THINKING BIG SERIOUSLY SMALL

Hello media artist and eco-activist friends! Since 2020 we at SFMF have been raising awareness about the environmental impact of streaming media. For our fourth iteration we challenge media makers to intervene in the 4k dystopia of bandwidth imperialism through the creation of original small-file movies of any length, proving once and for all that Ecomedia is the ONLY future of sustainable media!

Why small files? Because streaming media is killing the planet. Streaming comprises a significant chunk of the world’s digital carbon footprint, which is 4% of global greenhouse gasses, same as the airline industry, and rising fast! Don’t believe us? Here’s the research.

And yet! Consumers intoxicated by corporate media’s siren song continue to stream all kinds of media in high definition, video chat, video conference, play high-resolution online games – all while soothing their crypto-crash hangovers with energy-sucking AI utopias.

Help save the planet by shifting to Small-File aesthetics with craftily composed, elegantly performed, and artfully compressed movies, in any genre you dare reinvent. We invite all makers to help us show that media can stream in small files and still be captivating and beautiful. Small-file movies are soul-assemblages! They create sustainable relations, foster the joy of discovery, and engage communities with humans and other species, spirits of rocks, plants, weather phenomena, and friendly technical objects. Small-file aesthetics are the new cutting edge!

Devices account for about ⅓ of the digital carbon footprint, including e-waste, so let’s mindfully keep our devices for longer and not work them too hard! The SFMF asks artists to include their works’ processing time. We also encourage the use of outdated devices. Travel back to the future with a small-file time-machine in the palm of your hand! Mini-DV, first-gen smartphones, webcams, and anything that can capture and create are welcome.

This year the 2023 Small File Media Festival will be partnering with the legendary The Cinematheque as we continue collaborating with our future-forward friends at VIVO Media Arts, Film and Video Poetry Society, and Cairo Video Festival! As always, the festival will stream online at www.smallfile.ca.

Ecomedia stretch far beyond the popular film festival genres! We want to see small-file versions of whatever you’re interested in! Tutorials, activism, sports coverage, cooking shows, exercise videos, music videos, mini-series, porn (it’s back! 0.27% of global GHGEs), songs to soothe toddlers (world’s most streamed genre!?), and any other works that take their pixels for a walk.

Don’t forget! Low resolution makes small files sensuous! Can the small file engage the eyes of the skin? Does it have a texture? Can you chew it? Can you smell it? Can you feel it breathing? We invite your most artful explorations. ALL EYEZ ON ME!

Questions: info@smallfile.ca

SUBMISSIONS

If you’ve made it, you can submit it – as long as it’s no more than 1.44MB per minute. Do the math friends – if your work is only ten seconds long then that’s only 144KB! (Why 1.44MB? Because that’s the storage capacity of a floppy disk. Cute huh!) But feel free to limbo even lower.

Formats

• TinyToks (1 minute or less)
• Floppy (1-22 Minutes)
• Mega Smalls (23-90 minutes)
• Bingeable (Multi-part series, 90 minutes maximum)

Categories

• Small File Classic (video, movie)
• Small File MiniVerse (executables, websites, demoscene, gifs, games, interactive media, you tell us!)

To help celebrate your amazing EcoMedia, we will need the following details of your work to complete your submission:

Processing/Compression Time
Total number of minutes elapsed during all rendering, datamoshing, and/or compression techniques, to acknowledge how much energy is consumed in the creation of your work!

Versioning
We encourage artists to make versions of their projects for different uses and platforms. Movies screened theatrically and as installations do not need to be as small as media streamed online. (In person: energy consumed to create. Online: energy consumed to share widely.) If you have work that you previously made for a large, local presentation, send us an Ecomedia version for online that keeps the planet happy!

Submitting Multiple Files
We accept multiple submissions! We’ll ask you to indicate whether they are standalone works or to be reviewed as a series!

Selected Movies
Artists will receive the base CARFAC streaming rate for each piece accepted. Selected works will be awarded the coveted crystalist Small File Mini Bear trophy and screening awards from our partners!

The Small File Media Festival: Saving the world, one pixel at a time!

Instagram: @smallfile
Facebook: @smallfile