Categories
Partnerships

Special Press Release: CSFF Paves the Way for Local Filmmakers to International Stages!

Since its foundation in 2012, CSFF-XI has been known to focus on local short films. However, since 2019, CSFF has expanded its mission to provide new experiences and network with varied filmmakers from both Cambodia and the rest of the world. 

For instance, this year, through CSFF, three finalists have been selected by the following festival partners: 

1. “Timeless Love”, selected to represent Cambodia by Asia-Pacific Youth Micro Movie Festival to be held in Hong Kong (China) from this September 22 to 24;  


2. “Ms. Client”, selected to represent Cambodia by Asia-Pacific Youth Micro Movie Festival to be held in Hong Kong (China) from this September 22 to 24; 

3. “Today for Tomorrow”, selected to represent Cambodia, by The Cartoons Underground Festival, to be held in Singapore this October 21 and 22.

“I found it incredible [about this selection] as I still find room to improve in my animation. Yet, with CSFF’s support, my film has been selected graciously. Actually, I’d be already happy if the audience enjoys watching my work and learns something from it”, gushes Mr. PHET Cha, filmmaker of “Today for Tomorrow”. 

“CSFF is a true platform for us to express our vision and establish ourselves as filmmakers, inspire us to compete on local scenes and pursue our dreams. Now that my second short film, winning Audience Award from last year, has been accepted by the Hong Kong-based film festival, I feel excited and thankful for CSFF to continuously endeavor to pave the way for local filmmakers like us to earn international fame,” praises, in turn, Mr. Ty Tipnimol, aka David Tito, filmmaker of “Ms. Client”.   

It is noteworthy that, in previous years, CSFF has paved the way for many other finalists to international stages. Of those titles, “Before the Rain” was selected in 2019, by both Busan Arthouse Film Festival (Korea) and Asia for Peace Film Festival (Pakistan); “Because I Love You More” in 2020 by Bangkok Screening Room (Thailand); and 10 finalists from 2021 and 2022, selected early this year, by Makiz’Art collective (France). On a side note, “Lili Flower” directed by our CSFF 2018 champion, was screened in late 2019, within China New Media and Short Film Festival  (China). 

(Photos by Makiz’Art៖ French audience enjoys “A Father’s Wish”, a CSFF 2022 finalist)

This proves that CSFF has put in their efforts to promote Cambodian films overseas and as far as it can, especially with its existing network partner: Video4Change, through its dedicated platform, Cinemata.Org. This year’s candidates can also enjoy this rare opportunity, through CSFF. Therefore, hurry up your submission by our extended deadline: this August 15th, 11:59 pm. 

Like in previous editions, besides fictions, CSFF continues to accept documentaries, music videos and animations, as long as their maximum lengths do not each exceed 30 minutes. In addition, CSFF-XII will continue to prize our local winners with cash awards, funded by Cambodian Children’s Fund (CCF),  in the following competitive categories:

🏆 Best Cambodian Short Film – $1,000

🏆 First Runner-Up Cambodian Short Film – $500

🏆 Audience Award for Local Short Films – $300

🏆 Best International Short Film – $300 (from submission fees collected from international filmmakers)

Since its new edition launch, CSFF has been officially supported by Ministry of Culture and Fine Art, funded by Cambodian Living Arts, through “Dam Dos” Grant, Cambodian Children’s Fund, and with media partners like Everything About Cambodia (English news) and Apsara Media Services (AMS) (Khmer news).   

The festival is also looking for more financial support in order to prepare and produce promotional events and materials to reach out to filmmakers, students and wider public, as well as to support the festival committee to deserve our audience and stakeholders’ trust. 

If you want to network with other filmmakers in Phnom Penh and connect your story with a large audience, submit your short film now to us through https://filmfreeway.com/CSFF or http://csff.co/submission/. 

For more information, please visit our platforms as follows: 

About Sunflower Film Alliance             

Operated since late 2017, Sunflower Film Alliance (SFA), considered a youth collective under Sunflower Film Organization (SFO), gathers volunteer members, across Cambodia, with film interest and skills, aged between 15 and 40. This organization itself was officially registered with the Ministry of Interior as a non-profit organization on March 13, 2019.

SFA itself has produced and co-produced, since late 2017,“Family and You” omnibus series (2017), “Kon Khnhom” TV show with TVK and a few short films, like “akumu project” and others. Since 2019, SFA has organized “Let’s Document Cambodia”, training over 200 Cambodian youth from Phnom Penh and various provinces in making short documentaries. Our aim is to promote the understanding about film production to build a more rebust Cambodian film industry, organizing training courses and showcasing their works on social media, cinemas, festivals, including its own flagship Chaktomuk Short Film Festival, as well as its provincial and overseas allies. As such, Cambodian young filmmakers will be better known on the international stage. 

For more inquiries, please contact:

Miss VON Lyer

Supervisor of Communications/Designs

HP: +855 69 450 410

Email: com@csff.co 

*****

Attached Materials:

  • Extended Submission Cover: 

  • Links to: 
Categories
Events

CSFF-XI Extends its Deadline till August 15th!

Due to overwhelming requests by filmmakers, Chaktomuk Short Film Festival (CSFF) is now extending its deadline for submission until August 15th, 2023.  

Since last April, CSFF-XI has launched its call for entries of short films until July 15th, 23:59 (Cambodia time). Yet, it has now delayed its call till August 15th. Therefore, you have nearly another month to go for you to hurry up your submission to our festival in order to gain new experiences and network with varied filmmakers from both Cambodia and the rest of the world. 

For your remark, so far, besides social media campaigns, CSFF conducted a new format of Chaktomuk Film Insight (CFI), coupled with on-set practices. This workshop was held on June 25th, shared by Mr. SOK Chanrado, our 2022 co-champion, on “Directing a short sequence”, with some 20 participants. 

“I feel very delighted to have attended such a practical workshop, learning how to direct a short scene and still remembering what I practiced on set”, affirmed Miss KHUM Thida, a participant of CFI 2023. 

(Thida: front row, third from right)

“The new CFI has remarkably achieved its objective. Therefore, we are going to emulate this format next year in order to motivate more candidates to experience real filmmaking activities with our invited filmmakers or winners. Besides, if you have already completed your new short films, hurry up to submit them to us now that we have extended our deadline so you could polish your works before submission!” recalled Mr. Sum Sithen, CSFF 2023 Director. 

(Sithen: speaking at the closing of CSFF-Xi [2022])

Like in previous editions, besides fictions, CSFF continues to accept documentaries, music videos and animations, as long as their maximum lengths do not each exceed 30 minutes. In addition, CSFF-XII will continue to prize our local winners with cash awards, funded by Cambodian Children’s Fund (CCF),  in the following competitive categories:

🏆 Best Cambodian Short Film – $1,000

🏆 First Runner-Up Cambodian Short Film – $500

🏆 Audience Award for Local Short Films – $300

🏆 Best International Short Film – $300 (from submission fees collected from international filmmakers)

Since its new edition launch, CSFF has been officially supported by Cambodian Living Arts, through “Dam Dos” Grant and Everything About Cambodia and recently by CCF, Apsara Media Services (AMS) and Ministry of Culture and Fine Art.  

The festival is also looking for more financial support in order to prepare and produce promotional events and materials to reach out to filmmakers, students and wider public, as well as to support the festival committee to deserve our audience and stakeholders’ trust. 

If you want to network with other filmmakers in Phnom Penh and connect your story with a large audience, submit your short film now to us through https://filmfreeway.com/CSFF or http://csff.co/submission/. 

For more information, please visit our platforms as follows: 

About Sunflower Film Alliance             

Operated since late 2017, Sunflower Film Alliance (SFA), considered a youth collective under Sunflower Film Organization (SFO), gathers volunteer members, across Cambodia, with film interest and skills, aged between 15 and 40. This organization itself was officially registered with the Ministry of Interior as a non-profit organization on March 13, 2019.

SFA itself has produced and co-produced, since late 2017,“Family and You” omnibus series (2017), “Kon Khnhom” TV show with TVK and a few short films, like “akumu project” and others. Since 2019, SFA has organized “Let’s Document Cambodia”, training over 200 Cambodian youth from Phnom Penh and various provinces in making short documentaries. Our aim is to promote the understanding about film production to build a more rebust Cambodian film industry, organizing training courses and showcasing their works on social media, cinemas, festivals, including its own flagship Chaktomuk Short Film Festival, as well as its provincial and overseas allies. As such, Cambodian young filmmakers will be better known on the international stage. 

For more inquiries, please contact:

Miss VON Lyer

Supervisor of Communications/Designs

HP: +855 69 450 410

Email: com@csff.co 

*****

Attached Materials:

  • One-Month Delay Poster
  • Links to: 
  • Photos of CFI 2023 at Need Image Studio

“IDK Just Yet!”, CSFF 2023 Short Film on Submission Extended Deadline

Categories
Events

Results of CSFF 2022 Winning Short Films

We’d like to officially announce and congratulate our winners of this year as follows:

  1. Best Cambodian Short Film: “Sound of the Night” by Sok Chanrado and Vann Kongkea
  2. Second Place Cambodian Short Film: “Sunrise in My Mind” by San Danench
  3. Audience Award for Local Short Film: “Ms. Client” by Ty Tepnimol
  4. Special Jury Mention for Local Short Film: “Sacrifice” by Thoung Sareth
  5. Best International Short Film: “Curupira and the Machine of Destiny” by Janaina Wagner
  6. Special Jury Mention for International Short Film: “Domar” by Alcibiade Cohe
  7. Audience Award for International Short Film: “Lili Alone” by Zou Jing. 

* More materials about the result announcement can be found on our Facebook and Instagram posts. For more information, please contact us at info[a]csff.co.

Categories
Uncategorized

Let’s Fund CSFF 2022!

As our slogan this year goes, a short scene can brighten your day. So small support can sustain our festival this year and years to come! So when can you support us?

Our festival’s future is now in your hand!

Exchange of Values and Support

While, in previous years, we rely a lot on private sponsors, this year, confirmation is still under way. Alarmingly, we believe now is the right time for our fans and audience to join us to keep this legacy moving on. 

From our budget plan, the decent amount of funding is $10,000, in order to cover mainly the following expenses:

* Food and beverages for volunteers and networking receptions ($3,000),

* Venue setup and management ($3,500), 

* Promotional materials ($3,500).

Our perks range from simply fancy opening and closing invitations to sacred handcrafted statues as Vishnu and Buddha. The more you chip in, the more worthy you feel about yourself and your support to our festival and winning filmmakers. You can start with $5 and our cap is $2,000 (for only one backer).

Even if this campaign fails to reach our target amount, we are going to still use the collected funds, with necessary costs, with proportionate scale-down, yet with similar efficiency. 

The Impact

In the past 10 years, below is what we have achieved, among others: 

  • Empowered  over 700 young volunteers to lead our film activities;
  • Mobilized over 300 local youth to make/produce their (first) short films;
  • Trained over 500 participants in making short films (fiction/documentary), through FilmCamps;
  • Screened over 500 titles out of 4,500 entries, from Cambodia and other parts of the world.

So your contribution, either small or huge, will keep – if not, increase – the momentum of our annual film movement, not only for local, but also international filmmakers.  

Only Returns, but No Risk for you

Actually, our fundraising has been launched rather to bridge our financial gap, which means we are already securing some amount from a few funders. So your support will complete what we are lacking – if not, waiting for. Of course, we can save you from this risk by returning you the perks we’ve promised in this campaign. 

Truth is, this is not our first time to crowdfund a project/event. We had a good experience raising funds for an omnibus series back in 2014, with Pram Ang. Although our online campaign turnout seemed undesirable, we purposely completed this with offline fundraising, alongside! 

Let’s Fund CSFF 2022!

(English below) ចង់រក្សាវប្បធម៌កុនខ្លី លើកទឹកចិត្តយុវសមិទ្ធករខ្មែរ និងផ្តល់ឱកាសអភិវឌ្ឍខ្លួនដល់យុវជនយើង? សូមស្តាប់ការបកស្រាយ ពីសារៈសំខាន់របស់មហោស្រពយើងពីជ័យលាភីឆ្នាំមុន អតីតអ្នកស្ម័គ្រចិត្ត និងប្រធានមហោស្រព ក្នុងវីដេអូ១នេះ។ តោះបរិច្ចាគបន្តិចបន្តួច ដើម្បីឱ្យមហោស្រពដំណើរការឆ្នាំនេះដោយរលូន។ ព័ត៌មានបន្ថែមមាននៅ៖ http://csff.co/2022/11/18/fund-csff-2022/។ គោលដៅ៖ ១០ ០០០ដុល្លារ / ផុតកំណត់៖ថ្ងៃទី២៧ វិច្ឆិកានេះ! ចាំអីទៀត?! (កុំភ្លេចផ្ញើសន្លឹកបរិច្ចាគមកប្រអប់សារ Chaktomuk Short Film Festival ដើម្បីយើងខ្ញុំបានអរគុណជាផ្លូវការ!) — Wanna maintain the culture of short films here, encourage Cambodian short filmmakers, and empower our local youth with leadership opportunities?

Let’s Fund CSFF 2022!

How to Help Us

Here are your preferred ways of payment, especially available to those of you living in Cambodia:

1- ABA – SUNFLOWER FILM ORGANIZATION – 000804814

2- WING/True Money/Other money transfer platforms – 015 226 602

3- Check – issued to: SUNFLOWER FILM ORGANIZATION

4- Cash – contact 015 226 602 (HP/Telegram)

If you live outside Cambodia, but wish to contribute to us, please inbox us at info[a]csff.co or our Facebook Page.

And remember to notify us by email or our Page inbox. For sure, feel free to spread your love around your network 🙂 

Categories
Blog Staff

Mr. Masoud SOHEILI’s Biography

Masoud Soheili is an acclaimed Iranian filmmaker and festival programmer known for his award-winning films Blue-eyed Boy (2014) and Elephantbird (2019), which collectively garnered over 40 prizes at 300+ international festivals. As a juror, he has contributed to festivals in India, Turkey, Ghana, Portugal, Indonesia, and beyond. A co-founder of Islamabad’s Asia Peace Film Festival, he also programs for Istanbul’s Changing Perspective Festival, Bali’s Minikino Film Week, and the UK’s Bay International Film Festival, showcasing his global cinematic influence.

Educated in law at Ferdowsi University, Masoud pivoted to cinema, studying at Indonesia’s Art Institute and Busan’s Asian Film School. He further honed his craft through a European Film Master’s program (KinoEyes) across Portugal, Estonia, and Scotland, graduating in 2024. Beyond filmmaking, his photography and videography have appeared in National Geographic, AJ+, and VICE. In 2023, his feature documentary premiered at Japan’s Yamagata Festival, while his production credits include   Co-exist and Land of Demons documentaries.

Masoud’s debut photo book, Durian on My Head, encapsulates his artistic journey across these nations. Blending visual storytelling with cultural diplomacy, his work bridges continents, reflecting a career dedicated to innovation and cross-cultural dialogue in film and photography. 

Categories
Blog Partnerships Staff

Mr. KEO Samneang’s Biography

KEO Samneang has been actively involved in the creative industry in Cambodia for over a decade. After embarking on his event management experience, a few years later, he shifted his focus to commercial media and advertising. Ever since, he has put his passion and critical sense of rigor to the best use for Box Media Production, as CEO. Under his belt, he has serviced and produced a variety of creative pieces from commercial photography to feature film production. Aside from his day job, he loves sharing his wealth of practical experience with younger fellows at Norton Universities and other academia or training courses. This year, not only has he hosted the activities and operations of Sunflower Film Organization and its affiliated annual projects, but also contributed to Sunflower Film Alliance as Directing Trainer and Chaktomuk Short Film Festival as Festival Manager.