MUMBAI: ShortsTV, the world’s leading short movie TV service, available in India on Tata Sky, is looking for great short movies made by Indian filmmakers to enter its 2019 Best of India Short Film Festival.

After a successful first edition last year, the competition is returning with the goal of further raising artistic awareness of Indian filmmakers to the Hollywood film community and opening doors for possible television deals and other opportunities, including qualification for Academy Award consideration.

ShortsTV will award prizes totaling $2,500 to the top five selected short films. The five top shorts will also receive a screening in Los Angeles, California for seven days and thereby gain Academy Award qualification status. Every film entered will be considered for a television broadcast deal on ShortsTV (although filmmakers do not have to accept this).

Commenting on the initiative, Mr. Carter Pilcher, Chief Executive of ShortsTV said, “At present, no Indian film festival is accredited by the Academy, making it difficult for Indian filmmakers to get their films considered for Oscar® nominations. To be considered for an Oscar®, a film either needs to win an award at an Academy accredited film festival or be screened at a cinema in Los Angeles for at least seven days, which can be prohibitively expensive for most short filmmakers. ShortsTV believes more Indian filmmakers deserve the opportunity to become Oscar® nominated and the ShortsTV Best of India Short Film Festival is one initiative we are implementing to make that happen.”

Last year, the top prize went to Mumbai based filmmaker Chintan Sarda and his short film ‘Shunyata’, featuring Jackie Shroff in the leading role.

To be eligible for the competition, entries need to be “narrative” live action short films with a total running time of 40 minutes or less where either the writer, director or producer is from India and the film’s final form is in High Definition (HD) or DCP.