Stinkwater! 24 Hour Film Festival takes place on the weekend of 13-15 September 2024. At 6PM on 13th September, the Festival commences, when teams and organisers meet at the Ritz Cinema, Randwick for the release of the Festival Brief. We will also email out the brief to all team emails in case they can’t attend the commencement.

Finalist films will be screened from 6pm on Sunday, 15 September at the Ritz Cinema 1, followed by the Awards Ceremony. Team members, family and friends are all welcome. It’s FREE! We’re also hoping to play all non-finalist films after the Awards that evening too.

Anyone can enter. We encourage teams of all types to be involved. If a team has members under 16 then it qualifies as a FAMILY team and could win the FAMILY Award as well as the BEST FILM. Teams of solely over 16s are ADULT teams. There is also no maximum team size but we can only guarantee 6 seats for each team at the screening and awards gala at the Ritz Cinema on Sunday evening. All teams are charged $25 early bird/$35 for entry. Register here.

The Festival Brief will be a collection of places, things and phrases, provided to you at the very beginning of the challenge. You will need to include 5 of the Brief elements in your film entry to qualify. The Brief and any other requirements will be revealed and distributed on Friday Evening. The purpose of the Brief is to make sure your film is a Festival Challenge Entry and to stop people entering previously made films (Which would be cheating!). Teams are encouraged to be creative in how the objects/places/phrases are included – the Judges will notice!

You can start right now with thinking up and discussing ideas for a film story, then talking with your mates and family members to see who’s up for joining you in the challenge! In terms of filming, while the guts of your film can’t be filmed before the Brief is released, there might be certain incidental/environmental shots you know you’ll need for your film idea (a great sped-up sunset, tying of shoelaces – the possibilities!) that could be filmed before the Festival starts.

The teams have 36 hours to film, edit and upload their films, starting at 6PM on Friday evening, with the DROPDEAD cut off time of 6am Sunday morning. We recommend you aim to complete all filming by 5PM Saturday evening, eat something, then begin editing at 6PM, giving yourself until midnight to have the film finished. Obviously that gives you a bit of overrun time. DO NOT LEAVE EDITING FOR AFTER MIDNIGHT UNLESS YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO.

The submission form will be made available to all teams at the beginning of the Festival on 13th September. A link will be sent out to all registered teams along with the Brief.

In order to submit your entry, you will need to upload your finished film entry to YouTube as unlisted or public (we must be able to access it), in at least an HD format. We recommend a 25 or 30 framerate and 1080P resolution.

Once you have uploaded the film to YouTube, you must include the film URL, the Team name, information about the Brief elements included and final information about cast and crew. You should receive an automatic acknowledgement email when you submit. You’re welcome to also include any other funny memories or overcome challenges of the weekend in the submission. We like that kind of stuff!

No, your film can be in any language you like, provided there are English subtitles, assuming you want the judges to understand the dialogue. If not, then no subtitles! The film can be SILENT or with only music/sfx. Just remember the COPYRIGHT.

YES. Your film must pass the copyright checks on YouTube during the upload. Any copyright material will be flagged when your film is uploaded and checked by YouTube – if something is flagged, we recommend you find a replacement and re-upload. If you still enter the film, it cannot be in the running for a prize. There’s a LOT of copyright free and even custom AI generated music solutions available online these days. We recommend you use them!

To register, only the Team Leader’s name is needed. When you submit your film, we recommend including the names of all involved so they can be recognised during the awards, should you win one! You can also borrow an actor from us over the weekend if you need one for any key cut-away shots (“Mr President, the missiles have been launched!”). More info on that will be shared with registered teams. As mentioned before, if you have a large team size, we will do what we can to find enough space in teh cinema for you. By default each team gets 6 seats.

Anyone aged 16 or over can register a team. Under 16s are welcome to participate as part of FAMILY teams but these teams do require at least 1 adult for the registration and management of the team.

Early Bird entries are by Friday 7 September. We accept registrations up to 5pm on Friday 13 September.

We’d rather you didn’t – if it’s too raunchy it will be disqualified. It should be kept in mind that the screening is open to the public and films should be G or PG to be screened.

As a guide, what’s acceptable on Coogee Beach on a hot sunny day is the line we draw. We’re not prudes but this festival is about ideas, creativity and fun, not sexy flesh and nudity. Nothing wrong with that, just do the steamy stuff for another festival.

The maximum time your film can go for is 4 minutes. This includes titles/credits. There is no minimum run-time. Aim for 3 minutes!

Then you haven’t finished the edit! Get it under 4 minutes.

Shoot us an email at contact@stinkwater.com.au