Social Entertainment Site Kaneva to Host Online Short Film Competition

Kaneva, a rapidly emerging online social entertainment world, announced today that it is hosting the first online short film competition where filmmakers can submit Indian-American short films to be showcased, discussed and voted on by potentially millions of viewers worldwide. The Kaneva Indo-American Short Film Competition is the online component to precede and help culminate the first annual Atlanta Indo-American Film Festival (AIAFF), organized by the Indo-American Film Society (IAFS) in association with the Independent Media Artists of Georgia (IMAGE) and the Indo-American Arts Council New York, taking place November 10-14, 2006, in Atlanta, Georgia.

The goal of the Kaneva Indo-American Online Short Film Competition and Festival is to give filmmakers dedicated to Indian cinema a global outlet to showcase Indian diaspora cinema, music and video, as well as give viewers unprecedented access to a wide variety of emerging independent films and the ability to tap into a growing community of Indian film enthusiasts.

“This online film competition demonstrates our mission of enabling anyone to share their talents and passions with the world,” said Ron Gamble, vice president of online media for Kaneva. “Kaneva’s innovative platform leverages the power of the Internet and the best in web 2.0 technologies to showcase people, their content, their ideas and their talents.”

Indian cinema has become synonymous with Bollywood or Hindi musicals. However, there is an equally vibrant independent film producing industry in India. For years the Indian film industry’s annual production hovered at around 1,000 features a year, 25% more than Hollywood’s. In 2002, 3.6 billion tickets were sold to Indian motion picture viewers, exceeding Hollywood by more than one third. AIAFF Director, Ani Agnihotri, added, “AIAFF and the Kaneva Indo-American Short Film Competition aim to open more doors for independent producers of Indian film and help showcase their work more extensively to viewers in the U.S. as well as other parts of the world.”

The competition is accessible online through one of the hundreds of dedicated Kaneva web Channels at www.kaneva.com/aiaff . The competition leverages Kaneva’s powerful underlying technology to enable anyone to sign up, view and vote for their favorite short films. In addition, Kaneva’s social networking and interaction capabilities promote community discussion and interaction surrounding this growing, significant category of independent film.

Call for Entries and Voting

Submissions for the Kaneva Indo-American Short Film Competition will be accepted from now until November 2, 2006 and there is no fee to enter or participate in the competition. Filmmakers are encouraged to visit www.kaneva.com/aiaff to find out more details and upload their entries. Once submitted, people from all over the world can watch each entry and vote. Voting will begin on November 3, 2006 and will end on November 11, 2006. The ten entries with the highest votes will be selected as finalists for review by a panel of industry esteemed judges. The judges will name three winners to receive a custom designed AIAFF trophy, an AIAFF certificate, cash and value in kind to promote their film. In addition, the winning films and filmmakers will be prominently featured on Kaneva.com.