International Short Film
Festival "FilmJam"
Kherson (Ukraine)

              International Short Film Festival "FilmJam" has been held annually in Kherson (Ukraine) since 2015. However, the festival's activities are currently suspended due to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

 

             The festival includes two competitions: "Film in a Week" and "Film in a Year."

The "FilmJam: Film in a Week" competition has been held in Kherson since the festival's inception and brings together amateur filmmakers from all over Ukraine.

Once a year, any filmmaker can gather their own team, participate in a drawing, and, based on the assigned task, create a five-minute fiction film in just one week.

All completed films are screened on the big screen at the "Multiplex" cinema (the festival's partner) and are judged by both the jury and the audience.

The festival presents many challenges to the participants: making their first film; if they have already made a film, creating a film from scratch (from script to post-production) in just a week; and if they have already done that, delving deeply into their task, discovering something new, and using that knowledge to make an even better film.

Participants are divided into three leagues based on their knowledge and skills: Junior, SemiPro, and Pro. Each league has its own task, ranging from simpler (Junior) to more complex (Pro). The tasks change every year. For example, in 2018, Junior league participants drew a genre and a character, SemiPro participants drew just a genre, and Pro participants drew a style (French New Wave, Trash, German Expressionism, etc.).

Since participants can take part both in person in Kherson and remotely, the festival has a broad geographic reach, including Kyiv, Dnipro, Odesa, Lviv, Rivne, Poltava, Ivano-Frankivsk, and other cities in Ukraine.

The total number of films made during the festival is more then 120.

 

            Since 2018, the "FilmJam: Film in a Year" festival has been held. Since then, the festival has gained international status. This annual festival accepts short fiction films (live-action and animation) up to 25 minutes from around the world.

The festival's geographic reach includes Ukraine, the USA, Germany, Denmark, Korea, and other countries.

In total, participants from 97 countries have taken part in the festival.

The total number of submitted films is more than 1800.

Currently, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the full-scale invasion, and the evacuation of the festival team from Kherson to other cities in Ukraine and other countries, the festival has temporarily suspended its activities.