By Tinashe Mushakavanhu - The Scottish based cinematic festival, Africa in Motion (AiM), is calling for entries from emerging African filmmakers.

AiM takes place annually in October at the Edinburgh Filmhouse, and is officially inviting African filmmakers to submit entries.

In order to target the competition specifically towards young and emerging African talent, filmmakers who enter a film for consideration must not have completed a feature-length film previously. Films entered must have been completed in 2006 or after, and must be no longer than 30 minutes.

All shortlisted films will be screened at the fourth Africa in Motion festival in October this year and the competition winner will be announced at an awards ceremony where they will also receive a significant cash prize. An audience choice award will be selected by the audience at the screenings and announced at the end of the festival. 

 The deadline for competition submissions is 30 JUNE 2009, and the shortlist of films will be selected by an AiM viewing committee and announced in August 2009.

These films will then be viewed by all jury panel members, who will make a collective decision as to the prizewinner, based on a point scoring system that will take into account the relative merits of each of the shortlisted films.

The inaugural winners of the competition last year were Rogelio Manjate from Mozambique for his short film, I Love You and the Choice Award winner was Tunisian filmmaker Anis Lassoued for Magic Crop.

For full submission guidelines and to download an entry form go to http://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/competition.html