Hi 

Welcome to July

The year's half done, and we're over half way to the end of our submission period. Our next deadline is the end of this month, so you know what to do!

And, as always, we're happy to keep you up to date with some of the deadlines, selections, nominations and awards being handed out around the festival circuit. 

Enjoy!

 
Team #NZWF23

It's always a pleasure to announce early selections, and we've covered a bunch of bases with our choices this month. They're chosen from all submissions so far received.

First up, podcasts. We added two Actual Play selections to the list: Kill Every Monster, hosted by Dylan Malenfant and Aram Vartian; and the winner of this category in 2022, Party of One by Jeff Stormer.

Three fiction podcasts join the list: Fawx & Stallion, written and directed by Lauren Grace Thompson and Ian Geers; Fire Pockets, written and directed by Michael Ryan Hahn; and Table Read - Ren Faire vs Aliens, written by Harry Aspinwall.

We added three short films this month: NZ non-fiction What's the Disabili-Tea: Misty Frequency from Attitude; NZ narrative fiction Death & Margaret by Sam Geri; and Canada's Aero Orange by Marcus Fehrer.

In our series categories, we're naming selections in our animation, pilot, factual and narrative categories.

Massey Uni student project Roadkill Rockband, directed by Magda Wojciechowska, is selected in our animation category.

We're adding two pilots: our first ever selection from Kazahkstan, Aset Zhumakanov's Made in Turkistan; and Awanui Simich-Pene's local show, Te Pāmu Kūmara.

Three factual shows join the party: Patrick Bossé's Canadian North Star; and a pair of local shows - Kate Prior's Chris & Eli's Porn Revolution (above), and Michelle Mae Cameron's Fight or Flight.

Last but not least, we've also added three narrative fiction series: Mel House's Hot Angry Mom from the US; Kerry Drumm's Incoming: The Wives from Australia, which follows Incoming: Words of War, one of our 2021 finalists; and Roberto Nascimento's local series Sky Tower.

Congrats to all the creators, casts and crews behind those podcasts, series and shorts. You can see all our 2023 selections so far right here. 

We've not seen any updates to the Audio Fiction World Cup rankings, so the top three remains unchanged for now.

1.   We're Alive: Descendants
2.   The All Night Society
3.   Savage Waking: Obliteration

The Web Series World Cup published its latest rankings a few hours before we sent out this newsletter, and the new top three titles are: 

1.   Streams Flow From A River (above)
2.   W. 
3.   Chateau Laurier and Tokens 

At #19, Ana is the highest-placed factual show. 

Chile Digital Fest has cancelled its 2023 edition, which was due to open a week ago. 

Congratulations to all the winners from Cinema Jove in Spain and Germany's Die Seriale. 

We're very happy to have the opportunity to offer one of the German shows a direct selection into NZ Web Fest, and just as happy to say that the show is the pilot for Toter Geht’s Nicht/As Dead As It Gets (above), adapted by Dietrich Faber from his own series of novels.

Minnesota and Toronto have announced their official selections. Both contain around 20 shows we've already announced as early selections for our 2023 edition. 

Congrats to all the shows selected - and we're very happy to see Te Pāmu Kūmara among the selections for Toronto.

Wrap your eyes and ears around a couple of our local early selections this month, Chris & Eli's Porn Revolution and Fight or Flight, and a couple of our international early selections also recently-announced for Minnesota and Toronto - Forgotten Masters and Gay Mean Girls (above).

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We love to give shout-outs to new content in these newsletters and on our socials, but we don't have much time to trawl for it every month. So, we've decided to make that your opportunity! 

If you're releasing something, be it brand new or (for series and podcasts) a new season, shamelessly self-promote by dropping us a line or adding [email protected] to your media list if you're really fancy and have one of those.

Tell us what, when and where your stuff's releasing, and we'll do the honours. We'll give preference to stuff that isn't geo-blocked or behind pay-walls, but all-comers are welcome :)

If we don't know, we can't spread the word, so do share. Help us to help you!

If you're looking for some festival love and laurels, including from us, here are some deadlines that'll slide on by before our next newsletter hits your inbox.

Melbourne WebFest, Regular Deadline 7 July

Baltimore Next Media Web Fest, Extended Deadline 16 July

British Web Awards, Earlybird Deadline 16 July

Sydney Web Fest, Regular Deadline 23 July

Rio WebFest, Regular Deadline 31 July

NZ Web Fest, Late Deadline 31 July

Stareable Fest, Late Deadline 1 August

Lima Web Fest, Regular Deadline 4 August

Festivals also open now, but with deadlines further away, include Italy's Digital Media Fest, Hollywood Series, and Miami WebFest

For more deadlines, check out the events page on our site, which includes deadlines and event dates for Web Series World Cup and Audio Fiction World Cup festivals, plus listings for other (mostly NZ) festival deadlines and event dates.

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If you've submitted a series to us, don't forget that you can submit to our trailer category for free. One you've submitted a series to us (factual or fiction, live or animated, but not a pilot) drop us an email to [email protected] and we'll send you a fee waiver code for your trailer. 

Easy as!

If you enjoy our monthly newsletters, but want info more than once every few weeks, give our social channels a go (links are just below). 

We post a few times a week, mostly on facebook and instagram. Our twitter is a bit more podcast-focused than our other channels, and LinkedIn we only use occasionally. 

We also have a linktree, which you can find here or access via our instagram bio.