Second International Screenlife Film Project Contest Announced

If you’ve seen Levan Gabriadze’s Unfriended (2014) or Aneesh Chaganty’s Searching (2018), congratulations! You’ve experience Screenlife! The emerging film format/cinematography style is breaking new ground in cinema. The second International Screenlife Film Project Contest aims to find new and interesting film projects and produce them to forward the genre. So what is it? What’s the contest about?

Watch the video below to learn more about this cutting edge format, then read on for the contest details!

What is Screenlife?

Screenlife is a new cutting-edge format of visual content that has grown from independent projects to full-length, world-renowned films, documentaries and TV shows. Its main idea is that everything that the viewer sees happens on the computer, tablet or smartphone screen. All the events unfold directly on the screen of your device. Instead of film set — there’s a desktop, instead of protagonist’s actions — a cursor.

Here’s where the contest comes in. Do you have an idea for a project or a project that’s already completed? If so, this contest could be for you! Check it out!

From The Screenlife Contest Press Release

Bazelevs Entertainment, the production company founded and operated by celebrated producer/director Timur Bekmambetov, is thrilled to launch their second International Screenlife Project Contest. The goal of the Screenlife contest is to discover new stories in a variety of categories, and to help support their production.

Bekmambetov is the creative mind behind the ‘Screenlife’ genre of film, first made popular by the terrifying UNFRIENDED, released by Universal, and later by the 2018 widely acclaimed Sundance sensation SEARCHING, bought by Sony following the world premiere.

“Screenlife seems to be the only way of telling stories about us, about people who spend half of their days online. You can look at me with my phone in hand and you won’t understand what’s going on with me, but if you get to watch what’s going on inside my phone or my laptop — that’s how you get to know everything about me.” says a representative at Bazelevs about the dynamic shift of perspective explored exclusively by Screenlife. “It’s funny to see the retro approach we still have in traditional movie making — we see bank robberies where people with guns attack the bank office, but hey, nobody does that anymore. To rob a bank some hacker would just use a computer. Our hope is that, thanks to our contest, more cinematographers will start exploring screenlife as a narrative.”

Screenlife films have an amazing power to build worlds, and by opening Bazelevs to filmmakers and writers from around the globe we aspire to be able to platform even more diverse and compelling stories in this revolutionary new genre.

The genre is unique for its defining feature of being exclusively framed inside a screen. While completed films so far have mostly been regulated to computer displays, in the guidelines for this new contest Bazelevs Entertainment defines the creative composition as a screen of any kind – computer, tablet, smartphone, or software and app programs. Storylines must always engage format, and illustrate in some way the intimate relationship between user and technology.

It’s a wired world we live in, and this genre aims to plug in to it. So do you have a project that fits the bill?

A Call For Screenlife Submissions

Submissions are open from now until September 1 to submit a pitch in one of three categories: feature, documentary, or series. Bazelevs’ jury panel will choose one winner from each category. Chosen projects are offered an option and purchase agreement with Bazelevs Entertainment, with an opportunity to get their project fully funded and produced. Find all the official rules and register your contest pitch at the official contest website.

You can also visit Screenlifer.com to find editorials, videos, technical walkthroughs, and (soon) an app to record your own Screenlife capture videos at home!

Final Thoughts

Cool stuff! Unfriended was a neat concept. We really enjoyed the sequel, too (read our review here). I haven’t seen Searching yet, but I’ll watch anything with John Cho in it. It looks really good!

Will this new film format have legs? Time will tell. In the meantime, contests like this will ensure the genre gets a chance. What do you think? Do you enjoy these kinds of films? Will you be entering the contest? Tell us in the comments!