Alternativa Film Project, a non-profit organisation founded by tech company inDrive, is holding the second edition of its awards show in Indonesia in late November 2024.
As part of an expanded programme for 2024, Alternativa is also launching a film festival showcase alongside the awards, which will feature public screenings of all the nominated films.
The first edition of the Alternativa Film Awards, which aims to “recognise the social impact of films from developing industries”, took place in Almaty, Kazakhstan in December 2023.
Submissions for the second edition are currently open to features, documentaries, animation and hybrid films from across Asia. The short films category will focus on Southeast Asia.
Award winners will be chosen by an international jury consisting of film directors and producers from Asia and other regions, as well as community leaders and NGO representatives.
The initiative says that it recognises films of artistic excellence that also address important social and cultural topics, and which “have an ambition to positively affect the lives of people and local communities”.
Total prize money is around $100,000, with $20,000 each awarded in the four full-length categories, and $10,000 each for the two winners in the shorts category. Winners are expected to spend the prize money on an impact campaign or further developing their filmmaking skills.
“The Alternativa Film Awards serve as a tool to support the development of local film industries – by celebrating filmmakers from underrepresented communities who have important stories to tell and that have the potential to impact the cultural and social landscape,” said Alternativa Film Project head Liza Surganova.
“As we bring Alternativa to a new market each year and build initiatives which continue year on year in each of our locations, we hope this nomadic approach will enable us to engage a wider international audience. We’re so proud of the success stories coming out of our first edition, and we can’t wait to grow our work across Indonesia and the wider region.”
Last year’s winners included documentary No Winter Holidays, from Nepali filmmakers Rajan Kathet and Sunir Pandey, which took the Nativa Award and used the prize money to organise theatrical screenings of the film in Nepal.
Alternativa Film Project also hosts the Alternativa Film Labs, comprising three training programmes from which five winners were awarded places on the Pop Up residency in Europe from Tatino Films or participated in Berlin film festival’s EFMs Toolbox program.
Founded in the Russian city of Yakutsk, one of the coldest cities in the world, inDrive is a ride-hailing app that is currently headquartered in Mountain View, California. InDrive fully separated from its Russian business in 2022 after the country invaded Ukraine and transferred its Russian employees to Kazakhstan and Cyprus.