Shoot For the Stars
Out-of-this-world film competition lands this Texas celebrity as judge
Aspiring and established filmmakers take note: NASA and the Houston Cinema Arts Society (HCAS) have teamed up to launch the inaugural CineSpace short film competition, which Texas native and Academy Award-nominated director, producer and screenwriter Richard Linklater is set to judge.
The CineSpace competition will offer filmmakers from across the globe a chance to share their works inspired by and using actual NASA imagery. Linklater, who won best director honors at the 2015 Golden Globes and BAFTA Awards for his film Boyhood, will select five contest winners, with a total of $26,000 in cash prizes up for grabs.
Prizes will be awarded to the top three submissions and the two films that best demonstrate the themes "Benefits of Space to Humanity" and "Future Space Exploration." The finalists and winners will be announced during the seventh annual Houston Cinema Arts Festival, taking place November 12-19.
CineSpace is open to all filmmakers, both professional and aspiring, and submissions of all genres will be accepted. Entries, which can run up to 15 minutes, must contain at least 10 percent publicly available NASA imagery and video collected throughout the agency's 50-year history.
Judging criteria includes creativity, innovation and attention to detail. The period for submissions closes July 31.
"I look forward to seeing what the filmmakers do with the NASA footage," Linklater said in a release. "As someone who grew up in Houston during the Space Age — a fun, exciting time to be a kid for sure — I've always been fascinated by all things NASA."