The Bike Shorts Film Festival is not a film festival about trail rides or scenic bike tours in exotic locales. This is a film festival about stories that just happen to include bicycles - thrilling heists with narrow escapes by bike, small sci-fi tales of riding bikes in a gas-less apocalypse, and family stories of siblings coming together over a bike ride. Just as bicycles are practical tools to help us get from place to place each day, the Bike Shorts Film Festival focus on stories where bicycles are used in the service of storytelling.
Juried Prize, $300: Best overall film, selected by a panel of judges drawn from the regional arts and film community.
Best Local Film, $300: Best film submitted by a team from within the RIDE Solutions service area, selected by a panel of judges drawn from the regional arts and film community.
Best Original Music, $300: Must feature an original song or piece of music, featured either as a stand-alone music video or as an original score. This category will also be selected by our panel of judges.
Best Teen Film, $100: The best film by a filmmaker or film-making team between the ages of 13 and 18, as chosen by our panel of judges.
People's Choice, $100: The audience favorite, selected at the end of each Bike Shorts Film Festival screening. (4 total)
YouTube Prize. $100: All submissions will be posted to our Bike Shorts Roanoke YouTube channel. At the end of May, the film with the most views will be awarded this prize.Note: We use YouTube's video counts to score this award. YouTube's algorithm for what counts as a "view" is not made public, but an explanation for what does and does not tend to count can be found here. In brief, YouTube does its best to count legitimate views by unique users, so tactics like constantly refreshing a video, multiple views a day by the same person, views after clearing your cache, and related actions are unlikely to increase your views significantly.