Vimeo to Award $25K to Aspiring Filmmaker

If you’re one of the film industry’s yet-undiscovered hopefuls who already has endless amounts of inspiring content on your Vimeo site, look alive: They might just award you with a $25,000 grant.

The video-centric website has been hosting its users’ video content and encouraging them to share it since 2004. Now, for a little extra encouragement, they’ve announced their first-ever Vimeo Festival and Awards, which happens to come with quite a hefty cash prize. Their website says, “We’re celebrating the best in online video. It’s time to honor the creative minds behind the world’s most innovative videos online. And it’s going to be awesome.”

Users can now upload and submit videos in any of nine categories: narrative, documentary, music video, remix, original series, animation, motion GFX, experimental and captured. Submissions will be judged by David Lynch, Doug Pray, Roman Coppola, José Luis de Vicente, Morgan Spurlock and several others.

In addition to the grant, Vimeo is also hosting a two-day film festival in New York in early October where the winners will be announced. According to Vimeo, the festival will feature screenings, education, panels, installations, parties and more.

The festival and awards will be Vimeo’s first of its kind, and there’s a lot at stake. Though it doesn’t go down until later this year, don’t put those video cameras away just yet; submissions are only open until July 31.

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