The Underground Cinema Short Film Awards are now going in to their 12th year. From January through to September 2021 Underground Cinema will once again begin screening on a monthly basis a selection of some of the best independent short films and music videos from filmmakers from around the globe.

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For 11 years our screenings have been live events. With the Covid outbreak in 2020 our monthly screenings switched from live events to online events. The switch over has been enormously sucessful with incredible viewing figures recorded online. We also host Q&A sessions before the screenings with a lot of filmmakers from all over the world joining us via Google Meet.

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Until it is safe to screen live again we will continue with our program of short films online during 2021. When we can eventually go back to live screenings we will be heading back to our resident venue, the Royal Marine Hotel in Dun Laoghaire. For our international friends, that's in County Dublin in Ireland.

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At the end of our season in September we will be announcing the nominees for the 12th Underground Cinema Awards.  The awards ceremony will be a live event which will be held in the Royal Marine Hotel in Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin in Ireland in early November 2021. The short film awards are the only awards ceremony in Ireland that recognise every aspect of the art of making short films.

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How it all works:

Once you have submitted your film to us it will be viewed by a member of our judging panel. If your film has been selected by our screening judge, he/she will then be in touch to advise you that your film has been selected and you will be given an online screening date. Links will be sent to you for you to access the film online and should you wish to join a Q&A session online with our online audience we will forward to you a Google Meet link so you can join us.

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Our panel of judges will be viewing the films selected throughout the year and they will advise by September the nominees for the 2021 Awards Ceremony

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With regard to the awards themselves, the awards will be presented at our annual award giving ceremony in the Royal Marine Hotel in Dun Laoghaire in November 2021 which is a ticketed event. Tickets for the event go on sale as soon as the full list of nominees are announced. Tickets include a four course dinner, the awards ceremony and aftershow party. Nominees interested in attending must purchase their own tickets. if a nominee cannot attend and happens to win an award then we will ensure that the award gets to the winner shortly after the awards ceremony.