Remember the name Daniel McCauley, since in future you might hear a lot more from this local filmmaker.
Letting Go by McCauley (video posted below) is amongst the 50 movies that made it through to the semi-finals of Your Film Festival - a global competition to find the world's best storytellers.
The competition is presented by YouTube and Emirates, in partnership with La Biennale di Venezia (the Venice Film Festival) and the Scott Free production company.
Scott Free had the difficult task of narrowing down more than 15 000 submissions from more than 160 countries. It is now up to the YouTube community to view and vote on the semi-finalists at youtube.com/yourfilmfestival, and thus help decide which ten filmmakers will attend the Venice Film Festival and compete for the $500 000 grand-prize.
Content creators around the world were asked to submit a 15-minute, story-driven video of any format, style and genre. Submissions came from all over the world and the semi-finalists reflect the global reach of the festival. The ten finalists will travel to Italy, where their work will be screened at the 69th Venice International Film Festival in August.
A grand-prize winner will then be named by a special jury, which includes Sir Ridley Scott and acclaimed actor, Michael Fassbender (read our Prometheus review here), and awarded a $500 000 YouTube original production grant to work with Scott Free.
Starting today, and through July 16, the entire YouTube community will be able to view and vote on the selection of films at youtube.com/yourfilmfestival.
The Your Film Festival is one of several efforts by the online video giant to push the boundaries of music, art, and film. It follows the successful partnership that YouTube experienced with Scott Free to help create the critically acclaimed documentary Life In A Day.
Other projects, such as the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, YouTube Play, and YouTube Space Lab, are examples of the convergence of online video with traditional arts. Emirates, the global airline, has also come on board as a proud sponsor of the program and the festival.
YouTube recently turned seven, with 72 hours of video footage being uploaded to the site every minute.
