Posters Submissions even from China and the US

Germany's largest wildlife film festival is celebrating its 10^th anniversary this year from September 14^th to 18^th. Due to this milestone, the organisers have come up with a clever idea and are running an international contest for this year's official festival poster. Yesterday, a committee consisting of sponsors and representatives from festival managemant and the promotion society met to review preliminary results.
There has been an enormous response. While creative entries have been submitted from the US and South America, from China and Zimbabwe, and also from many eastern European states, there has not been a single one from Schleswig-Holstein. This surprising result is somewhat of a bother to those responsible for organising the festival. „There are 120 entries from 37 countries, but so far none from Schleswig-Holstein“, says festival manager Gerald Grote. It's hardly imaginable that regional amateur photographers, artists and graphic designers should be lacking ideas. After all, nobody needs to have studied graphic design in order to participate in the competition. Only few specifications must be met such as legibility, presentation of the Green Screen logo and naming of the festival dates. Furthermore, the poster should allow for both upright and horizontal formats. All relevant information for participants can be viewed on the festival's homepage www.greenscreen-festival.de/wettbewerb /plakatwettbewerb/. The application form, the competition documents and the Green Screen logo are all available as downloads. Application deadline is March 15^th, then an expert  jury will convene and select the winning draft, which comes with 1200 Euros prize money. Yesterday's initial assessment of submissions already showed that all participants up until now have handled the competition theme with very individual presentations of their ideas. The committee acknowledges that none of the entries have too many similarities to those of the previous years and that they all leave lasting impressions. Naturally, not every draft submitted is suitable, although almost all techniques are represented. Modern photo composition and classic drawings are among the contestants as well as elaborate collages and colourful paintings.
It will be no easy task for the jury to select one winner. The committee experts are Antje Spitzbarth (graphic designer on the Green Screen organisational team), Gerald Grote (festival manger) and Claudia Höhne (manager of the advertising agency „Ideenwerft“) as well as Martin Schulte (head of the culture department at the newspaper publisher Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag, sh:z) and Konrad Bockemühl (head of the culture department at the newspaper Kieler Nachrichten KN). Consequently, there are already plans to present the ten best posters to the public. Possibly in an exhibition in several stores in Eckernförde's pedestrian zone, or as a postcard campaign or maybe a publication in the regional newspapers – the exact form of presentation has not finally been decided upon yet. In any case, all participants will be mentioned by name on the festival homepage. Also, the competition's main sponsor, Swante Wieben from the optician's shop „Blickpunkt“ in Eckernförde's St.-Nicolai-Straße will embellish his cargo bike with the poster and pedal through Eckernförde.
Due to the strong response, especially on an international level, the committee is also considering continuing this type of poster competition in the years to come. After all, Green Screen adressed 60 German art schools directly, a few of which have even developed semester projects to participate in the contest. So, all we are missing now are some great regional ideas from Northern Germany: we urge all ambitious, creative people with some extent of artistic skill to submit further poster drafts by the deadline of March 15^th.