A still from the film Life in a Day, which wasco-producedby Ridley Scott. The feature-lengthdocumentary stitched together videos submitted by YouTube users

YouTube has teamed up with top Hollywood director Ridley Scott to create the Your Film Festival to help young film-makersget a foot in the door and a chance of previewing their work at the Venice Film festival in August.

Launching today, Your Film Festival will take submissions of short films up to 15 minutes in length between 2 February and 31 March 31. Fiftysemi-finalists will be selected by Scott Free Productions, Ridley and Tony Scott’s production company.

Sounding suspiciously like the recently launched ONECLOUDFESTIVAL on Facebook, YouTube’s dedicated channel for the festival will preview the 50 shortlisted films. Users with then be able to watch and vote for their favourites.

The 10 finalists will be flown to the 69th annual Venice Film Festival, where their films will be screened. Ridley Scott will lead a jury in selecting a winner, who will receive a $500,000 grant from YouTube to produce a work with Scott Free.

“Through this program, YouTube will give filmmakers the opportunity to reach a vast audience, screen their work during the Venice Film Festival and potentially be rewarded in a career-changingway,” Robert Kyncl, global head of content at YouTube, said in a press statement.

The festival is open to anyone, including those of us working on smartphones, and is well worth a shot. Organisers also said that it will be doing outreach at both the Sundance Film Festival and South By Southwest to spur filmmakers to participate in Your Film Festival and use YouTube as pathway to industry attention.

“Short filmmaking is exactly where I started my career 50 years ago, so to be helping new filmmakers find an entry point like this into the industry is fantastic,” said Scott.

YouTube has held film contests in the past, but the global Your Film Festival is on a much larger scale. International films will have subtitles added. The only restrictions beside length are that entrants must be at least 18 years old and that the work can’t have been distributed prior to 1 January 2010.

Last year, YouTube released the film Life in a Day, which wasco-produced by Scott. The feature-length documentary stitched together videos submitted by YouTube users.

YouTube has teamed up with top Hollywood director Ridley Scott to create the Your Film Festival to help young film-makersget a foot in the door and a chance of previewing their work at the Venice Film festival in August. Launching today, Your...