Eric Anderson’s THE LOOKING PLANET has won the Grand Prize in this year’s International Movie Trailer Festival competition. In the filmmaker’s words “During the construction of the universe, a young member of the Cosmos Corps of Engineers decides to break some fundamental laws in the name of self-expression.”

You can see THE LOOKING PLANET and the other main awards in the slideshow at the top of this page.

The other jury awards are:

Best Mobile-shot Trailer: ROMANCE IN NYC

Best Book Trailer: OUT OF THE BOX

Best Documentary Trailer: PAINTING BOLINAS

Best Narrative Trailer: PACKAGE #3

Best Student Trailer: THE YOUNGEST ONE

Best Web Series Trailer: CALLING SOON

Previously we announced that FERAL YOUTH won first place in the People’s Choice Award, and THE SOUND MACHINE won second place.

The judges also designated the following trailers for “Best of the Fest” recognition. In alphabetical order: Read more

Movie fans voting at IMTF have chosen Elcid Asaei’s book trailer—“Feral Youth”—for this year’s People Choice Award. The trailer previews author Polly Courtney’s novel of the same title. You can see the trailer here.

Second place in the popular competition went to another book trailer—”The Sound Machine”—based on a short story by Roald Dahl. The trailer was directed by Britney Ngaw, Katya Lukin, Elena Tranze & Karla Balcaceres. You can see the trailer here.

Winners of this year’s Grand Prize and other jury awards will be announced on August 15.

The stroke of midnight July 21-July 22 marked the end of popular voting for this year’s People’s Choice Award. We are checking the ballots and will announce the winner no later than August 15. (The vote tallying machine will be shut off soon.)

Meanwhile, our jury of industry professionals is screening the entries and will determine the Festival’s Grand Prize Winner and other awards—also to be announced August 15.

We’re grateful to all the filmmakers who entered this year’s competition. We also appreciate the fans who viewed the trailers and took part in the voting.

The deadline for entering trailers in the 2014-2015 competition has been moved to June 30, 2015. This will be the final deadline. All other dates–concerning voting and judging–remain the same.

You can submit your trailer using this site’s online submission form or you can use FilmFreeway.

Because music was such a big part of this film, I decided to make two separate trailers for it to present how music and cryptic images can have a huge impact on a film’s message. That said, I wanted to see what I could do with two separate genres: suspense and drama. As both trailers imply, the movie has quite a few things going on. For example, there is intense violence and vague detail in one trailer, while the other seems to have a touching story between a man and a young girl. Read more

The way the concept for the film came about was bizarre really – one day I was just sitting, relaxing and doing nothing (as you do…). Then the idea for the film suddenly came to me from out of nowhere. I kept thinking to myself, ‘Why have I never done this before?!’ the concept was so simple and original – I just needed to make it happen. Read more

“A phone call can change your life forever.” That’s the tag line for “Calling Soon,” an iPhone feature in production from Spanish director Xavier Satorra. The finished thriller will involve the participation of mobile moviemakers from around the world. Read more

The book trailer for Lilith runs one minute and forty-two seconds. The creation of the book represented by the trailer consumed 13 years. That saga of creativity matches the drama of the novel. In the words of the author Ambika Devi… Read more

File this story under “Sometimes Nice Guys Finish First.”

Bo Muller-Moore has just received trademark certification for “eat more kale,” a phrase that he had popularized by silk screening it on T-shirts, bumper stickers, and other collaterals. His goal was to promote locally grown produce.

Muller-Moore’s effort seemed innocuous until Chik-fil-A sent Bo a Cease and Desist letter and legally blocked his trademark application at the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

In response to the Chick-fil-A attack, Muller-Moore teamed up with filmmaker James Lantz to begin work on a hilarious documentary about this battle over words. To gain attention and win allies, Lantz created a trailer for the not-yet-finished documentary. And that’s where the International Movie Trailer Festival comes in. The trailer won the Grand Prize in our 2012 competition. You can see it here.

We congratulate Bo, and we’re looking forward to seeing the completed documentary. Everyone is, except perhaps a certain billion dollar eatery.

You may enter this year’s Festival using the services of FilmFreeway. Moviemakers pay nothing extra–just the regular Festival fee (currently $15 for students and $25 for everyone else).

The feedback we’re getting is that FilmFreeway’s customer service is terrific. That certainly has been our experience from the Festival side.

You may, of course, enter the competition using our online submission form, but we urge you to give FilmFreeway a try. Setting up your submission information with FilmFreeway will enable you to enter a wide variety of other festivals.

We do request that before submitting with FilmFreeway, you visit our contest page to make sure that you qualify. You’ll also note that to enter the competition, you will need to upload your trailer to either vimeo.com or youtube.com.