About ISMF

What is the International Student Media Festival?

The International Student Media Festival celebrates outstanding classroom media projects. Students and teachers from kindergarten through college are honored in a three-day event that includes workshops, screenings of winning entries, and an awards ceremony. It has now grown to be one of the oldest and largest events of its kind.

Why Celebrate Student Produced Media?

Student media projects such as live action video, website design, animation and photography foster learning across the curriculum. At the elementary and junior high school levels, reading comprehension, writing skills and math facilities are developed. In addition to those areas, high school and college students increase their abilities to plan, analyze, and interpret results. Cooperation and leadership flourish where student media is encouraged.

Student created media, through its involvement in the world of computers, video, sound, and photography, is a proven avenue to increasing student participation in the classroom learning environment. State and National educational standards are met and surpassed in the exciting atmosphere of creativity cultivated through the use of student media projects. Future academic and employment opportunities increase in relationship to the rise in technological proficiency.

Who attends the Festival?

Every year thousands of students in all grades from across the country, as well as overseas, produce media for educational purposes, dramatic use and web publication as well as classroom projects. These are then submitted for judging in local and state competitions, such as those held by the Florida Association of Media Educators, the Georgia Student Media Festival, the Oklahoma Student Media Festival, the Association of Indiana Media Educators, and the California Student Media Festival. All of these other festivals then submit their winners to the International Student Media Festival for another level of competition.

These are then submitted for judging in categories including Live Action Video, Sequential Stills, Interactive Stills, Photography, Website Design, and Animation.

What Happens at the Festival?

The festival is usually three to four days long and is jam packed with hands-on, creative learning experiences for students, teachers and parents. Various workshops for all ages are offered by our Corporate Partners throughout the festival. In the past we’ve offered workshops in: Adobe Premiere Elements, iMovie, Claymation, Garageband and many more! (Workshops are subject to change each year).

Entries are available to view throughout the festival in the Viewing Cafe, which is open the majority of the festival.

There is also an awards ceremony during the festival where students are recognized for their achievements. Entries will receive a Best of Festival, Judges Favorite or Excellence in Media Production trophy.

How do I Enter a Media Project Into ISMF?

The International Student Media Festival accepts entries from March 1, 2009 to June 1, 2009. Entries must be received by June 1, 2009. For International entries the deadling to submit is June 30, 2009. If there is a problem with meeting a deadling date, please contact ISMF.

A teacher or parent agrees to be the sponsor of the student’s entries. The sponsor submits the entry information to ISMF through an online entry process that will be available March 1 on this website. Upon completion of the online entry process, the sponsor prints and signs a copyright release form and mails the media, signed form, and a $20 entry fee to the International Student Media Festival by June 1, 2009.