Registration is now open until July 24 in the official page of the competition: www.globoverdedominicano.org

The Dominican Republic Environmental Film Festival (DREFF) will host the fourth edition of the first audiovisual competition in the area of environment and sustainable development in the Dominican Republic, the Globo Verde Dominicano Award. This year’s competition will include a special category for high school students: the Globo Verde Junior, which joins the Public Service Announcement, Short Film and Photography categories.

The Globo Verde Dominicano Award is a unique opportunity for filmmakers, students and young professionals who want to venture into a fairly uncharted area in the Dominican Republic -the creation of environmental audiovisual material- as well as to show their work to a national and international audience as part of each edition of the Dominican Republic Environmental Film Festival, which is held every September, and at other international festivals.

The competition, which began in 2012 with the categories of Short Film and Public Service Announcement, last year added a new category in the area of Photography. This year, with the aim of giving an opportunity to young people and to promote the use of new technologies, the Globo Verde Junior category, exclusively for high school students, will make its debut.

As in the previous edition of the competition, the Photography category will adhere to a theme that has been determined by the competition’s board of directors. In 2015, on the occasion of the 21st Conference on Climate Change organized by the United Nations, the theme is “Impact of Global Warming and Climate Change.” For more information and ideas on this topic please visit the DREFF blog.

In addition to cash prizes and equipment contestants will receive a lot of promotion for their works through all web pages related to the DREFF, as well as at film festivals around the world: Turning Our Backs to the Ocean, directed by Armando Larrauri and the winner in the 2012 competition, was presented at the Blue Ocean Film Festival and at the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital (EFF’s); Sebastian Cabrera, the winner in 2013 with his short film First Steps, was also present at the EFF’s and was part of a panel discussion on recycling in the Dominican Republic. The 2014 winner, Carlos García, director of Tomorrow, is preparing to present his short film this coming March at the same festival, the largest in Washington, DC, and one of the most important at the global level.

This year, the awards are:

• Short Film Category: Screening of the short film at an international environmental film festival + a certificate for $2,000 in technical equipment.
• Public Service Announcement Category: A 15-inch Macbook Pro laptop: 2.2 GHz, with retina display.
• Photography Category: A certificate for $1,000 in technical equipment.
• Globo Verde Junior Category: A certificate for $1,000 in technical equipment.

Entries participating in the Globo Verde Dominicano Award will be judged by a jury made of national and international professionals, which will be announced shortly. The winners of the competition will be announced in the framework of the 5th Dominican Republic Environmental Film Festival, which will take place September 8-13, 2015.

Registration is officially open starting today and will remain open until July 24, 2015. The electronic registration form is available on the competition website at (www.globoverdedominicano.org) where the rules for each category can also be found. Those interested in obtaining additional information can submit their questions via social networks on Facebook and Twitter (@GloboVerdeDR), or via email at info@globoverdedominicano.org.

Since the inception of its Dominican Republic Environmental Film Festival in 2011, Global Foundation for Democracy and Development (GFDD) has created and developed five programs that run throughout the year and contribute significantly to the sustainable development in the Dominican Republic. They are: ReCrearte, EcoHuertos, RDescubre, Year-Round Environmental Film Screenings, and Globo Verde Dominicano. The DREFF is an initiative of Global Foundation for Democracy and Development.