Next Generation Indie Film Awards Foundation (“Next Generation”, “us”, “we”) is a not-for-profit organization that supports filmmakers through its annual awards program (the “Awards Program”), events (“Events”), educational resources and other services. These Terms of Service (“Terms”) apply to your submission of films to the Awards Program, whether directly to us or through a third-party submission platform that accepts films on our behalf (such films, however submitted, “Films”, and each, a “Film”), and your participation in our Events, as well as your use of and participation in all other resources and services offered by Next Generation (collectively, the “Services”). Our Services also include the use of any websites operated by Next Generation (each, a “Website”), including indiefilmawards.co. 

1. Acceptance of this Agreement

By using the Services, you agree to be bound by these Terms and our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated herein by reference (the Terms and Privacy Policy together, the “Agreement”). If you do not accept and agree to be bound by all of the terms of this Agreement, then you may not use the Services. 

We may make changes to these Terms from time to time without notice to you. The most recent version of this Agreement will be posted to the Website and will be the version that applies to your use of the Services. By continuing to use the Services after any changes to this Agreement are posted to the Website, you agree to be bound by those changes. Therefore, you should check the Website regularly for the most recent version of this Agreement.

2. Eligibility 

You must be at least 13 years of age to use the Services. By using the Services, you represent and warrant that:

  • you are at least 13 years of age;
  • if you are below the age of majority in the jurisdiction in which you reside, then your parent or legal guardian has granted you permission to use the Services, including, without limitation, permission to participate in any manner in the creation and/or submission of any Films to the Awards Program, if applicable;
  • you are accepting this Agreement and you confirm that you have the right and capacity to enter into this Agreement; and
  • you will comply with this Agreement.

3. Submission Data

By submitting a Film to the Awards Program, you agree to provide true, accurate, current and complete information about the Film, yourself, and others (the “Submission Data”). If you become aware that any Submission Data is no longer true, accurate, current or complete, then you must promptly notify us by email at info@indiefilmawards.co. You hereby authorize us to update the Submission Data on your behalf, for the purpose of keeping the Submission Data true, accurate, current and complete. 

4. Intellectual Property

Our Services include, without limitation, information, data, software, text, design elements, graphics, images, videos, and other content provided by us or by third parties (collectively, “Content“). Next Generation retains all right, title, and interest, including all intellectual property rights, in and to the Content. Except as explicitly set out in these Terms, you may not sell, transfer, assign, license, sublicense, or modify the Content or reproduce, display, publicly perform, make a derivative version of, distribute, or otherwise use the Content in any way for any purpose. You must retain all copyright and other proprietary notices contained in the Content. The use or posting of the Content on any social media page or other website for any purpose is expressly prohibited. The Websites use and display registered and unregistered trademarks, service marks and logos (collectively, “Trademarks”) of Next Generation and other third parties. You may not use the Trademarks without our prior written consent and nothing on the Websites should be construed as granting any license to use the Trademarks. 

5. Licenses

Our Limited License to You

Next Generation hereby grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable right to access and use the Services solely for the purposes of submitting Films to our Awards Program, attending our Events, and using and participating in the other resources and services provided by us from time to time, in each case (i) in compliance with these Terms, and (ii) to the extent permitted under all applicable laws and regulations (foreign and domestic). Next Generation explicitly reserves all rights not expressly granted herein. Use of the Services in a manner that is not expressly authorized hereunder is a material breach of this Agreement.

Your License to Us

The Website provides a platform for submitting Films to our Awards Program and may enable you to contribute, provide or make available other content (“User Content”) through your use of the Services. You may also submit Films to our Awards Program by way of third-party submission platforms that accept Films on our behalf. 

You retain all copyrights and other intellectual property rights in and to your Films and User Content. You do, however, hereby grant us and our sublicensees a non-exclusive, royalty-free, freely sublicensable, perpetual license to modify, compile, combine with other content, copy, record, synchronize, transmit, translate, format, distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, and otherwise use your Film and all intellectual property and moral rights therein for the limited purposes of presenting excerpts of your Film at our Awards Program Events and/or otherwise administering or promoting our Awards Program and associated activities. We do not publicly screen the entirety of your Film. You also grant us the right to distribute, display and otherwise use your name to advertise and promote the Awards Program and Events. You expressly acknowledge and agree that once you submit a Film through your use of the Services, the Film will be accessible by others, and that there is no confidentiality or privacy with respect to such Film, including, without limitation, any personally identifying information contained therein.

To the extent that you provide other User Content, you grant us and our sublicensees a non-exclusive, royalty-free, freely sublicensable, perpetual license to modify, compile, combine with other content, copy, record, synchronize, transmit, translate, format, distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, and otherwise use your User Content for the purposes of administering, providing or promoting our Services. 

YOU ARE ENTIRELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL FILMS AND USER CONTENT THAT YOU SUBMIT, CONTRIBUTE, PROVIDE OR OTHERWISE MAKE AVAILABLE THROUGH THE SERVICES. By submitting Films or other User Content, you are representing that you are the owner of the Films or User Content, as applicable, or are making your posting or submission with the express consent of the owner of the Films or User Content, that you have the rights necessary to grant the license to the Films or User Content under the prior paragraphs, and that use of such Films or User Content by Next Generation as permitted by this Agreement does not and will not infringe or misappropriate the intellectual property or moral rights or any other rights of any person or contain any libelous, defamatory, or obscene material or content that violates this Agreement.

6. Rules for Use of Services

When using the Services, you agree to comply with the rules (the “Rules”) in this Section 6 and that you will not use the Services for any unlawful purpose. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, you will not:

  1. resell, distribute or otherwise use the Services or any content contained in the Services for any commercial purposes without our prior written consent;
  2. copy, modify, transmit, create any derivative works from, make use of, or reproduce in any way any copyrighted material, images, trademarks, trade names, service marks, or other intellectual property, content or proprietary information accessible through the Services without our prior written consent;
  3. remove or alter any proprietary notices or labels on or in the Services or Content;
  4. interfere with or attempt to interrupt the proper operation of the Websites through the use of any virus, device, information collection or transmission mechanism, software or routine, or access or attempt to gain access to any data, or files related to the Websites through hacking, data mining, or any other means, or engage in any activity that interferes with or disrupts the Services in any other manner;
  5. use any robot, bot, spider, crawler, scraper, site search/retrieval application, proxy or other manual or automatic device, method or process to access, retrieve, index, “data mine”, or in anyway reproduce or circumvent the navigational structure or presentation of the Service or its contents;
  6. frame or inline link any of the content of the Websites, or incorporate into another website or other service any of our material, content or intellectual property;
  7. use meta tags or code or other devices containing any reference to Next Generation or the Services (or any Trademark of Next Generation) to direct any person to any other website for any purpose;
  8. modify, adapt, sublicense, translate, sell, reverse engineer, decipher, decompile or otherwise disassemble any portion of the Services, or cause others to do so;
  9. use or develop any third-party applications that interact with the Services;
  10. probe, scan or test the vulnerability of our Services or any system or network;
  11. encourage or promote any activity that violates this Agreement;
  12. use the Services for any harmful or nefarious purpose;
  13. use the Services in order to damage Next Generation;
  14. use the Services to spam or solicit money from any individuals or engage in any fraudulent activity or activity that facilitates fraud;
  15. solicit personally identifying information from other individuals for commercial or unlawful purposes or disseminate another individual’s personal information without his or her permission;
  16. impersonate any person or entity or submit, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any User Content which includes images of another person without her or his permission;
  17. submit, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any User Content that violates or infringes anyone’s rights, including rights of publicity, privacy, copyright, trademark or other intellectual property or contract right;
  18. submit, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any User Content that is hate speech, threatening, sexually explicit or pornographic;
  19. submit, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any User Content that incites violence or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence; or
  20. submit, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any User Content that promotes racism, bigotry, hatred or physical harm of any kind against any group or individual.

7. Remedial Rights

We reserve the right, in our sole and absolute discretion, to reject any submission of Films or User Content and to deny you access to the Services or any portion thereof, without notice, and to remove or otherwise limit use of any content that does not adhere to the Rules or otherwise violates this Agreement. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, we reserve the right, in our sole and absolute discretion, to (i) monitor, alter, edit, or remove any of your Films or User Content, in whole or in part, and/or (ii) rescind and terminate your right to use the Services at any time (with or without notice) for any reason or no reason. You acknowledge and agree that Next Generation may preserve Films or User Content, or any portion thereof, and may also disclose Films or User Content for any reason, including without limitation if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary to: (a) comply with legal process; (b) enforce these Terms; (c) respond to claims that any Films or User Content violates the rights of third parties; and/or (d) protect the rights, property, or personal safety of Next Generation, its users and/or the public. You understand that the technical processing and transmission of the Services, including Films and User Content, may involve (i) transmissions over various networks; and/or (ii) changes to conform and adapt to technical requirements of connecting networks or devices.

8. Awards Program 

As part of the Services, we administer the Awards Program. The eligibility criteria, submission instructions, submission deadlines, rules, policies, procedures, and other matters relating to Films and the Awards Program will be posted on the Website We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to restrict, suspend, or terminate the Awards Program, or to amend any rules, policies, procedures or other matters relating to the Awards Program, including rules relating to the content of Films submitted to the Awards Program, at any time and for any reason without prior notice or liability. We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to reject the submission of any Films to the Awards Program for any reason or for no reason. 

From time to time, we may issue prizes (each, a “Prize”) in connection with the Awards Program. We reserve the right, but not the obligation, to issue any Prize at any time for any reason or for no reason. Any Prize is non-exchangeable, non-transferable, non-refundable, has no cash-surrender value, and must be accepted as awarded with no substitutions. We may substitute or modify any Prize in our sole discretion. Winners and finalists will also have the right to use and display our Awards Program laurels in connection with the Film for which the laurel was awarded. 

9. Fees, Payment and Refunds 

As consideration for submitting a Film to the Awards Program or making any purchase from Next Generation, you shall pay Next Generation all applicable fees and taxes. We (or our third-party payment processor) shall authorize your credit card, bank account, or other approved payment facility you provide to us for the full payment of the fees and any applicable taxes, and you hereby consent to the same. You also consent to automatically billing of your payment method for any payment plans or automatically renewing subscriptions.

You must provide current, complete, and accurate billing and credit card information. You must promptly update all billing information (such as billing address, card number, and expiration date) to keep your billing information current, complete, and accurate, and you must promptly contact us if your credit card is lost or stolen, or if you become aware of a potential breach of security involving your billing information (such as an unauthorized disclosure or use of your billing information). You hereby authorize Next Generation to obtain or determine updated or replacement expiration dates for your credit card in the event that the credit card you provided us expires. We reserve the right to charge any renewal card issued to you to the same extent as the expired card. If payment is not received from your credit card issuer, you hereby agree to pay all amounts due upon demand. You agree to pay all costs of collection, including attorney’s fees and costs, on any outstanding balance. In certain instances, the issuer of your credit card may charge you a foreign transaction fee or related charges, which you will be responsible to pay. 

If for any reason whatsoever a Film does not satisfy the submission criteria for the Awards Program, then we will issue a partial or full ref