Written by Shona Smith on Apr 2, 2020. Posted in Awards and Festivals

Young Director Awards 2020 move online and extends early bird deadline

After the recent postponement of the 2020 Cannes Lions festival, from June to a contingency date of late October, the Young Director Award has announced that its own awards will go ahead this summer, but as an online event. Entries are open

The YDA jury will continue with its planned schedule of initial online judging to establish the shortlists. Instead of a physical gathering of YDA jury members for the final round of judging, an online system will finalise the gold and silver winners.

An online event will take place as close as possible to the original YDA date of 25th June.

“We are experiencing an unprecedented global situation at the moment,” said YDA President, Francois Chilot, “one which will have a profound impact on this industry and many others. But, for our part at the YDA, we feel we still need to nurture and support those who represent the future of this business. By awarding the YDA within its regular schedule, albeit in a non-physical form, we are thinking of those young directors and the careers to which they aspire. Through film and moving image we can convey important messages of hope, friendship and sociability and, at these times, we need to gather together and celebrate all the creativity that we can. We care about these young talents, their producers and companies, and we know the rest of the industry cares too. We cannot get through this difficult time without helping them and, in doing so, helping each other.”

“We think that an important element of the YDA is to allow the young directors to be celebrated and congratulated in person,” says Karim Bartoletti, Chairman of YDA 2020. “Therefore, we are also planning a winners screening and celebration in October, but we are closely monitoring the coronavirus crisis and will adapt and adjust accordingly to make sure YDA 2020 is run in the safest way possible for everyone involved.”

Entries for this year’s YDA are still open, and the Early Bird deadline has been extended to the 15th April.

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