terms & rules
Please make sure you read our Terms & Rules before submitting your work. All persons and entities entering their work automatically agree to these terms and conditions.
- Are welcome to enter their work production companies, post production companies, editing houses, music production companies, digital production companies, independent professionals and advertising agencies from all over the world.
- CICLOPE promotes the participation of all countries, which gives the festival an international profile. English has been established as the official language. Pieces can be registered in any language, but ENGLISH SUBTITLES ARE MANDATORY for films in other languages (except in the Music Videos category).
- The registration of the pieces, as well as the payment, has to be made exclusively through the online registration system or via wire transfer. The piece/s will only be considered registered after the uploading process is complete and the corresponding payment has been done. Important: Entry fees are not refundable under any circumstance. CICLOPE is not responsible for incorrect or incomplete entries.
- The registered pieces must count with the authorization of the advertiser, the agency and/or the owner of the reproduction rights of the work. It’s the participant’s sole responsibility to comply with this rule. The festival shall not be held accountable for any type of responsibility that may arise in the shape of legal or claims of third parties for this or any other motive related to the intellectual property or reproduction rights of the work.
- Commercials submitted to CICLOPE Festival should have been commissioned by a brand. Spec commercials are only eligible in the New Talent in Commercials and Student Film category. The piece must include a statement at the beginning indicating this.
- CICLOPE Festival’s entry deadline is August 15th, 2025. The pieces must have been broadcasted for the first time between August 24th, 2024 and August 15th, 2025.
- The organization, and/or the jury, if necessary, will have the right to request proof of emission in any stage of the contest, and the participant will be complied to submit it in a maximum time frame of 72 hours. If the event proof is not provided before the deadline, the piece will be automatically disqualified.
- Without any exception, pieces that have been submitted for previous editions of the festival are not able to participate.
- The organization and the jury, at its sole discretion when considered necessary, reserves the right to disqualify or change pieces to a different category from the one originally registered, without the need of communicating it previously.
- With the purpose of promoting the festival, and when considered appropriate, the organization is authorized to project and/or publish in public or private presentations the registered pieces free of charge, without the need of any type of compensation to third parties.
- The participant declares to own the broadcasting rights of the work and holds the festival unaccountable from all third party claims (this includes individuals and/or companies).
- Entries to CICLOPE should remain anonymous to the jury members, and should not include any credits or logos from the production companies or creative agencies involved. In case an entry includes credits, the organization will get in touch with the entrant company and ask to remove the info. If after 48 hours of being contacted there’s no answer, CICLOPE reserves the right to disqualify the entry without notification. Entry fees for disqualified entries will not be refunded. This also applies to any supporting material.
- Campaigns are only eligible in the Ideas and Innovation section. In all remaining sections the jury will only evaluate the craft in single pieces, so multiple films or pieces in a campaign should be entered separately.
- In case the organization confirms the piece does not comply with the before mentioned requirements, or any other expressed in the present rules and conditions, at its sole discretion it will exercise the right to automatically remove or disqualify the piece without the need of compensation or severance pay to the participating company or person.
- CICLOPE’s judging process consists of three rounds. The first one is undertaken by the Grand Jury and the Executive Jury, who will watch and rank the entries on CICLOPE’s online platform. The best-ranked entries in each category will be considered finalists. In the second round of judging, the Executive Jury will gather in Berlin to personally discuss the finalist pieces and award Gold, Silver and/or Bronze trophies in each category. The Executive Jury will also have the chance to award a Grand Prix per section to the most outstanding work in the competition. In case you would like to know more information, reach out to awards@ciclopefestival.com.
- In case the Jury decides, by majority, that the work submitted into a category does not meet a minimum quality standard, any category can be declared vacant.
- To avoid conflicts of interest, judges will abstain from voting on entries in which they or their companies (or companies from their global network) were involved.
- All winners will be announced on Thursday, October 9th, at CICLOPE’s award ceremony in Berlin. Winners not present in the ceremony will receive their trophies by courier.
- The Special Awards and the final ranking published by CICLOPE Festival at the end of the event are based on a points system where a company receives 1 (one) point for a finalist submission, 3 (three) points for a Bronze award, 7 (seven) points for a Silver award, 15 (fifteen) points for a Gold award and 25 (twenty-five) points for a Grand Prix.
- The ranking calculation for Best Production Company, Best Agency and Best Brand is based on all finalist entries and awards won by a credited company throughout all the categories. Both agencies, production companies and brands should have 3 or more shortlisted commercials, music videos or short films to contend for the award. For the other special awards, only points won on the specific categories are considered, and they should have at least 2 shortlisted projects to contend. Production Companies and Agencies final scoring is based on the entries made by any office of the company around the world.
- All schedules and line-ups are subject to change without prior notice.