In short
- Festival submissions are not yet open in the Service. These terms apply from the day the feature opens.
- Each Festival runs its own selection, juries, awards and event. We host the call and the submission flow, and we collect Submission Fees as the Festival's Limited Payment Collection Agent.
- Screeners are for evaluation only: the Festival's staff and jurors may stream a Film to judge it and must keep it confidential. Any other use needs your agreement.
- Every call shows a notification date, and the Festival records its decisions by that date.
- The Refund Floor protects Submission Fees, for example with a full Refund if the festival is cancelled or no decision arrives 30 days after the notification date.
1. Scope and status
Festival submissions are not yet open in the Service. These terms apply from the day the feature opens.
These terms set the rules for every call that a Festival runs in Sphere Cinema. Here "you" means a Submitter (a User who enters a Film into a Festival's call), and "the Festival" means the Festival that runs the call. These terms apply together with the Terms of Service, which list the Legal Documents and say which one prevails on which subject (section 1 "About these Terms").
A Festival that charges Submission Fees sells through the Service and is a Seller. The Creator and Organizer Terms govern its money matters: Seller checks, Payouts, Payout Holds, Refund duties and amounts owed to us. These terms govern festival matters.
A Festival's own rules may add conditions for its call. Where they conflict with these terms or with the Purchases, Cancellations and Refunds policy, these terms and that policy prevail. If you submit as a Consumer, you keep every right that policy and the law give you.
Governing law, the courts and the protections Consumers keep are set out in the Terms of Service, section 14 "Complaints, disputes and governing law".
2. Our role
When festival submissions open, we provide the call page, the submission flow, delivery of screeners and the status of each Submission.
The Festival alone decides on selection, juries, awards and prizes, and it alone organises and holds the festival. Each Submission creates an agreement between the Festival and the Submitter, under the rules of the call and these terms. We do not review the Festival's artistic choices, and we do not guarantee selection or the quality of any festival.
For a Submission Fee, the Festival is the Seller. When you buy from a Seller, the Seller is the party you contract with. Sphere Cinema collects your payment as the Seller's Limited Payment Collection Agent, and paying Sphere Cinema counts as paying the Seller. The appointment and its limits are set out in the Creator and Organizer Terms, section 3 "Our role as your limited payment collection agent".
We check each Festival before its first call opens (section 3). A Verification badge confirms only what we checked, on the date we checked it.
3. Listing a Festival
3.1 Checks before the first call
Before a Festival's first call opens, we check:
- the identity of the person who sets up the Festival in the Service and their authority to act for it;
- the Organization behind the Festival, from its registration documents where it is a company or another legal entity;
- that the festival exists: a working website and records of past editions or, for a first edition, a confirmed venue or the online platform where it will take place.
We may ask for documents, and we may refuse a Festival that fails these checks or that, in our reasonable view, could mislead Submitters. A Festival that charges Submission Fees also passes the Seller checks in the Creator and Organizer Terms, section 2 "Becoming a Seller and verification".
3.2 Honest information about the festival
The Festival's page describes the festival truthfully: its dates, place, format, categories, jury, prizes and past editions. A festival held only online says so clearly, and any promise of an in-person Screening must be true. Photos show the real festival or are marked as illustrations; invented or AI-generated images of past events are not allowed.
3.3 First edition in the Service
For a Festival's first edition in the Service, the Seller's Share of Submission Fees is held until 5 working days after that edition ends (event hold), under the Creator and Organizer Terms, section 10 "Amounts you owe us, set-off and Payout Holds". Such a hold applies only where the Payment Processor supports delayed settlement. Nothing in it is forfeited: everything not needed for Refunds owed to Submitters is released.
4. Festival rules, fees and deadlines
4.1 What every call shows
The Festival sets the rules of its call. Before anyone submits, the call shows:
- the categories and the eligibility rules;
- the Submission Fee for each category and deadline, and any fee waivers or discount codes with the conditions for using them;
- the deadlines and the notification date (section 8);
- every right the Festival will ask for if it selects a Film (section 7);
- the Festival's refund policy, which can give Submitters more than the Refund Floor and never less (Purchases, Cancellations and Refunds, section 11 "Seller refund policies").
Prices and currencies follow the Payment Policy, section 3 "Prices, currencies and taxes". Free entries and entries with a full fee waiver carry no Platform Fee (Payment Policy, section 5 "Platform Fee").
Awards rest on the Festival's judgement of the Films, and a call may never award anything by chance, such as a prize draw (Legal Compliance Policy, section 4 "Prohibited business activities").
4.2 Changes to a call
The Festival may change its call for future Submissions. A change that worsens the terms does not apply to Submissions already made: each of them keeps the rules, fees, deadlines and rights requests that applied when it was made. If the Festival still changes its rules, fees or dates to a Submitter's disadvantage after payment, for example by dropping the category entered or moving the edition or the notification date, the Submitter may ask for a full Refund, as Purchases, Cancellations and Refunds, sections 9 "Refund Floor for purchases from Sellers" and 10 "Cancelled, moved or changed Screenings and festivals" set out.
When festival submissions open, the Service will keep a dated copy of the call's rules, fees and rights requests with each Submission. The Festival also keeps every version of its rules with its date and gives a copy to a Submitter or to us on request.
4.3 Advance payment
We collect Submission Fees only after the Payment Processor has confirmed that it accepts advance payment for festival entries.
5. Submitting a Film
5.1 Your promises
When you submit a Film, you promise that:
- you made the Film, or the people who hold its rights have authorised you to submit it;
- you hold the rights the Festival needs to view the Film and, if it is selected, to make the uses listed in the call (section 7), including rights in music and archive footage and the consent of the people who appear in it;
- the Film and everything you send with it are lawful and follow the Community Guidelines;
- the information you give is accurate, for example the running time, completion date, premiere status and credits.
The promises about Content in the Terms of Service, section 6 "Your Content and the licence you give us" also apply. A Film offered for sale in the Catalog needs the full clearances in the Creator and Organizer Terms, section 5 "Rights and clearances". A Festival may disqualify a Submission that breaks these promises. Any Refund then follows the Festival's refund policy and the Refund Floor.
5.2 Data the Festival receives
Before you confirm a Submission, the Service will show you the data that goes to the Festival. It is limited to what the call needs: your name and email address, the Film's details and screener, and your answers to the call's questions.
The Festival uses this data as an independent Controller, as the Privacy Policy, section 1 "Who is responsible for your data" explains, and under the duties in section 9 of these terms.
5.3 Statuses and withdrawal
The Service will show the status of each Submission, from receipt to the Festival's final decision (section 8).
You may withdraw a Submission at any time by writing to support@sphere.art, or in the Service once it offers that step. Any Refund on withdrawal follows Purchases, Cancellations and Refunds, sections 7 "When the right to withdraw does not apply or ends early" and 9 "Refund Floor for purchases from Sellers". Withdrawal ends the Festival's licence to view the Film (section 6).
6. Screeners and confidentiality
6.1 The evaluation licence
When you submit a Film, you give the Festival a licence to view it for one purpose: to judge it for the edition you entered. The licence is:
- non-exclusive and free of charge;
- valid worldwide and limited to the Festival's authorised staff and jurors;
- limited to streaming the screener you provided;
- valid until that edition ends or until you withdraw the Submission, whichever comes first.
The Festival may not download, copy or record the Film, share it or its link, or show it to anyone outside its authorised staff and jurors. It may download a screener only if you approve that specific request in writing; a message in the Service or an email counts. It may not use the Film, or any part of it, to train or test AI models. Putting the Film online, showing it in public or using it in promotion needs your consent under section 7.
We host and deliver screeners under the licence in the Terms of Service, section 6 "Your Content and the licence you give us". We use a screener only to deliver it to the Festivals you submit to, and never in the Catalog or to promote the Service.
6.2 Confidentiality
The Festival keeps every submitted Film, and the materials sent with it, confidential. Before giving anyone access, it binds each staff member and juror in writing to confidentiality terms at least as strict as this section, and it answers for them as for itself. It gives access only to people who need it to judge, ends their access when they no longer need it, and tells the Submitter and us without delay if a screener or its link reaches anyone outside the Festival.
6.3 Access and storage
When festival submissions open, screeners will be stored privately: only the people the Festival assigns can stream them, and the Service will record who opened each screener and when.
7. Rights requests from Festivals
A Festival that may want to use a selected Film beyond judging says so in its call before anyone submits, and names the media, the territory and the period of each use. Typical requests are stills, a trailer or short excerpts to announce the selection, a copy for the festival archive, and a public Screening.
- By submitting, you agree to the uses listed in the call, except a public Screening. They apply only if the Festival selects your Film, only as the call describes them, and only to present that edition and the festival.
- A public Screening of the Film, online or in person, always needs your separate consent in writing for that Screening, naming the date, the venue or platform and any screening fee.
- Any use that the call does not list needs your separate consent in writing.
The Electronic Agreements and Signatures, section 5 "When an Electronic Signature in the Service is not enough" explains when a consent given in the Service is enough and when to sign in another way.
8. Decisions and notification dates
Every call shows a notification date. The Festival records a final decision on each Submission by that date, and the Service will tell Submitters when their status changes.
The Submission Fee pays for the Festival's consideration of the Film. A decision not to select a Film therefore gives no right to a Refund.
If the Festival has recorded no decision on your Submission 30 days after the published notification date, write to support@sphere.art and we refund the Submission Fee in full under the Refund Floor (Purchases, Cancellations and Refunds, section 9 "Refund Floor for purchases from Sellers"). For Submissions already made, the 30 days run from the notification date shown when you submitted, even if the Festival moves it later.
9. Festival duties
9.1 Holding the festival
The Festival:
- holds the festival as listed, and tells us and every Submitter at once if the festival is cancelled, moved or changed in an important way; Refunds then follow Purchases, Cancellations and Refunds, sections 9 "Refund Floor for purchases from Sellers" and 10 "Cancelled, moved or changed Screenings and festivals";
- honours every selection, award and other commitment that it announces to a Submitter through the Service, and checks its Submission records before announcing anything;
- delivers every advertised prize as promised (Sphere Cinema does not hold or pay prizes);
- answers refund requests within 5 working days, as Purchases, Cancellations and Refunds, section 11 "Seller refund policies" requires;
- accepts the Refunds that Purchases, Cancellations and Refunds, section 7 "When the right to withdraw does not apply or ends early" gives Submitters who withdraw within 14 days of payment;
- keeps the call and the information about the festival accurate and up to date.
9.2 Submitter data
For the Submitter data that it receives through the Service, the Festival:
- uses it only to run the selection and the edition to which the Submission was made;
- shares it only with the staff and jurors who need it and with its own service providers under written terms that protect it, and never sells or rents it;
- protects it against loss and unauthorised access, and reports any incident affecting it to privacy@sphere.art within 48 hours of learning of it;
- sends marketing messages only to Submitters who have agreed to receive them;
- never uses it, or any submitted Film, to train or test AI models;
- keeps it until that edition ends and never longer than 2 years after the Submission; after that it may keep the public record of its selections and awards, and it keeps a Submitter's contact details only with that Submitter's consent;
- answers Submitters' requests about their data as the Controller of that data.
How long we keep Submission records ourselves is set out in the Privacy Policy, section 9 "How long we keep data".
10. Suspension and removal of Festivals
We may suspend a Festival, close its calls or remove it from the Service on the grounds in the Creator and Organizer Terms, section 13 "Suspension and ending your selling", and also for:
- fraud, or a festival that does not exist or will not be held as listed;
- false or misleading information on its page or in its calls, including invented or AI-generated images presented as real;
- putting a submitted Film online, showing it in public or sharing it without the Submitter's permission;
- selling or misusing Submitter data, or any other breach of section 9;
- unlawful discrimination against Submitters;
- repeated valid Complaints from Submitters.
In the most serious cases (fraud, a fake festival, a Film put online without permission, or sold Submitter data) we may suspend the Festival at once while we review the case.
The procedure, the statement of reasons and the right to appeal follow the Community Guidelines, sections 8 "How we moderate", 9 "Decisions and reasons" and 10 "Appeals". When a Festival is removed, its open calls close, and Submission Fees for Submissions without a decision are refunded in full under Purchases, Cancellations and Refunds, sections 9 "Refund Floor for purchases from Sellers" and 10 "Cancelled, moved or changed Screenings and festivals". Amounts the Festival owes and any Payout Holds follow the Creator and Organizer Terms, section 10 "Amounts you owe us, set-off and Payout Holds". The Festival's duties in sections 6 and 9 continue for the Films and data it has received.
11. Changes and contact
We may update this document. We tell you about material changes by email and in the Service at least 14 days before they take effect, and at least 30 days before for changes to Seller fees, Payouts or selling rules, as set out in the Terms of Service, section 15 "Changes to the Service and the Legal Documents". Earlier versions of this document are available on request at legal@sphere.art.
Write to support@sphere.art for help with a call or a Submission, and for Complaints and Appeals. Write to privacy@sphere.art about Personal Data and to report a data incident.