TRT HUMANITARIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2026
APPLICATION PROCESS AND CONDITIONS OF PARTICIPATION

Applicants have accepted all the terms and results of the competition, by reading and approving this Application Process and Conditions of Participation document.
CONDITIONS OF PARTICIPATION AND GENERAL TERMS
1. Films that will participate in the Festival must be in the form of short stories of 5 – 20 minutes.
2. Films that will participate in the Festival must be dubbed in English or with English subtitles.
3. Films must be completed after 1st of January 2019.
4. Those who fill in the application form and approve the conditions of participation are deemed to have accepted the conditions of participation. TRT reserves the right to make changes in matters such as Festival date, Festival venue and award category, the details of which are regulated in this document. These changes will be announced through communication channels related to the Festival.
5. All obligations and responsibilities regarding the submission of the application through the application portal on the web address and the sending of the Films belong to the Applicant.
6. It is obligatory that the Films have not been presented to the public, except for the TRT Humanitarian Film Festival, until the festival process is completed and the award winners are screened. Otherwise, the Film cannot participate in the competition and even if it does, it will not be evaluated. In addition, films produced, financed or initiated by a major film studio or television network cannot participate in the competition and will not be evaluated.
7. Films made available to the public via any paid or free platform on the Internet cannot participate in the competition.
8. Films contrary to the statues at large of the Republic of Turkey regarding broadcasting, good manners, public decency and public order; Films that insult any nation, country, religion, person, community or have the characteristics of propaganda; Films that promote or support violence, war, drug use or pornography, praise all kinds of fanaticism, and Films containing advertising elements cannot participate in the competition. Even if they do, they will not be evaluated.
9. Films must be the original work of the producers or directors who are the Applicants. The Applicant accepts, declares and undertakes that, she/he has the right, authority and power to participate in the competition and to grant TRT the rights set forth in this text which will be transferred/licensed to TRT in case of being a semi-finalist, that all rights of the Films belong to himself/herself, the Films are free from third party rights and claimss; does not violate any right of any third party, especially copyright and there is no conflict regarding the Films. Otherwise, he/she accepts, declares and undertakes that all legal, administrative, penal and financial responsibility will be his/her own and that TRT will recourse to himself/herself for compensation(including reasonable attorneys’ fees) and/ or claim compensation for its losses.
10. The Applicant accepts, declares and undertakes that, while preparing the Film, she/he has obtained written consent for the transfer of the rights with a full license from the contributors or persons who are right owners, and that she/he will submit them to TRT upon request. Likewise, if the Film is based on another person’s life, a book or other fundamental work, Applicants must have obtained all necessary permits/licenses to make such adaptations and submit them to TRT upon request.
11. Necessary permissions will be obtained by the Applicant for musical works, original music, lyrics, etc. used in Films, whose rights holders are known and/or whose rights are managed by professional associations, collecting societies or edition companies, and necessary payments will be made to the relevant right holders/related third parties.
12. The Applicant accepts and declares that all revenues/incomes to be obtained by TRT, due to the use of the rights to be transferred/licensed to TRT in case of being a semi-finalist, by TRT in person or through third parties, will belong exclusively to TRT, and TRT will not pay make any payment to itself, except for the Award/prize if it is gained.
13. The information of the Applicants can be processed by TRT within the scope of the competition, and detailed information about this processing is available at https://www.worldcitizenfilmfestival.com and trthumanitaranfilmfestival.com. Applicants aare deemed to have read, understood and accepted the Clarification Text and Consent Form in this link while sending Films to the Festival.
14. TRT reserves the right to reject or disqualify any Film in accordance with the conditions in this document and/or after the evaluation by the jury. Even if the Film has passed the evaluation and received an award, TRT has the right to withdraw the award and the prize in case of detection of a situation that does not comply with the conditions of the competition.
15. The Applicant must be at least 18 years of age at the time of application.

• INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
1.1. The Applicant accepts, declares and undertakes that; if he/she makes it to the semi-finals and/or wins an award, within the scope of the Turkish Law on Intellectual and Artistic Works No. 5846 (“FSEK”), the Film itself to the extent of the rights expressly granted and within the limitations set forth herein, original music (with or without words), script, format, characters, dialogue, any audio, written or visual work or performance related to Film(partly, part-by-part and as a whole, including flashbacks; along with the Film, in other content, together with the content or alone);

According to article 21 of the Turkish Law on Intellectual and Artistic Works No. 5846 (FSEK), Rights to Adapt/Process, the limited right to edit, cut, excerpt and combine parts of the Work solely for the purpose of creating promotional materials related to the festival, provided that such materials shall consist only of excerpts from the Work and shall not exceed a total duration of five (5) minutes.

According to article 24 of the FSEK, Rights to Perform, the limited right to publicly screen the Work, as a whole, solely within the scope of the festival, in a physical venue (such as a cinema or screening hall), to festival attendees.

1.2. According to article 25 of the FSEK, The Rights of Public Access, Transmission and Public Transmission, the limited right to communicate excerpts of the Work to the public solely for promotional purposes of the festival, provided that such excerpts shall not exceed five (5) minutes in total, and solely via the official festival website and the TRT’s official social media accounts (including platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), YouTube and similar), on a non-commercial basis. ),

To the extent necessary to exercise the Rights to Perform and Rights of Public Access, /Transmission and Public Transmission as set forth above; pursuant to FSEK article 22 Rights to Dublicate and pursuant to FSEK article 23 Rights to Disseminate,

To the extent strictly necessary to exercise the limited Rights to Perform and Rights of Communication to the Public set forth above; pursuant to FSEK article 22 (Right to Reproduce) and article 23 (Right to Disseminate), the limited right to reproduce and disseminate the Work solely within the scope of the permitted uses defined herein.

The limited right to use excerpts from the Work solely for non-commercial promotional purposes of the festival, strictly within the scope and media expressly permitted under this section.
The Applicant accepts, declares and undertakes that; she/he willgrant a non-exclusive license limited to the rights and conditions set forth herein to TRT (including all broadcasting companies bearing the TRT logo and TRT affiliates),with his free consent, and that he will consent to its use by TRT in addition, she/he will sign the consent letter prepared in this regard and submit it to TRT after the final results of the semi-finals are announced and before the Festival.

• The rights specified in Article 16 will be licensed by the Applicant to TRT with a simple license in case of making to the semi-finals and/or winning an award. The Applicant may use these rights herself/himself or license it to third parties with a simple license.
• Jury Evaluation will take place between May and August 2026. When the jury members are determined, they will be announced through the communication channels related to the Festival.
• The selection criteria to be evaluated by the jury members will be originality/creativity, dialogues/texts, cinematography, direction, actor performances, production quality, flow/speed, structure and sound/music.
• TRT does not accept any liability or responsibility for any comments, notes or opinions expressed about a Film by its staff and/or other persons.
• The winners will be announced at the TRT Humanitarian Film Festival. The Festival will be held on November 2026.
• Films that make it to the Semi-Finals will be announced on the website and a certain period of time to be determined by TRT will be given to the Applicants to submit their objections regarding the Films that made it to the Semi-Finals. Objections made within this period and their reasons will be evaluated by the members of the jury and the final results will be announced again. After the evaluation of the objections, the decisions of the members of the Jury regarding the Semi-Final and the Final are certain.
• Cash prize winners are solely responsible for payment of all applicable local, state and federal etc. taxes.
• Ankara Courts and Execution Offices are authorized to resolve disputes arising from the application of this document; Turkish Law shall be applied in the interpretation of this document and in any dispute.
• The transportation and accommodation expenses approved by TRT will be covered by TRT for the Applicants who qualify to participate in the Festival by making it to the Semi-Finals.

APPLICATION PROCESS
• Applicants must pay 5 (five) Dollars to apply for the TRT 2026 Humanitarian Film Festival.
• Films must be submitted online through the FilmFreeway platform. Applicants accept, declare and undertake that they know that they are participating in the competition through FilmFreeway, all kinds of responsibility belongs to them, TRT and themselves will be deemed to have accepted all conditions regarding the use of the platform, especially the Terms of Service and Security Policy on the https://filmfreeway.com site and the updates to be made from time to time, and that TRT has no connection with FilmFreeway other than the collection of the Films within the scope of the competition and TRT and FilmFreeway are different institutions. Applicant accepts, declares and undertakes that FilmFreeway will be responsible for any damages that may be incurred by the Applicant after sending the Film through the FilmFreeway platform and that no claim can be made to TRT in this regard.
• Except for the application method mentioned above; applications submitted by other means (mail, hand delivery, etc.) will not be evaluated.
• Those who want to participate in the competition must have completed their applications and uploaded their Films to the system, starting from 30/03/2026, until 23:59 on 15/06/2026, which is the deadline. Applications submitted after this date will not be evaluated.
• Applicants will notify the technical problems they experienced during the application via e-mail to minkailu.jalloh@trt.net.tr
• As long as their duties at TRT continue, the Chairman of the Executive Board and Executive Board Members of the Turkish Radio-Television Corporation, Deputy Director General, those appointed as permanent or substitute members in the selection committee related to the organization, all TRT Personnel whether or not they take part in the Festival, their spouses and the companies they are the biggest share holder and their first degree relatives cannot participate in the competition.

PRIZES AND PAYMENT OF THE PRIZE AMOUNT
• At the end of the competition, the top 3 films will receive awards.
First Prize : $10.000
Second Prize : $7.500
Third Prize : $5.000
In addition, 2 special awards will be given within the scope of the Festival, these awards are: Climate Awareness Award (2.500 Dollars), Audience Award (2.500 Dollars).
• The award amounts are paid after the Applicants, who are declared to have won the award, submit the documents requested by TRT to TRT and the Financial Rights Transfer Agreement is signed by the parties.
• Applicants accept, declare and undertake that if the commitments are not fulfilled, the information specified in the application form is not correct or if it is determined by TRT that there is a violation of the participation conditions, no payment will be made; if there is a payment made, it is withdrawn together with the legal interest.