AGREEMENT

Submitters and/or Participants to the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival, San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival Screenplay Contest, and/or any San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival related contest, submission or connected event or service must agree upon entry, or submission, or participation, or site usage, to acknowledge and agree in full to all of the following San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival rules, regulations, and terms of use contained in this document and including all provisions within this document, including within this paragraph and also what is contained in the full written document (the Agreement) below:

This Agreement, along with any other terms and conditions regulating to San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival, festival submissions, purchases, ticket sales, contest entries, festival attendance, festival participation, use of the website and websites of our business affiliates, partners, and service partners sets forth the entire understanding and agreement between us with respect to the subject matter hereof. The provisions of this Agreement and any ancillary terms and conditions will survive termination or expiration to the extent necessary to carry out the intentions of the parties.


If any provision of this Agreement is held to be invalid or unenforceable, such provision shall be struck and the remaining provisions shall be enforced. You agree that this Agreement may be automatically assigned by The San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival, in its sole discretion, to a third party. Section headings are for reference purposes only and in no way define, limit, construe or describe the scope or extent of such section. San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival’s failure to act with respect to a breach by you or others does not waive our right to act with respect to subsequent or similar breaches.

 

RULES & REGULATIONS

The San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival reserves the right to refuse service to anyone.

To enter into any San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival competition or event, the minimum age of participants must be 18 years of age or older.

Entries into all San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival competitions are void where prohibited by law. Entry Fees must be received by the United States dollars, before films will be viewed. All San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival judges, readers, screeners. programmers, and event director decisions are final.

By submitting to, or screening at the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival, the submitter or creator is confirming that all listed creators, owners, and rights holders authorize the submission as well as it’s public screening or other usage at our event for season it was submitted.

In submitting your film, project, or script to the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival you are admitting that your entry is your original work, or that you hold the ownership and copyright to the work, and that this work does not infringe on the copyright, or other rights, of other people.

In the event of multiple authors of an award or prize-winning work, all awards and prizes will be divided equally among the listed creators, as listed on the submission at the time of acceptance to the festival.

The San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival policy for all items being delivered to the festival, no original master copies should ever be sent. Please send a duplicate, as the festival is not responsible for any lost materials sent.

If any filmmaker, submitter, award winner, attendee, or any associate of the aforementioned is determined by a festival representative, or by any festival-related venue management, to have at any time during the festival caused (or to be currently causing) any kind of disruption to the festival or festival venue, or judged by festival staff to be acting (or speaking) aggressively or threateningly towards any festival attendee, volunteer, staff member, contractor, employee, guest, or any employee, patron, or guest of the venues being utilized by the festival, will have their film removed from exhibition, at any time, and without refund or reimbursement of any kind, and any or all associates, crew, cast, guests, or associated connected to such behavior may also be removed from the festival without refund.

It is acknowledged that any submission to the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival, in no way constitutes a contract, agreement, nor any other type of conformation regarding a submission’s acceptance to be screened, awarded any honor, or in otherwise in any way be represented by the festival at any in-person festival event, nor online.

However, by submitting or sending a film (or screenplay) for potential review and/or consideration of acceptance, the submitter (you) acknowledge and allows all submitted or sent screeners to be available to be downloaded by the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival, and also to be made available for playback and for public screening by the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival by it’s festival judges, staffers, and programmers for the duration of the festival’s submission season, as well as during all days of the festival’s public or online event dates.

All San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival submission deadlines, contest deadlines, notification dates, and live and/or online event dates may change without warning, notice, or refund.

All San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival live event dates and times (for both in public and online events), including festival events, parties, ceremonies, red carpets, and film screenings, are all subject to change without notice. All screening times and dates may be subject to delay, cancellation or change without refund or prior announcement. All screening venues may be subject to cancellation or change without refund or prior announcement.

All listed and/or reported events, screenings, and/or guest appearances are also subject to delay or change without notice. All events, screenings, and/or guest appearances may be subject to delay, cancellation, or changes without refund or prior announcement.

All submission fees, as well as any purchases of any kind, including event, party, and film screening ticket sales are considered final, with no refunds offered for any reason. Sales of any kind paid to the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival, as well as payments or sales related to the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival, as well as payments paid to affiliated services used by the festival, and/or payments or sales made to any partners of the festival, and/or payments or sales paid to the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival Screenplay Contest and it’s associated service partners, and/or any payments or sales for any kind to any and all San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival related events, gatherings, parties, submissions, and contests are all considered final, and no refunds will be offered for any reason.

The San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival is not responsible for shipped or messengered items that end up missing, misplaced, or lost in transit. The San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival is not responsible for shipped or messengered items that are sent or delivered to our rented venues, cinemas, or event spaces, or left with the staff or management of our rented venues, cinemas, event spaces, or mailbox services. Mailed or digitally sent Film Prints, and/or submissions of any kind, as well as any posters, hard drives, BluRays, DVDs, press materials, computers, or documents are understood to be potentially non-returnable.

All Film Print / DCP returns, drop offs, and pick-ups for all films is the full responsibility of submitter and any coordination in delivery must be arranged with San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival prior to the festival and in accordance with all San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival rules and protocol as defined by the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival and their programming and projection department staff and contractors.

 

TERMS OF USE


Failure to comply with any and all San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival guidelines, rules, regulations, or eligibility may be cause for disqualification and result in having your film pulled from screening or competition.

By entering (submitting to) any San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival competition you are admitting that you have read, understood and agreed to follow our Rules and Regulations as well as these Terms of Use and that you and all members of your party agree to abide by our Rules, Regulations, Terms, and Conditions of Service, and agree to all parts of this document.

By entering (submitting to) any San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival competition you are admitting that you are 18 years of age or older.

By entering (submitting to) any San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival competition, entrants release and hold the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival, its Board of Directors, Officers, Staff and Volunteers harmless from and against all losses, damages, rights, claims and actions of any kind arising in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, from participation with the competition or participation in any competition related activity.

By entering (submitting to) any San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival competition you are granting the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival the right to use screen grabs, press materials, and stills from your movie on our advertisements, press materials, festival programs and website for a minimum 15 months preceding the festival and to keep using such press materials for no less than 10 years following the festival year that you submitted to and/or were accepted into.

By entering (submitting to) any San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival competition you are granting the right for the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival to screen your film publicly and with paid admission, at least one to two times over the next thirteen months after submitting it to the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival, or after otherwise verbally or in writing agreeing to screen with the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival.

By entering (submitting to) any San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival film festival or screenplay competition you acknowledge that you are not entitled to any refund or damage claims of any kind if your film is unable to screen due to technical or operational difficulties or if your film needs to be rescheduled or delayed for any reason.

The San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival is not responsible for broken or non-functioning films. All federal, state and local laws and regulations apply. All fees are non-refundable.

The San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival is not responsible for films that are missing, damaged, unreadable, lost in transit, or stolen. San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival reserves the right to refuse service to anyone.

Failure to comply with the guidelines, rules, regulations, terms, conditions, or eligibility may be cause for disqualification as well as having your film pulled from screening or competition, as well as being ejected from our utilized venues, event spaces, festival party spaces, ceremonies, and/or festival offices.

By entering this competition, entrants release and hold the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival, its Membership, Board of Directors, Officers, Staff and Volunteers harmless from and against all losses, damages, rights, claims and actions of any kind arising in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, from participation with the competition or participation in any competition related activity.

By submitting you are granting the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival the right to use screen grabs, press materials, a nine-minute-or-less film trailer for your project, in addition to granting the right to use stills and screen grabs from your movie to be used in any San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival advertisements, press materials, television commercials, print advertisements, commercials programs, festival film guides, program guides both print and online, and on our websites and partner websites for the 12 months leading up to the festival during the 12 month period you submitted your film, and for 14 years following the festival year that your project or submission was accepted into the festival.

By submitting to the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival you acknowledge that you are not entitled to any refund or damage claims of any kind if your film is unable to screen due to technical or operational difficulties or if your film needs to be rescheduled or delayed for any reason.

By submitting to the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival you acknowledge that will not modify, publish, transmit, reverse engineer, participate in the transfer or sale, create derivative works, or in any way exploit any of the content, in whole or in part, found on the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival website or screened at the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival’s live and in person film festival public event.

By submitting to the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival you acknowledge that will not modify, publish, transmit, reverse engineer, participate in the transfer or sale, create derivative works, or in any way exploit any of the content, in whole or in part, found on the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival website or screened at any San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival online events.

By submitting to the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival you acknowledge that San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival content is not for resale and that your use of the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival nor your participation and/or attendance at San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival events in no way entitles you to make any unauthorized use of any protected content, and in particular you will not delete or alter any proprietary rights or attribution notices in any content.

By submitting to the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival and/or by attending the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival you agree that you will make no use of any content without the express written permission of the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival and the copyright owner of such content.

By submitting to the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival and/or by attending the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival you agree that you do not acquire any ownership rights in anyone’s protected content other than your own.

The San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival does not grant any licenses, express or implied, to the intellectual property of San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival, nor does the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival grant any licenses, express or implied, to the intellectual property of any of our licensors, nor does the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival grant any licenses, express or implied, to the intellectual property of any of our other accepted or submitted festival films and/or screenplays and/or any other content, except as expressly authorized by these terms and conditions in this agreement, specially not without the express written permission of the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival as well as the copyright owner of such content.

 

GENERAL


Again we restate the fact, that if any provision of this Agreement is held to be invalid or unenforceable, such provision shall be struck and the remaining provisions shall be enforced. You agree that this Agreement may be automatically assigned by The San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival, in its sole discretion, to a third party.

Section headings are for reference purposes only and in no way define, limit, construe or describe the scope or extent of such section. Our failure to act with respect to a breach by you or others does not waive our right to act with respect to subsequent or similar breaches. This Agreement, along with any other terms and conditions regulating use of the website, sets forth the entire understanding and agreement between us with respect to the subject matter hereof. The provisions of this Agreement and any ancillary terms and conditions will survive termination or expiration to the extent necessary to carry out the intentions of the parties.


 

RIGHT TO ENTER


Entrants warrant that they have the legal right to enter film work to the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival.

As Director or Producer or Submitter of the Film (or Screenplay), entrants have submitted to the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival, entrants represent and warrant to the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival that the Film and all parts thereof are original; that the Film does not contravene the rights of any person or entity and that entrants own or control the Film and all parts thereof and have the sole authority to submit the Film to the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival; the Film entrants submitted to the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival is not subject to nor threatened by any litigation.

Entrants acknowledge that no fiduciary or confidential relationship now exists between the Festival and entrants, and entrants further acknowledge that no such relationship is established by these guidelines, the submission of the Film, or by the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival acceptance, review, or retention of the Film.

 

GOVERNING LAW


You acknowledge and agree that this Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the internal laws of the State of California, excluding conflict of laws provisions thereof that would indicate the application of the laws of any other jurisdiction and you hereby submit to exclusive jurisdiction in the federal and state courts of California. You agree to receive service of process through certified mail or by other means sanctioned by law, and you expressly waive any claim of improper venue and any claim that such courts are an inconvenient forum.

 

INTERNATIONAL USERS

The San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival and all our services are controlled, operated and administered by San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival and our partners and affiliates from offices within the USA. If you access the Service from a location outside the USA, you are responsible for compliance with all local laws. You agree that you will not use the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival content in any country or in any manner prohibited by any applicable laws, restrictions or regulations.

 

INDEMNIFICATION


You agree to indemnify, defend and hold The San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival and all members, staff, or individuals connected to our Film Festival and its events to be harmless from any claim, expense or demand, including without limitation all attorneys fees, made by any third party, due to, or arising out of your breach of this Agreement, or your violation of any law or the rights of any third party.

 

RISK OF LOSS

You acknowledge and agree that your only remedy for failures, delays or interruptions with respect to the ordering of and delivery or use of any passes or tickets or services ordered by you through the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival or any San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival partner website, or any ticketing and/or venue partners is limited to a refund for such passes, issued at the discretion of the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival.

You acknowledge and agree that your only remedy for failures, delays or interruptions with respect to submissions or prints sent for review and/or public screening at the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival, or any failures, delays or interruptions in regard to tickets purchased (or given) to any screening at the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival, or any failures, delays, dissatisfaction or interruption at any San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival event, or related event will be limited only to a refund, and such refunds are issued only at the discretion and judgement of the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival after a dedicated review of the matter by the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival.

 

TRADEMARKS


Unless otherwise indicated, all names, graphics, designs, logos, page headers, button icons, scripts, commercial markings, trade dress, and service names included in the Website and on San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival created press materials, advertisements, and print publications are full trademarks of the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival and are protected by the trademark laws of the United States and other jurisdictions.

You may not use, copy, reproduce, republish, distribute, modify or post any Trademarks in any way, including in advertising or publicity pertaining to or distribution of materials on the Website, without the prior written consent of    the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival. Our Trademarks may not be used in any manner that is likely to cause confusion, or in any manner that disparages or discredits us.

 

ABBREVIATIONS

The San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival© for the sake of brevity, may, on this Website, as well as on any official print materials and/or advertisements, and/or on any of our partner websites, also be referred to as any of the following abbreviations of our name, including but not limited to: San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival, San Francisco Independent Cinema Fest,    SF Independent Cinema Festival, SF Independent Cinema Fest, SF Cinema Festival, SF Cinema Fest, SFICF, SF/ICF, sficf, while our Screenplay Contest may be referred to by the names of: San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival Screenplay Competition, San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival Screenplay Contest, San Francisco Independent Cinema Fest Screenplay Competition, San Francisco Independent Cinema Fest Screenplay Contest, SF Independent Cinema Festival Screenplay Competition, SF Independent Cinema Festival Screenplay Contest, SF Independent Cinema Fest Screenplay Competition, SF Independent Cinema Fest Screenplay Contest, SF Cinema Festival Screenplay Competition, SF Cinema Festival Screenplay Contest, SF Cinema Fest Screenplay Competition, SF Cinema Fest Screenplay Contest, SFICF Screenplay Competition, SFICF Screenplay Contest, SF/ICF Screenplay Competition, SF/ICF Screenplay Contest,    sficf Screenplay Competition, sficf Screenplay Contest, or additionally any of the above may also have the word “The” precede any of the above abbreviated names, as well as referring to The San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival generically mentioned as the “Film Fest”, as well as generically referring to The San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival’s Screenplay Contest simple as the “Screenplay Contest.” By submitting or accepting to screen at The San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival or submitting to the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival’s Screenplay Contest, or by using this website: you are acknowledging that all of these variations are in no way trying to obfuscate or confuse, and that such abbreviations are common abbreviations being used only for the sake economy of language, and that it is clear that all such abbreviations represent our event’s full and trademarked name of: The San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival, thus all such abbreviations would constitute a breach of our company’s copyright and trademark and be seen as an attempt to confuse our existing customers and exploit our event’s goodwill in the event any of these abbreviations were to be used as the name of another film festival, film contest, film screening series or event, film convention, or film magazine event in North America, unless they had been used constantly and consistently prior to 2017 for such events.

 

WEBSITE MARK

By use of this website, and/or by entering into this Agreement, and/or by submitting to the festival, or by attending the festival’s live or online events: You acknowledge and agree that sfcinemafestival.com, sficf.com, and sanfranciscoindependentcinemafest.com are all legitimate trademarks as well as being Uniform Resource Locators that reflect and represent our full name of The San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival and agree that San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival’s Website has the purchased protected Uniform Resource Locators for sficf.com as well as sfcinemafestival.com, and sanfranciscoindependentcinemafest.com. Upon the advice of council the URL of sanfranciscoindependentcinemafest.com was purchased, owned, and is currently used to maintain and solidify our claim upon our trademark and copyright of our full and abbreviated business and event name and URL’s, with regard to our business name of San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival, which our company has used since 2015, and with regard to ficf.com. Upon the advice of website management partners and customer feedback the simpler abbreviated URL of our abbreviated trademark (SF/ICF) was additionally obtained (sficf.com) as a service and trademark and is also being used consistently in conjunction with our original URL to maintain claim upon both marks, both full and fully abbreviated.

 

DMCA

By use of this website, and/or by entering into this Agreement, and/or by submitting to the festival, or by attending the festival’s live or online events: you are acknowledging that there is no copyright infringement on our website, and understand that any San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival accepted film submission and/or accepted screenplay contest winner, along with all press and promotional materials given to the festival by our accepted submitters (including press text and images for our film listings, film guides, advertisements, posters and etc.) have been granted use by the festival in posters, websites, and the festival’s own promotional materials for 15 years, beginning from the date of submission acceptance, as per the terms of the festival submission agreement’s terms and conditions, and in our events rules and regulations, terms and conditions upon submission, so that all such items would not be an infringement    and not need to be available for 512 requests. However, if you feel there has been copyright infringement on the website and feel you have a claim for such, please contact the festival via email with a subject header of: 512 copyright request. and if possible please include a filled out version of the form 512 copyright form available from the US government, and the festival will investigate and review all requests within four months of receipt of form and will take proper action to remove any sincere and accurate copyright disputes.

 

DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES

By submitting to the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival via FilmFreeway, or by screening at the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival, or by use of the website URLs sfcinemafestival.com, and/or sficf.com the submitter, screener, and/or user acknowledges this full agreement and by doing so agrees that their use of the websites, attendance at San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival events, or entering any San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival event, contest, film festival, or competition is at submitter’s sole risk, as The San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival does not make any representation or warranty as to the accuracy, correctness, completeness, or usefulness of any content appearing on the website and is not responsible for any errors or omissions in any content appearing on the website, or generally for the accuracy, reliability, or quality of any content appearing on the website or any other materials published, unpublished, or distributed by the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival or its affiliates.

The San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival is not responsible for any failures, delays, or interruptions of the website. The website and the event screenings are provided to you “as is” and the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival makes no representation or warranty of any kind to you, either express or implied. Specifically, the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival disclaims any implied warranties of title, non-infringement, merchantability, and fitness for a particular purpose.

You as user, submitter, or festival participant fully acknowledge and agree that under no circumstances will the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on content obtained through the website or caused by your conduct. The San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival does not guarantee continuous, uninterrupted, or secure access to the website, and the operation of the website may be interfered with by numerous factors outside of our control.

 

LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

In no event shall the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, arising out of, or in connection with, use of the website, nor shall the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising out of, or in connection with, any issues connected to attending any San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival in person event or screening, nor shall the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, arising out of or in connection with from entering any San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival competition, nor shall the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, arising out of or in connection with submitting any work for San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival review, judgement, analysis, or screening, including without limitation for lost profits or business or anticipated lost profits or business, even if advised of the possibility of such damages. San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival and its affiliates’ aggregate liability to you or any third party in any circumstance arising out of or related to the website or this agreement is limited to $300.

 

UPDATES TO AGREEMENT

The San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival reserves the right to update and change the Rules and Regulations, and Terms and Conditions listed in this Agreement at any time. The most current version of the Agreement’s Rules, Regulations, Conditions, and Terms as posted on our website (URL noted above) and posted simultaneously on FilmFreeway are to supersede all previous versions. The San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival encourages you to periodically review the Agreement and all of the Rules, Regulations, Conditions, and Terms contained within to stay informed of our updates to the San Francisco Independent Cinema Festival’s Rules. Regulations, Terms and Conditions.