CARU Film Festival

Judging criteria

Judging & awards

The CARU Film Festival Jury will carefully evaluate each submission based on artistic merit, storytelling, and alignment with the festival’s spiritual themes. Winners will be selected across multiple categories, with official selections announced before the event.

The official CARU Jury evaluates film entries based on several subjective criteria: originality, creativity, plot, pacing, structure, characters, dialogue, theme, cinematography, direction, writing, entertainment value, and overall quality of production. Not every award winner or nominee scores “10s” across the judging table. The weight of each category varies with the nature of each entry.

The Audience Choice awards

The Audience Choice Award will be determined by public voting on this website. Please note this feature will only be available during the Film Festival

Judging areas/category

The weight of each category varies with the nature of each entry.

  • Originality – refers to the uniqueness and originality of the premise or story.
  • Creativity – evaluates the effective use of imagination as evidenced in the entry.
  • Plot – refers to the actions, events, conflicts, and turning points that propel the story forward and how the story unfolds.
  • Pacing – evaluates the timing of the action, unfolding of plot elements, and character development.
  • Structure – evaluates the framework of the film or script and the effective use of three-act, odyssey, linear, or non-linear story progression.
  • Characters – evaluate the personalities that are distinctive, compelling, multi-layered, and unpredictable, as well as the presence of a protagonist and antagonist with clear and active goals.
  • Cinematography – evaluates the quality of cinematography or videography demonstrated in the work, including the steadiness of the camera, framing and focus of shots, use of close-ups and camera angles to add meaning to the story, and visual effectiveness of lighting and camera positioning.
  • Editing – evaluates whether the editing helps to clarify the story and enhance the pacing and flow of the story, and whether transitions are smooth and well-paced or distracting, and whether the opening titles and closing credits are appealing and easy to read
  • Audio, Music, and Sound Effects – evaluate whether the audio and soundtrack complement the story, whether audio levels are consistent, whether dialogue and/or narration are clear and easy to understand, and whether sound effects are appropriate to the story or detract from it.
  • Direction – evaluates the quality of direction exhibited in the work.
  • Entertainment Value – evaluates whether the story keeps the viewer’s or reader’s attention, whether it is fun, engaging, or thought-provoking.

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