TORONTO, April 13, 2015 /CNW/ - Air Canada today announced submissions are open for the ninth annual Air Canada enRoute Film Festival. Emerging Canadian filmmakers are invited to showcase their artistic talent, out-of-the-box thinking and compelling vision in this year's festival that includes a star studded jury, a cash prize and a chance to travel to the Berlin International Film Festival to have their film screened at the European Film Market.

The winner of Best Short Film will receive a $5,000 cash prize courtesy of presenting sponsor Cineplex Entertainment. Other awards include Achievement in Direction, Achievement in Cinematography, Achievement in Animation, Achievement in Documentary and the third annual People's Choice Award. Achievement Award supporters include, the Directors' Guild of Canada, William F. White International Inc., the National Film Board of Canada and the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival.

All Achievement Award winners will receive an all-inclusive trip to the 2016 Berlin International Film Festival, courtesy of Air Canada. Winners will have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to showcase their short films in Telefilm Canada's Not Short on Talent program, which will screen at the European Film Market,.

A handpicked jury from the Canadian film industry, consisting of highly prominent celebrities, producers and directors, will select the winning films. Previous jury members include Don McKellar, Guy Maddin, Laura Vandervoort, Alison Pill, Sarah Gadon, Suzanne Clément, Atom Egoyan and Donald Sutherland, among many others. Jury members for this year's festival will be announced in July.

Winning films will be broadcast on Air Canada's enRoute In-Flight Entertainment system, viewed by millions of Air Canada customers around the world each month. Roster events to honour participants will take place throughout the country, including an inaugural industry panel and networking reception held in Calgary in May, presented by TELUS Storyhive, and later events in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto.

Do you think you have what it takes? View full festival rules and regulations and submit your film at www.enroutefilm.com. Submissions will be accepted until May 31, 2015.

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About Air Canada's enRoute In-Flight Entertainment:
Air Canada's enRoute In-flight Entertainment offers over 600 hours of on-demand entertainment available free of charge at the touch of a finger. Its gate-to-gate in-flight entertainment programming features up to 150 movies in all genres, including the latest Hollywood and independent titles produced locally and internationally in more than 20 languages, up to 200 TV shows including the most popular TV series, interesting documentaries and our very own ACTV channel, over 100 albums and playlists in all musical genres and entertaining and informative audio books and podcasts. Air Canada's enRoute In-Flight Entertainment is programmed by Spafax, one of the world's leading custom publishers and providers of in-flight media, with offices in fourteen cities around the world. Spafax is a part of the specialist communications division of WPP. http://enroute.aircanada.com/

About Air Canada:
Air Canada is Canada's largest domestic and international airline serving more than 190 destinations on five continents.  Canada's flag carrier is among the 20 largest airlines in the world and in 2014 served more than 38 million customers.  Air Canada provides scheduled passenger service directly to 64 Canadian cities, 52 destinations in the United States and 78 cities in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America and South America. Air Canada is a founding member of Star Alliance, the world's most comprehensive air transportation network serving 1,321 airports in 193 countries.  Air Canada rewards its most loyal customers through its top tier recognition program, Altitude, that offers frequent flyers a range of priority travel services, lounge access and upgrades to Executive Class, complementing their membership in Aeroplan, Canada's premier loyalty program, which provides numerous ways to earn and redeem Aeroplan Miles with over 150 travel and retail partners.

Air Canada is the only international network carrier in North America to receive a Four-Star ranking according to independent U.K. research firm Skytrax.  In 2014, Air Canada was ranked for a fifth consecutive year "Best Airline in North America" in a worldwide survey of more than 18 million airline passengers conducted by Skytrax.  According to the 2014 Canadian Business Travel Survey conducted by Ipsos Reid, Air Canada was the preferred airline for more than 80 percent of frequent business travellers in Canada.  In 2014, readers of Global Traveler magazine again voted Air Canada "Best Airline in North America," the readers of Business Traveler voted Air Canada "Best North American Airline for International Travel" and "Best North America Airline Inflight Experience," and the readers of Premier Traveler voted Air Canada "Best Flight Attendants in North America."  For more information on Air Canada visit aircanada.com, follow @AirCanada on Twitter and join Air Canada on Facebook.

SOURCE Air Canada's enRoute