On February 16, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) held its first-ever Voter Education Film Festival. The purpose of the event was threefold: to share best practices of voter education campaigns, gather the best examples of voter education videos according to thematic categories and regions and create a repository of voter education videos for IFES teams to use and refer back to in the future. The hope was that these videos will stimulate informative sharing across IFES’ programs and generate even stronger videos in the future.
The submissions were divided into seven categories: general; first-time voters and/or youth; minorities and/or Indigenous peoples; internally displaced persons; persons with disabilities; women and/or lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ); and a special category. Across the categories, close to 100 videos were received from IFES teams around the world.
A panel of judges reviewed the submissions based on quality and creativity. During the film festival, a member of the team that submitted the winning video in each category provided a short description, the inspiration, purpose and lessons learned in making the video.
At the conclusion of the festival, the audience members voted on the overall winner among the winners of each category. The event was held live, and a second showing was conducted for colleagues in other time zones. IFES’ first Voter Education Film Festival was a huge success for sharing IFES’ work across programs and will be replicated annually.
Please find the video playlist and winners of each category below.
