‘Action!’: Announcing the Yelp Reel Local Film Fest

Yelp’s been telling the story of how people connect with great local businesses since 2004, but now we’re turning to the next generation of storytellers to spread the word. This year we’re announcing a scholarship program for film students who want to show us and the world their favorite local business.

For the first time ever, Yelp is accepting applications from college film students to participate in a short-film challenge that will culminate in the Yelp Reel Local Film Fest. We’re challenging current students from five participating cities (New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Atlanta) to produce, write, direct, shoot, edit, and submit a 3-6 minute long non-fiction film about a business in their community. The catch? They only have two weeks to do it all!

Students that apply will receive a prompt for their film with the competition’s rules and terms on Monday, November 30. From there, they have TWO WEEKS (until December 11) to complete their films and submit them for the chance to win scholarship prizes. For each participating city, participants will first be judged locally for a scholarship prize of $5,000, plus two runner up scholarship awards of $1,000 each. The winning film from each city will then be judged at the national level for a grand prize scholarship of $15,000!

Our mission with this festival is to encourage young filmmakers to look within their communities and to local business leaders for inspiring stories. At Yelp, we know that local businesses are at the heart of thriving communities and local economies, and the Reel Local Film Fest aims to bring that to life in creative ways.

Are you a film student in one of our participating cities? The application window will be open until the December 11 submission deadline, so sign up for yourself and your team here! (Sign up is required to receive the creative prompt and competition toolkit on that goes out on 11/30.)