Radio Canada International’s Special Projects Team launches The Roots Challenge, a national competition of short films and multimedia productions. The Roots Challenge is open to all Canadians and permanent residents, 18 years and older, who wish to submit a video or multimedia production, 3 to 8 minutes in lenght. This competition targets citizen participation and aims to show the contribution of all cultures to the canadian mosaic.

Radio Canada International is looking for original productions, in all styles, that present a story about your roots or lack of. Avant-garde, sit-com, short docs, all styles are welcome in video, animated shorts, photo essays, anything that shows the story in a visual form!

«I’m often asked where I come from and the only answer I can give is « What do you mean ?…Are you talking geography, genetics or culture ? My identity, my DNA, my roots are part of or even the total sum of all 3! » That’s Boris Chassagne talking, he is the coordinateur of the Roots Project. “What I would like to see from the participants is humour, fun, sincerity, something surprising, touching, emotionnal something they feel…everybody has a story to tell”.

The competition has a french section also, called Racines. In French as in English, the productions must be submitted by March 7th 2010. The winners will share nearly $13,000 in prizes and their names will be disclosed on line in the spring of 2010. RCI’s jury will select 8 winners, 4 in French and 4 in English and web surfers will also have a chance to vote for their favorite production in the “short film” and multimedia categories, at www.rcinet.ca/roots

Radio Canada International’s Special Project Team, created in 2007, targets through it’s projects, newcomers to Canada as well as Canadians of all origins. It has produced series such as Seeing Double, Diversity Makers, Digital Diversity and the Rock’n Road Show. Roots follows in this pattern of New Media and audio visual initiatives of Radio Canada International.

For the submission form, the contest rules as well as the evaluation criteria go to : www.rcinet.ca/roots