NASA (yes, that NASA) and the Houston Cinema Arts Society have teamed up to organize a contest that is pretty out of this world. The short film competition, CineSpace, offers filmmakers around the world a chance to share their works inspired by—and created with—actual NASA imagery. That gives you quite a bit to work with— 50 years' worth of universe exploration, to be precise.

Not that you'll even need that much footage; submissions are only required to feature at least 10% of NASA video imagery. The imagery may be obtained through the NASA Image Archives or other publicly available means, such as YouTube.


NASA is looking for short video, film, and digital media submissions of 10 minutes or less. The shorts can be of any genres or style, including but not limited to experimental, narrative, documentary, comedy, drama, animation, ambient, music videos, remix, sports, horror, and underground.

From NASA's website:

Films will be judged on the creativity, innovation, and attention to detail that are the hallmarks of spaceflight. NASA and Houston Cinema Arts Society will choose Finalists or “Official Selections” through a joint Selection Committee. From the pool of finalists, judge Richard Linklater will select the competition winners. All finalists and winners will be screened at the Houston Cinema Arts Festival (HCAF) in November 2016.  They may also be screened at other film festivals around the country throughout the year, as well as by NASA to its audiences.

Richard Linklater judging your space video? Far out.

And here's what you can win:

Competition Awards

• Grand Prize: USD $10,000

• Second Prize: USD $5,000

• Third Prize: USD $3,000

Special Awards

• Film Best Depicting Benefits of Space to Humanity: USD $4,000

• Film Best Depicting Spirit of Future Exploration of Space: USD $4,000

Users are asked to submit through the HeroX submissions platform, which can be found right here. The deadline for submission is July 31.