We are looking for judges for all three competitions (film, short fiction, and music). You don’t necessarily have to be an expert, we want to have a good mix of perspectives, but you will be asked to demonstrate some familiarity with either the medium or the Cyberpunk genre.
Some additional information about the judging process is available at the bottom of this page, below the form.
Additional Information On Judging
Judging will take place on a platform called FilmFreeway, where all the participants will be asked to submit their projects. It is purpose-built for this specific activity, organizing submissions and facilitating the judging of online competitions in various mediums. We previously used Film Freeway in 2020 and found it to be a very smooth process.
Judges are all volunteers for Cyberpunk Now. However, you’ll be listed on this site with a bio and we can provide a link to your portfolio etc. (unless you prefer to be anonymous). You’ll also get some VIP treatment at the Afterparty. The day of the Afterparty is planned to be a press day, where experts and winners will do a bit of a press junket, and your participation in that is encouraged but not required. Also, depending on our success with securing sponsorships, there may be other perks.
All project submissions are due by July 15th, semifinalists will be announced August 13th, and HOPE_16 takes place August 15-17. We will have roughly a month to review the submissions, deliberate, and make selections . You will be making the semi-finals decisions, but the final vote will take place during the Hackers on Planet Earth conference. The semifinalists you select will be screened, played, reviewed, and voted on by conference attendees to determine the ultimate winners.
We will try to have enough judges participating so you each individually only need to put in about 10 hours of volunteer time to review the projects and vote on semifinalist projects, and you’ll have a whole month to do that. To combat procrastination though, we will do a quarterfinal judging round by the end of July, just to get a jump on the whole thing.
Your time, expertise, and passion are extremely valuable to the success of the competition , and we really hope you will find it to be a fun, fascinating, and just overall very rewarding experience.