Amazon hunts for emerging film talent

Amazon.com has teamed up with the Tribeca Film Festival to spot emerging filmmakers. From Thursday through April 13, the partners will accept submissions for the Amazon Theater/Tribeca Film Festival Short Film Competition. The short films shouldn't be longer than seven minutes, the Web portal said.

Amazon.com visitors and jurors from the film festival will choose the best five films for screening at Tribeca Cinemas in New York and on Amazon's Web site for four weeks. Amazon customers' pick for top filmmaker, to be announced in early July, will receive a grant of $50,000 toward another film. The initiative follows the Amazon Theater program last year, in which five original short films by world-class directors were offered on the site.