The second Bitcoin Film Festival came to an end

The second Bitfilm Film Festival, which focuses on films related to Bitcoin and blockchain, recently came to an end.

The festival is organized by Aaron Koenig, founder of Bifilm, a production company that creates short films for websites, especially Bitcoin sites.

Technology Showcase

Koenig has been organizing the Bitfilm Festival since the 2000s, which previously showcased films that used creative and innovative digital technologies.

Later, Satoshi Nakamoto invented Bitcoin, and Bitfilm decided to make a radical change and became the world's first film festival about Bitcoin in 2014.

Aaron Koenig, founder of Bifilm Productions, said:

“This is the end of money” and “Bitcoin is like the internet”

It was finally decided to hold the 2015 film awards ceremony on February 24.

The festival was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Torsten Hoffmann's Bitcoin — the End of Money as we Know it won in the Feature Film category and Joe Posener's How Bitcoin is Like the Internet in the 80s won the Best Short Film Award.

The award was chosen based on the amount of donations the films received.

Donation-Based Awards

Throughout the campaign period (October to February last year), people could donate bitcoin to their favorite movies. The two feature films and short films that received the highest donations would win the prize.

"50% of the donations go to the winning film in each category, and the rest goes to the films that were donated. The total donations are around $300, so not a lot. We were expecting the filmmakers to bring more friends and fans to vote for their films. But this is something new, so people have to get used to it. Who knows, maybe the few Bitcoins that filmmakers receive will be worth a lot more in the coming years. I remember the first time we offered a Bitcoin prize in December 2011, when Bitcoin was worth about $3. At that time, we were not focusing on Bitcoin films, but showing all kinds of digital animation. Our prizes were probably a few hundred dollars per prize, and Bitcoin was still so new that filmmakers would not accept it at all, but chose Euros. I think they are regretting it now, because their prize money is worth more than a hundred times today!," Aaron Koenig explained.

The growing film festival

There are still many differences between the first and second film festivals.

Not only the amount of donations, but also the number of films and the voting system have changed a lot.

“First, there are more feature-length films about Bitcoin. In the first edition, the only feature we were able to show was The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin. This time we have four features, each with a short film,” said Koenig.

“We tried a few online voting sites before and chose MyPowers, but unfortunately that system went down before our voting ended. So this year we have a simple and straightforward Bitcoin voting: each movie has its own individual public Bitcoin address, and people can vote for their favorite movie by sending Bitcoin. Since all addresses are known and traceable, it’s a completely public and transparent process that can’t be manipulated by anyone,” he continued.

Torsten Hoffman, director of Bitcoin: the end of money as we know it, commented on the voting system:

"It's very transparent and you can understand the situation of all film festivals." In fact, this year's voting and donation information is completely public and visible on the Bitcoin address.