The Vimeo Festival+Awards celebrates online videos and gives grants of $5,000 to the winners of each of 13 categories, and a grand prize of $25,000 to an overall winner.
Not only that, the exposure that the contest provides has given massive boosts to the careers of previous winners. For example, winner of the Motion Graphics category, Onur Senturk, had just graduated from university at the time and as a result of the exposure he received Paramount asked him to create the motion graphics credits for Transformers: The Dark Side of the Moon.
Each category is judged by a panel containing the previous year's winner as well as various industry luminaries. Entries can be submitted from now until 20 February 2012, and can be any original work that is either unseen or premiered online after July 31 2010. There is a $20 fee per entry which is reduced to $5 for Vimeo Plus and PRO members.
Here's last year's winner:
