NEW YORK — YouTube is launching a film festival that will play out online and ultimately send 10 finalists to the Venice Film Festival.

The Google Inc.-owned video site announced Thursday Jan 19th that Your Film Festival will take submissions of short films up to 15 minutes in length between Feb. 2 and March 31. Fifty semi-finalists will be selected by Scott Free Productions, Ridley and Tony Scott’s production company.

Those 50 films will form a channel on YouTube: www.YouTube.com/yourfilmfestival. There, users will be able to view the films and vote for their favorites.

The 10 finalists will be flown to the 69th annual Venice Film Festival, where their films will be screened in August. Ridley Scott will lead a jury in selecting a winner, who will receive a $500,000 grant from YouTube to produce a work with Scott Free.

 See video below and more details at http://www.youtube.com/user/yourfilmfestival