Blog: Film festivals

Since 1995, The Victoria Film Festival (VFF) has presented the best Canadian and international feature, documentary, and short film to Victoria and Vancouver Island in a ten-day celebration of cinema. This year marks our 30th festival! Eclectic and inspiring, the festival hosts a wide array of film directors, producers, distributors, and programmers as guests and participants. With a continuing legacy of great workshops, installations, filmmaker lounges, and the opening Gala, this year’s celebration of film and filmmakers is taking place in British Columbia’s capital city February 2rd -11th 2024!

NIFF is a space for criticism, denunciation, impact and social growth through the dissemination and promotion of cinema.

NIFF aims to be a statement against non-involvement, disregard and lack of commitment, which is the real disease of this century, where we produce more than we can consume, and happiness is subject to the law of supply and demand.

NIFF was born with the intention of triggering, debating the issues that are hidden under appearances and confronting the public with the social realities that show each individual as a part of those that make us complex, unique and human.

ONLY FOR SPANISH FILMMAKERS // SOLO PARA CINEASTAS ESPAÑOLES

Africa in Motion (AiM) is an annual African film festival taking place in Scotland, consisting of film screenings and complementary events. Now in its fifteenth year, AiM brings the best of African cinema to Scotland—making it possible for Scottish audiences to engage with African stories and industry professionals from the continent. AiM has established itself as a major annual event within the Scottish cultural calendar, whilst also maintaining an international profile as one of the leading African film platforms. The festival caters to a varied and diverse audience from all over Scotland, the UK and further afield. A core aspect of AiM’s organisational work is its partnership development with various cultural and artistic networks and venues, with particular efforts made towards engaging the African diaspora community living in Scotland. Africa in Motion has grown from strength to strength over the past 14 years. Our own statistics show that we have screened around 680 African films to over 45,000 people in Scotland since the inauguration of the festival in 2006.

The Nîmes En Court Festival welcomes you to Nîmes from Wednesday 15th to Saturday 18th April 2020 for its second edition!

Competition of short films, favorites, compétition 48h, compétition photo, scenario workshop, master class ... we prepare a beautiful edition!

Our short film show intends to celebrate and disseminate the film creation made by women.

We want to create a diverse and heterogeneous show, we will not value positively that the theme of the short film is related to gender, because we want to exhibit the feminine creation in its pure gesture, for its cinematic value and not for its theme.

We will value positively that the director can attend the exhibition, since our intention is to create a dialogue with the public about the work of the directors.

Organized in Pérols, near Montpellier in Hérault, by the OVNI LANGUEDOC association during its annual congress on 5, 6 november 2022.

The 2nd Ufological Film Festival is aimed at directors who wish to present their short films, fictions and documentaries on the theme of Ufology, UFOs and extraterrestrial life.

The Itinerant Cinema in Mi Barrio festival is consolidated as a vital platform for the dissemination of national short films in the department of Cauca, giving audiences from various subregions the opportunity to enjoy cinema on a giant screen. The 2024 call is open to short films that, due to their narrative proposal, stand out and have the potential to reach diverse audiences.

Cinematographic works may address free themes, with special attention to aspects such as the environment, human rights, creativity and youth, arts and cultures, thus reflecting the richness of Colombian biodiversity.

This year, the festival's itinerant route begins in the Cauca Pacific, with stops in Timbiquí and Guapi. The mobile room will then move to the south, to the lands of Patía, and later to the north in Santander de Quilichao, in the Valles del Cauca. You will also visit the east of Tierra Distancia, known for its hidden treasures.
The festival will have special programming during the central week in Popayán, Cauca, where additional activities will be developed, including workshops, talks and official exhibitions. This itinerant not only seeks to showcase short films, but also promote dialogue and cultural exchange, reaffirming the festival's commitment to promoting national cinema locally and internationally.

The festival aims to spread new insights and reflections on culture, anthropology,
Art and nature A window to the world just around the corner.

Promoting works by independent audiovisual producers from around the world whose
Thematic and aesthetic treatments generate debate, new knowledge and reflections.

Feature films, short films and short films, in fiction, animation and documentary genres.

FICP has the thematic axes of culture, history, art and the relationship of the
Men with the socio-cultural, natural and territorial environment.

EFF is an international film festival for unconventional independent film, organised at several vibrant locations in Eindhoven (NL).

In a world that is rapidly changing, we feel it’s important to move along. As a festival, we put focus on the experience and like to challenge the audience as well as the makers to question the medium film, in order to stimulate innovative productions that really wow.

We love to show the diversity of the medium. Therefore we’re always looking for films and moving images that question the boundaries of traditional filmmaking.

The 10th edition will take place from the 26th of November to the 29th of November in the city center. Eindhoven is an innovative city with a worldwide top position in technology, design and knowledge.

During these days we show you unconventional independent films varying from experimental shorts to breathtaking documentaries. We are very proud to present the work of talented filmmakers from all over the world. Besides an extensive film programme you can enjoy a broad variety of film-related extras like live film scores, workshops and talks and exhibitions.

Eindhoven Film Festival:
• Likes to be a catalyser for innovations in film by mixing various disciplines and encouraging filmmakers to experiment regardless of traditions and clichés. We use the festival as a playground/laboratory where filmmakers as well as the audience are encouraged to make the imaginable possible.
• Likes to redesign the way we experience film in collaboration with the filmmakers as well as the audience.
• Wants to turn Eindhoven into a furtive breeding ground for innovative film productions, national as well as international.
• Aims to broaden people's perspective on society by showing unconventional (fictive/(hyper)real) stories straight from the heart of the filmmakers.
• Strives for inclusiveness. Eindhoven counts about 150 nationalities. We feel it’s important that the different cultures in Eindhoven feel at home and represented at the festival.

Istanbul International Experimental Film Festival is a pioneering showcase of avant-garde and experimental cinema in Turkey. Our goal is to bring the best in contemporary experimental cinema from around the world to live audiences in Istanbul. Our festival aims to advance artistic expression while creating a genuine networking platform for practitioners, film enthusiasts, and industry talent. In bringing audiences highly innovative films, made by filmmakers that have strong personal views on contemporary reality, we are inspired to daringly explore the boundaries of cinematic language.

The inaugurate IIEFF took place in November 2018 where more than 150 features and shorts from 50+ countries were showcased. Over the span of 5 days events ranged from premieres, retrospectives, tributes, audio-visual performances, and discussion panels. The scope of selected works infused fresh air into the Istanbul atmosphere during the running days of the festival. We look forward to bringing more great works to life on screen.

We support visionaries that prevail beyond cinematic confines. Our priority here is to showcase films made primarily for aesthetic and philosophical reasons rather than commercial profit. We hope to give gifted international artists and filmmakers an opportunity to show their talent in all facets and forms that their craft demands. Regardless of whether you are an emerging artist or an established professional, we would like to encourage you to submit your work. It is artists like you that keep the horizon of moving images sharp and in focus so art may endure.

MANIATIC- FANTASTIC INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL OF MANISES it´s a festival of fantastic genre to bring the world of the short film to the new generations of spectators who otherwise would not have access to the latest creations of the future directors of cinema.

The first festival came about because Aaron Casserly Stewart, Parsons city commissioner in 2017, had wanted to honor Gilbert Baker, the creator of the Rainbow Flag. Gilbert conceived of the idea for the Gilbert Baker Film Festival with a group of his friends. The Festival was to be a celebration of LGBTQIA+ Pride in his old stomping grounds of Parsons, KS. Knowing that Parsons is a town in rural Southeast Kansas, Gilbert wanted to have an event that could showcase the accomplishments of the LGBTQIA+ community without a parade. Unfortunately, Gilbert died in 2017 before the first film festival was held.
The committee working with him proceeded to hold the first festival. It was a small festival but it was a beginning. The town responded to requests to fly the Pride flag and showed support through attendance. Labette Community College provided space and a picture of the flag raising ceremony graced the cover of the local paper, the Parsons Sun.
In 2018, a group of people who want Gilbert's dream to reach its potential began working towards having another Film Festival. It is our hope that this event will honor Gilbert's memory and worldwide legacy. In 2019, we coordinated with the Parsons High School Class that Gilbert would have graduated with if he had stated stayed in Parsons. They are having their high school reunion on the weekend of the Festival. The committee decided that holding the 2019 Gilbert Baker Film Festival in October would afford his classmates the opportunity to attend both events.
The 2020 Gilbert Baker Film Festival begins the tradition of holding the festival the third weekend in September (Thursday, Friday and Saturday) annually from 2020 on. The 2020 festival will be held at the Parsons Public Library in Parsons, Kansas.
The main goal of the Gilbert Baker Film Festival (GBFF) committee is to hold a festival worthy of Gilbert's worldwide legacy. As of 2020 the festival will be held annually on the Third Weekend in September (Thursday, Friday and Saturday). We want to create awareness. The WHERE WE CALL HOME: LGBT PEOPLE IN RURAL AMERICA report published by M.A.P. in April 2019 "suggests that between 2.9 million and 3.8 million LGBT people—or 15-20% of the total U.S. LGBT population—live in rural areas around the country." The Gilbert Baker Film Festival is held in the heart of Rural America.

We are basically started over in 2019 with a new format and website. Each year we hope to grow and improve. We are also working with the Gilbert Baker Estate who have been a great help.

CALL FOR ENTRIES FICMA 2024

The International Film Festival with Alternative Media (FICMA) encourages and disseminates the creation of films and audiovisual projects with new digital narratives and disruptive technologies made with various devices such as smartphones, DSLR cameras, GoPro cameras, Black magic pocket, drones, among others. Using technologies such as virtual reality, digital animation, artificial intelligence, among others. Having exhibition media such as projection, transmedia narratives, VR viewers, website and Streaming platforms.

The theme of this edition will be the convergence of media and pop culture, where we will reflect on how in today's world with a saturation of information the various media, increasingly merge creating new formats of consumption, analyzing how it has influenced the Mexican and universal popular culture and what interactions they have with the cinema today.
FICMA will be held from November 8 to 17, 2024 in Mexico City.

The registration and participation of a film or project implies full acceptance of FICMA's rules, conditions and regulations.

The mission of the festival is to highlight the relation between wildlife and nature.

Tradition, sport, wildlife conservation, hunting in the XXI. century.

„Mindfulness in the future” – Respect and tradition

Hunting and fishing nowadays are not just sports, but profession, science and passion.

The festival grows attention to the importance of wildlife protection and habitat management throughout the movies.

It gives the opportunity for the filmmakers to show their films, for the professionals and researchers to take part in workshops and entertainments.

The festival will take place in the Royal Palace of Gödöllő as the part of the Gödöllő Hunting Day.

The Barichara Green Film Festival FESTIVER, created by Colombian actors Toto Vega and Nórida Rodríguez, seeks to build a new generation of artists and audience commited to the environment. Through its screenings and a continuous search for resources to create environmental film content, FESTIVER aims to educate and entertain by developing academic, artistic and recreational activities which enrich the Colombian cultural landscape and help build a better world. The 14th edition will take place on September 19-22, 2024 in Barichara, Santander, Colombia.

Madeira Fantastic FilmFest project is the diffusion and dissemination of film culture of horror and fantastic genre in Madeira in order to transmit, visually, through different types of art, culture and nature of the region.

Ibicine Asociación Cinematográfica de Ibiza (IACI) was born out of love for cinema and the island of Ibiza with the firm commitment to provide the island with activities related to cinema as well as a film programme that opens the range of cultural activities on the island to new audiences and thus turn Ibiza into a meeting point for the national and international film sector.

Ibicine, Ibiza Film Festival, is one of the annual activities of IACI, organized by the Association and by the production company Dicho y Hecho Porducciones.

Ibicine is a festival that is committed to emerging national, international and Balearic Island talent, which seeks to enhance emerging filmmakers and generate links with established talents, giving special importance to the short film and its technicians, rewarding by categories the technical and artistic aspects that have a place in these film productions with the Astarté awards. a statuette created and made in Ibiza in honour of the Phoenician goddess who left her mark on the island.

In addition to the Official SOC Short Film Section, the festival also has Parallel Sections, as well as the Official SOL Feature Film Section and the projects in development thanks to the creation of the Ibiza Film Market Project Forum, organized by BIAM (Balearic Islands Audiovisual Market) within the framework of the festival, to promote professional cinema on the island, so that a meeting point is generated with the national and international industry to generate and strengthen relationships within the sector: creators, producers, platforms, buyers, etc.

All these activities come together in Ibiza, a perfect place to disconnect from the routines and stress of the big cities and, in this perfect setting, synergies, new projects and learning take place, closing contracts and thus generating the film industry in an unparalleled environment.

Ibicine has been selected by UNESCO as the representative festival of Spain in the Movie Travel film tourism routes, has received recognition from the Consell d'Eivissa, has been awarded the Business Excellence Award as Best Festival in the Balearic Islands by Acquisition International magazine and Festival of the Year 2023 - Spain by LUXlife magazine.

Since 2022 the Festival has been a collaborator of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of Spain, being part of the list of festivals that qualify for the Goya Awards, in the categories of Fiction, Animation and Documentary, in this 8th edition for the Goya Awards 2026.

In this way, the fiction, animation and documentary short films awarded with the Astarté for best fiction short film and with the Astarté for best documentary short film, will opt directly for nomination for the Goya awards, and those selected in the Official Section of Ibicine will be able to opt to enter the list of qualified for the Goya if they add, along with this selection, six other selections in festivals collaborating with the Academy. ***

To consult the rules of participation in the 39th edition of the Goya Awards
Click on the following link (short films on page 39) : https://www.premiosgoya.com/pdfs/bases-39-premios-goya/

To consult the list of festivals collaborating with the Goya awards:
https://www.premiosgoya.com/pdfs/listado-festivales-39-premios-goya/

In addition, the short film awarded with the Astarté for best fiction short film will be qualified for the Fugaz 2025 awards of Cortoespaña.

Ibicine's selection committee is made up of professionals from the sector from different guilds: editing, directing, scriptwriting, cinematography, acting and production; and works together so that the selection is careful and always responds to the criteria of professional quality, diversity, equality with varied themes and genres, to achieve an annual program that manages to take viewers to enjoy and learn from the seventh art through different stories and perspectives.

The jury of each edition of Ibicine is made up of an average of between five and seven professionals from the film sector, also representatives of the different guilds. The jury is chaired by a professional selected by the board of directors of the Association, who has the power to break the tie in the event of a tie, in addition to attending to the media on behalf of the rest of the jury, it is always made up of a large part of members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of Spain, as well as international members.

Ibicine has been sponsored in each of its editions by the actresses Paz Vega, Cayetana Guillén Cuervo, Nadia de Santiago, Inma Cuevas and Michelle Calvó and sponsored, since the first edition, by the actor and comedian Jon Plazaola, who accompanies us in each edition as a lifetime sponsor of the festival.

To date, we have celebrated and recognized the talent of national and international talents, rewarding their film careers with the Astarté de Honor award to: the actress Terele Pávez, the director Isabel Coixet, the Association of Women Filmmakers and Audiovisual Media CIMA, the actor and director Paco León, the actress Yolanda Ramos, the comedian Eva Soriano, the journalist and film disseminator Cayetana Guillén Cuervo, the international producer and screenwriter Axel Kuschevatzky, the co-founder of FILMIN Jaume Ripoll and the international actor Leonardo Sbaraglia.

Ibicine is possible thanks to the support of island institutions such as the Consell d'Eivissa, l'Ajuntament d'Eivissa, l'Ajuntament de Santa Eulària and l'Ajuntament de Sant Antoni de Portmany, as well as that of sponsoring companies, collaborators and the media dissemination of media partners such as IB3, Diario de Ibiza, TEF, Cadena SER and Periódico de Ibiza. It is thanks to them, the passionate team and the volunteers who join every year, that this cultural meeting in Ibiza is possible and has become an essential annual event for all film buffs.

TODOS SOMOS DIFERENTES (WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT) it is configured as an International Film Festival that seeks to make visible audiovisual works that address issues related to different types of disability as well as the Rights of People with Disabilities, such as equal opportunities, social inclusion, participation and accessibility. In this seventh edition, due to the global health emergency, both the Festival and the various activities will take place virtually.

Likewise, it seeks to enhance and encourage the participation of organizations of and for people with disabilities and educational institutions, artists, workers in the audiovisual world and people with an interest in the development of films that revolves around these themes.

Next screenings:

December 11, 2020 → Ulysse, Onet le Château, France
December 8, 2020 → Votiv Kino, Vienna, Austria
November 26, 2020 → Le Dôme, Québec, Québec
November 13-15 → Black Box Theatre, Drysdale, Australia
November 12, 2020 → Brookes Doc Club, Oxford, UK
September 23, 2020 → 3C, Aix-en-Provence, France

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“99.media is a carefully curated selection of documentaries from around the world swooping down into extraordinary lives.” — Rob Alderson, WePresent

99.media is a new kind of documentary film festival: both online and in real life.

It is a free and not-for-profit video platform streaming documentaries in 6 languages (English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German and Italian) + a series of live screenings in different cities where our languages are spoken.

Our objective is to democratize documentaries thanks to multilingualism and to help filmmakers get wider audiences and more impact.

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"99.media has embarked on a beautiful campaign to share films with the world. Subtitling my film from Arabic and English into a half-dozen languages opens the door for cross-cultural impact in ways I’ve always dreamed about. Their initiative to share powerful works of art with the world is a noble calling, and I’ve watched as my film has reached new people. I’m grateful for the opportunity to have my film play on their platform."
— Matthew K. Firpo, filmmaker

"99.media translated my documentary into 5 additional languages, ultimately helping the film reach a much wider audience, and become globally relevant. Films are made to be seen, and reaching an international audience like this is invaluable”.
— Lukas Schrank, filmmaker

“My short documentary was translated into 5 languages by 99.media, which helped it gain a lot more exposure and massively increased its global reach. I have a lot of respect for, and trust in the team, who has always dealt with me in a professional and honest fashion and who I believe has a real passion for short film and a lot of respect for filmmakers.”

— Andy Oxley, filmmaker