Blog: Film festivals

"Content Creators Changing the World, One Project at a Time" is the theme of the 23rd Urban Mediamakers Film Festival, October 14-27, 2024. The festival is in-person and virtual with events throughout Gwinnett County, GA -- Duluth, Lawrenceville, Lilburn, Norcross, Snellville -- as well as Atlanta, and Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC). UMFF features a daily virtual space with guest speakers, sessions and content creators Q&A.

Recognizing media as a powerful tool of choice for entertaining, informing, and inspiring, this annual content creators' festival showcases international, urban independent media. We are open to all creators, and we emphasize work produced by or featuring individuals of color - African, African-American, Asian, Black, Hispanic, Latino Native American, and Pacific Islander.

The Urban Mediamakers Film Festival promotes, supports and showcases filmmakers, independent content creators and multimedia producers — animation, advertising, marketing campaigns, blog, commercials, film, music, new media, podcasts. print, television, scripts, streaming, web series and virtual reality.

Guided by past wisdom and reflecting the new and exciting generation of new technology, we are dedicated to thinking out of the traditional box as we pursue our dreams courageously.

UMFF brings an exciting and creative atmosphere that encompasses cultural diversity, with activists, content creators, artists, writers and TV/movie buffs together under one roof to meet, collaborate and strategize for world change!

Actors, artists, bloggers, content creators, filmmakers, graphic designers, mobile app developers, musicians, podcasters, producers, streamers and writers have an opportunity to gain exposure for their projects, compete for the best-of-the-best with prizes in each category, attend industry-related educational series, along with excellent collaboration and networking.

Movie buffs, content creators, independent film and mix-media supporters have the opportunity to see a diverse group of superb films and projects from creatives that are independent with a vision.

The festival includes:

-- virtual and in-person events.
-- script reading featuring a scene from the top three screenplays in competition.
-- independent film screenings in competition on our UrbanFlixToGo.com platform during the festival with an option to continue on UrbanFlixToGo.com.
-- showcase of bloggers, podcasters, and mobile app developers.
-- 8th Urban PitchFest 2024.
-- 8th AfroFuturism Fest 2024 - Black sci-fi, fantasy, horror and gaming along with international thrillers. AfroFuturism Fest includes vendors, panels, comic book swapping, AfroFuturism cosplay, costume contest for cash prizes, and more.
-- Videopalooza 2024 - Middle and high school competition and screening series.
-- producers/distributors seeking independent films.
-- awards presentation and closing event.
-- closing night film.
-- audience award.
-- filmmaker and writer collaboration breakout sessions (SpeedCollabs).
-- winning films will be showcased on our streaming service UrbanFlixToGo.com.

UMFF attendees have an opportunity to network with their peers and executives for collaborations on future projects, as well as interact with an audience that supports independent mediamaking.

YOUR project will make our festival phenomenal! Submit to UMFF 2024 today!

Only for Spanish Filmmakers // Solo para cineastas españoles.

The Humus Film Fest is an international festival of short films with environmental themes, focused on audiovisual pieces that show, from fiction or reality, agroecology experiences, urban gardens, connections between the countryside and the city or new ruralities.

The festival aspires to accommodate both the most professional and amateur creators, with
the aim of broadening views on the connections between these two ecosystems, the countryside and the city. We look for stories that tell us about these relationships from humor, poetry, surrealism or everyday life.

The theme of the contest is death understood as the end of life. The works must reflect death from the perspective of the authorship of the works.

Medrar for Contemporary Art launches its call for the 11th edition of Cairo Video Festival, which will be held in December 2024. The festival continues its focus on providing a platform for sharing and discussing newly produced video art and experimental film. Programs will be screened in conventional and non-conventional venues, in theater and exhibition spaces to promote, expand and harvest attention to the practice.

The 11th edition of Cairo Video Festival culminates many steps and stages that represent our experiences with video art and experimental film, and also summarizes our recurrent inquiries about the relationship between artistic expression and the reality we live in, the current events and our eagerness to experiment and add new and different values ​​with each edition. It is an opportunity that we yearn for with every edition to witness these innovations, experiences and new concepts from around the world, and to share them with the public.

The call for submission is directed towards video artists and experimental filmmakers from various technical fields. We also encourage designers and developers who work in the fields of virtual reality, animation, interactive softwares, and artistic games via the Internet, computers or smartphones to respond to the call. Likewise, those who emphasize the use of the moving image in their installations or live performances. Curators and institutions involved in the production and distribution of video art and experimental film are encouraged to submit their programs. The festival’s program takes the format of a series of showcases, accompanied by talks and discussions with active video-makers and curators to tackle some of the key themes and issues addressed in the works.

Check out the previous edition
https://www.cvf.medrar.org/ar/about-cvf10/

For this edition, the competitive section consists of two official categories:

1) MANIFESTARTE Fiction Competition

2) MANIFESTARTE Non-fiction competition

Cerdanya Film Festival, Festival Internacional de Cinema de Cerdanya, is a Festival specialized in the documentary, fiction and animation genre, short and feature films, consisting of competitive international sections, non-competitive sections and parallel activities. All the films that are part of the different sections will be selected by the Festival programmers.

Cerdanya Film Festival qualifies for the 2024 Premios Goya – Spanish Film Academy in Best Spanish Shortfilm, in both Fiction and Documentary categories.

The 16th edition of the Cerdanya Film Festival will be held from 1st to 15th August 2025.

Third Exhibition of the Cineteca Veracruz
ANNOUNCEMENT


The civil association Cineteca Veracruz calls on Mexican and foreign filmmakers to register their cinematographic works in the different non-competitive sections to participate in the Third Exhibition of the Cineteca Veracruz, which will take place in the months of October and November 2024.

Film reception period: April 22 to August 31, 2024.

Selection notification: September 16, 2024


Non-competitive sections

The cinema of Veracruz

All Veracruz filmmakers, national and foreign, are invited to participate in this section whose cinematographic works have a thematic or conceptual relationship with the Veracruz territory in the short film modalities (works between 5 and 30 minutes long) of fiction or nonfiction interchangeably.

Mexican short film

All filmmakers of Mexican nationality are invited to participate in this section with their cinematographic works in the form of short films (works between 5 and 30 minutes long) of fiction or non-fiction without distinction.


Mexican feature film

All filmmakers of Mexican nationality are invited to participate in this section with their cinematographic works in the form of feature films (works between 60 and 120 minutes long) of fiction or non-fiction without distinction.


International feature film

All filmmakers of any nationality are invited to participate in this section with their cinematographic works in the form of feature films (works between 60 and 120 minutes long) of fiction or non-fiction without distinction.

Animation special

All filmmakers of any nationality are invited to participate in this section with their cinematographic works in the form of animated short films (works between 5 and 30 minutes long) of fiction or non-fiction without distinction.

The 18th edition of CORTOCOMENIUS intends to show the best valencian productions , with the intention of promoting, broadcast and support to the development of the digital cinema.

"Sezze Film Festival" is a cinema and entertainment event dedicated to Italian and foreign short films.

The 2024 edition in its 6th edition will have special prizes dedicated to films, documentaries, web series and music video clips.

The Festival will be held in Sezze (LT) on 16 and 17 December 2022 for the Documentaries, Music Video Clips and Web Series categories.
For the Short Films and Feature Films categories it will take place in September 2023.

Prizes will be dedicated to the best works and their artistic and technical figures.

For information and applications:

sezzefilmfestival@libero.it

https://www.facebook.com/sezzefilmfestival/

Only for Colombian Film-makers. FESTIVAL LABERINTO is a film festival for those who live and breath cinema, wether as film critics, productors or cinephiles. We want to build new possibilities for audiovisual arts in general, so the inherent diversity of our ideas and sensibilities can be expressed. Open social environments are required to reach the objectives of this festival; our purpose is to create such environments, especially in Boyacá, and potentially in the rest of the country. Coming from a formative, divulgative and creative standpoint, we extend an invitation to all of the people interested in filmaking.

We want you to put your imagination in motion.

Bolder and more complex ways of living and exploring cinema are just around the corner. We would like to explore those new possibilities with you. Those who are interested in our event will be able to submit their work in the folllowing open calls.

CINE NO VISTO
International low-budget independent film festival

PRESENTATION
Festival de Cine no Visto has the main objective of giving visibility to those independent and low or no budget productions which, for different reasons, don’t reach the major public and whose only option for a greater recognition is found in festivals.

The organization of the Festival de Cine no Visto is aware of the great effort that producers have to endure in order to carry out a project with very limited means. Technical aspects are for us just another element in the process, so the main reasons to be selected will not depend on the means used. We are much more interested in what is told and the symbolism in each shot.
We are undoubtedly going to consider all and each of the aspects: performance, editing, cinematography, music, screenplay, to sum up, everything necessary in the production of an audiovisual project.

CATEGORIES
⦁ Best feature film
⦁ Best Foreign short film
⦁ Best Andalusian short film
⦁ Best Spanish short film

*AWARDS
⦁ Best feature film (International and Andalusian)
⦁ Best short film (within each category)
⦁ Best actor (feature film)
⦁ Best director (feature film)
⦁ Best cinematographer (feature film)
⦁ Best film editing (feature film)
⦁ Best screenplay (feature film)
• Best sound
• Best music
⦁ Best film from Jaén (feature or short)

* If your film has been awarded but nobody from your team can attend to the awards ceremony, you won´t receive a physical prize.
** Some categories can be declared void if the jury considers that appropriate.

Only for Spanish filmmakers.

Give Me Voice International Film Festival was born from our main GIVE ME VOICE platform idea, which is a safe haven where artists can freely express their unique voices, and launch their work and tell their story.

The festival GIVE ME VOICE is an event that will take place every three months. We accept short films of any genre, LGBT, documentaries, animations, and horror movies. Each three-month our judges, watch, review and rate the submitted films. The Best Films will announce as the winner every three months.

We are unable to provide a specific review for not selected films.

The GMV Film Festival fully aligns with our original platform's vision and welcomes video and filmmakers from all over the world. The GMV online festival will also provide a hub for filmmakers to connect with other filmmakers, audiences and industry professionals. Thus, fostering global and vibrant communities of storytellers and film enthusiasts, not to mention the invaluable exposure the artists can receive.

Online submissions are open for a period of three months. We will accept short films of various genres including but not limited to LGBT, documentaries, animations, horror movies as well as music videos. During the submission period, our judges will review and rate all films and videos entered. Winners will be announced at the end of each submission quarter. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide specific reviews for not-selected films.

OUR MISSION

Our mission is to give an opportunity for filmmakers to present their work to a global community. GIVE ME VOICE will bring out the Best Short, LGBT, documentaries, animations, horror movies and music videos from all cultures. It serves as a place where filmmakers can share their creativity and talent, and potentially gain recognition and opportunities for their work to be seen by industry professionals. Additionally, it allows viewers to discover and enjoy a wide range of creative content of a globally recognized VOICE.

In 3 countries - Austria, Hungary and Slovakia.

Meet the best films and filmmakers of the Danube region on 1st to 5th October, 2024. The 7th Blue Danube Film Festival will take place in Vienna, Budapest and Bratislava.

The Blue Danube Film Festival is a film festival, which showcases independent films from the Danube region and the world. We encourage creativity and experimentation. We are open to all kinds of films. The Blue Danube Film Festival aims to inspire and motivate talented filmmakers, who are looking to engender new forms and who explore the condition of our society through critical lens.

Films are evaluated by our professional jury within the context of their entry category with regards to generally accepted filmmaking quality criteria (ie.: subjective vision, production quality, aesthetic position, structure, cinematography, direction, creativity, etc.).

We screen the selected films in Vienna, Budapest and Bratislava in art cinemas and cultural centers.

We can only accept films by directors from the following 18 Countries in the broader Danube region and CEI member countries: Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Ukraine, Italy, Slovenia, Poland, Czech Republic, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In the categories Fiction, Animation, Documentary and Experimental you can submitting films from all over the world.

BDFF 2024 is the region's first film festival that actually crosses borders. It will “Sail up” the Danube from Budapest via Bratislava to Vienna. We show the audience approx. ten feature-length and forty short films in the three cities and five festival locations.

During the festival, two juries (long and short films) will evaluate the films and the winners who (if the budget allows it) receives not only media attention but also prize money.

Three super-short films under five minutes will be selected and promoted using the augmented reality app ARGO can also be brought to life on posters and flyers.


We are looking forward to the movies!

The BELLAVISTA FILM FESTIVAL (BVFF) seeks to inspire, empower, and unify our audience through cinematographic art of social impact.

The festival is a space in which the community and cinema converse through cinematographic works of art selected with great artistic value and a theme of representative and relevant social impact. Thus promoting social impact cinema as a tool to stimulate critical thinking and motivate social action to catalyze agents of change in their communities and beyond.

As a development of a social project for cultural growth, the festival seeks to promote exhibition spaces for the curated works, in addition to movie theaters, cinematheques and cultural institutions, also in neighborhood and rural locations and on an itinerant basis in representative cultural spaces in the rest of the country and Latin America.

We trust in the power of cinema as a commitment to social transformation and high-quality cultural reflection.

The Canary Islands Fantastic Film Festival - Isla Calavera opens the call for entries for feature and short films, fiction and documentary in real image and animation.

10th NEZ International Film Festival (NIFF)

28th to 30th March , 2025

NEZ stands for simplicity of life and existence. NEZ is not a corporate, nor an NGO; in fact no standard term can describe NEZ. It simply is a platform for beings in this planet to come forward, and come together and explore their collective talents for the progress of the world and beyond. We have long enough thought about espousing our cause and ours alone. Now we think together. It is a platform to promote excellence in Education, Arts, Literature, Films, Medicine, Science, Research, Community Service etc. The philosophy at NEZ is very simple. We share collective fate. We seek new thought patterns that shall shape this world and the universe in times to come.

NEZ International Film Festival (NIFF) stands for best of world cinemas in the categories of Feature Films, Short Films, Documentaries Films and Ad Films. A platform of NIFF is meant for bringing undiscovered pure talents before a larger audience of the world.

NIFF is an umbrella; it is a conglomeration of niche festivals under one category. We treat the entire event as a visual carnival. The purpose of the festival is to celebrate everything the visual medium of cinema has to offer. We are now stepping into 3rd year of our Journey and proudly announce two more categories from this year.

1. “The Smart Phone Cinema”
NIFF always Endeavour to create something new, something Path breaking. It strives to recognize and to reward challenging aspects of cinema in all its forms. To celebrate the impact of cinema in modern age, NIFF is proud to announce a complete new category from this year “The Smart Phone Cinema”. We would be accepting movies in The Student Category and The Professional Category. The movie has to be a minimum of 4 minutes and maximum of 15 minutes. Every entry has to be accompanied by shooting Stills, substantiating the movie was indeed shot using the smart phone.

2. NIFF GREENS
That which is Paramount is also fragile. What better example we can have of this fact other than the Planets Eco System or the Environment. Sadly the most Paramount things behind the survival of humans are also most abused by the same humans. We stand at a dangerous point. Our Abuse of the Planet’s Environment is leading us to sure extinction. We need to raise awareness of that. Here at NIFF, we understand the Issue so much that we have created a separate category under the main festival Titled “NIFF GREENS”. It will showcase, any movie, shorts feature or documentary that highlights the issue of Environment.

CBFF – Vigo International Film Festival is an International Cinematographic event organized by the production and distribution company CityBlue Films. It will celebrate its 8th edition between December 9 and 14, 2024, in the city of Vigo, Spain.

OBJECTIVES AND PURPOSE
It is a cultural, social event and a meeting space between the public, creators, media professionals, and representatives of the film industry.

CBFF – Vigo International Film Festival has been created with the main objective of promoting culture through the promotion and dissemination of cinematographic works.

This Festival has been developed to support directors and producers by providing all filmmakers who wish, a space to disseminate and promote their work to the general public.

Being an audiovisual, cultural, artistic, industrial and educational platform, allowing the discovery of new talents and emerging films.

Berriozar Films Kultural “Lantzeluze” announces the “15th International Festival of Social Themed Short Films” that will take place in Berriozar.