Blog: Film festivals

Writers judge filmmakers, filmmakers judge writers!
Winning writer gets their script made by the winning filmmaker!
The writer gets their script made and they get paid. The filmmaker gets funded to shoot it!

Very limited entries and everyone gets lots of coverage of their work!

The winning filmmaker wins $50,000 (Feature) or $25,000 (Short) to shoot one of the top 10 scripts. Winning writer receives $20,000 (Feature) or $10,000 (Short) for their script!

The 14th FICCI-ON - Ciudad Rodrigo International Film Festival aims to promote educational, social and spiritual films made around the world.

The theme of the festival will therefore be educational, social and values-based; including all those films that promote child development in all its aspects.

Values-based films that deal with the subject of human rights, as well as intercultural dialogue. There will also be room for films with ethnographic themes, social denunciation or commitment to the development of the culture of Peace. Regarding spiritual themes, this is a very broad section where religious and/or spiritual films will be included, regardless of the confession and creed of the film and its authors.

WE ARE CLOSED FOR SUBMISSION. THANK YOU.


Celebrates films that bring independent spirit and an original voice to cinema.

At Mongolia International Film Festival
the sky is the ceiling and the grass is the floor.
No matter you are established or not
we believe everyone can tell a story and everyone has a story to tell. What we are looking for are those who have a unique vision an original voice and a free spirit.
They dare to challenge cinema challenge the audience take filmmaking to a whole new level and blow our minds.

Here at Mongolia International Film Festival
is where we await the courageous spirits to inspire us all.

Since 2003 the international Festival SIGNES DE NUIT is active in Paris, Berlin, Saarbrücken, Bankok, Quito (Ecuador), Tucuman (Argentina) and now Urbino, as also with special screenings world wide. The festival in Paris actually presents some Hundrets films over the year coming from around 60 countries.

The Festival is searching films, which reflects new views, original imagery and critical approach to the crucial points of the modern human existence. It is a place for cinema that expands its own boundaries, that is astonishing, different, potentially free from the pressure of tradition, ready to give itself to the unpredictable experimentation.

The minor costs of digital production makes an independant- from comercial influences and any kind of censorship- production possible. These independant productions create an alternative, an artistic space very subtle and accessible to all, in contrast to what mass media offer.

This opposition and the preservation of the free cultural space is the goal of the International Festival Signes de Nuit, which has realized screenings and interventions in 23 different countries including Algeria, Australia, Chile, Cuba, Lebanon, Lithuania, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Peru, Russia, Tunisia, Turkey and the United States beside the screenings in main festival in Paris.

FARO 1540 - Association for the Defense and Promotion of Environmental and Cultural Heritage of Faro, after the success of the last editions of FARCUME - International Short Films Festival of Faro, is organizing the 11th edition of this Festival to be held in the city of Faro from 20 to 22 of September, 2024.

This 14th edition of FARCUME intends to exhibit and promote works in the short films section of up to a maximum of 18 minutes in length, divided into three categories: Animation, Documentary and Fiction.

In this festival, all national and foreign citizens can participate, individually or in groups, simply by complying with the stipulations in the regulation, filling out a registration form and having sent their works to the organization by June 21, 2024, subject to pre-selection.

The main purpose of this Festival remains the same: publicize and launch new talents as well as promote near the public the excellent works that are done in this area but not always have the desired and deserved promotion.

In other words, FARCUME within an informal environment, good mood and relaxed atmosphere intents to reward and recognize the dedication, commitment, creativity and merit of directors, actors and technical teams that, with modest means, can develop works of great quality.

Given the principles and goals of "FARO 1540", which even has the status of NGO (Non Governmental Environmental Organization) the Festival will continue to have a strong environmental concern and sensitivity alerting participants not to present short movies claiming or encouraging disrespect for the environment, human rights inequality or animal abuse. It will be further developed an Environmental Management Plan specifically "designed" for this event to ensure optimization of the resources needed for the promotion and accomplishment of the event and management of generated wastes.

Mission:

A judged film festival described as "Sundance with Fangs" by Newsday Long Island. We provide a venue for showcasing your films within a celebratory & respectful environment, where fans can enjoy the independent films entered by those of you who passionately craft your Strange-ifical, Weird-ifical, Horror-ifical, Sci-fi-tastical, Fantastical and Macabre-licious films. The opportunity to win awards, increase film visibility via press and possibly obtain distribution is always part of the equation with the Macabre Faire Film Festival.

For starters the word "Macabre" is pronounced: Ma-Cob. The "re" is hardly ever heard. What does it mean?

Although it is an adjective meaning: disturbing and horrifying because of involvement with or depiction of death and injury, WE ARE NOT SOLELY A HORROR FILM FESTIVAL but instead a whole lot more than that. We usually approach the Macabre Faire Film Festival with a lighter touch in the sense that, not all of the films screened are horror and instead many may simply be considered a bit on the darker side. Of course, we will add some horror to this festival but, when we hear the word "Macabre" we remember those hauntingly fascinating films that starred legendary greats such as:
Vincent Price & Peter Cushing or those fantastic Gothic horrors like the "Hammer" films. These names in themselves represent what "macabre" means to us. What we are saying is that the word "Macabre" DOES NOT mean we only accept HORROR films but instead that we welcome those films that can tap into our fears through what you don't see or hear. A dark drama, mystery, suspense, thriller or dark comedy can do a lovely job making us feel uncomfortable in the dark. So folks, this is what many of the films selected for the Macabre Faire Film Festival offer. A buffet for any pallet. About the only thing we may have to say "No Thanks" to would be a romantic comedy/drama... unless, there's a monster under the bed during love making or other dark element.

All submitted films are pre-screened by select judges that includes Eileen Dietz, our Festival Ambassador, of the original "The Exorcist" film to ensure the films have followed guidelines and are an overall fit for the festival. Then the films are passed on to another set of judges consisting of more filmmakers, film critics, genre film fans and or seasoned actors to choose the Official Selections. Once these selections have been identified there is an additional judging process in collaboration with the original pre-screening judges to identify the different category nominees. Once you have been notified we insist on having the film festival entry form filled out and submitted back to the festival via email or snail mail within 4 weeks of acceptance. This form can be found on our website or it has been emailed to you as an attachment with your initial welcoming email.

URGENT NOTE: IF THERE IS NO CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE FESTIVAL AND INDIVIDUAL WHO SUBMITTED THE ACCEPTED FILM WITHIN 4 WEEKS FROM INITIAL ACCEPTANCE NOTIFICATION, WHICH ALL FILMMAKERS RECEIVE FROM FESTHOME BY DEADLINE DATE, YOUR FILM WILL NO LONGER BE AN OFFICIAL SELECTION IN THE MACABRE FAIRE FILM FESTIVAL. So we urge everyone to check their spam folders at all times and or ensure to make contact with the festival within 4 weeks of the acceptance notification. Failure to do so will exclude your film from the festival. Please take the time to ACTUALLY READ all the pages of the submission form which contains mailing address information (if needed) and other very important details which includes getting your discs or film posters sent to the festival in a timely fashion. This does not mean mailing materials in 2 weeks before the event as they will not be accepted.

Moving on...
January's festival always falls on Martin Luther King Jr weekend for easy remembering. This 4 day event start with Thursday and Friday being solely screening days with minimal panels within 3 screening rooms. The festival continues for another 2 days with Saturday screenings starting at 12pm into midnight within 4-5 screening rooms and an intimately sized vendor room with additional panels available for guests. Saturday evening is capped with an elaborate Red Carpet Gala Award Ceremony that offers a glamorous atmosphere filled with Press, Photos, Entertainment, Dinner and Awards! This is NOT to be missed.

Sunday captures the conversations from the night prior winners and more. A perfect day to catch those shorts you may have missed as it usually hosts an encore segment for short films from 12pm until 6pm. Be sure to visit the vendor room before the day is over and sit in on another panel or other special treat before it all ends until the following year.

Several films that have screened at MFFF have received distribution at this time for titles like: Cannibal Diner, Caesar & Otto's Deadly XMas, Caesar & Otto's Paranormal Halloween, Model Hunger, The Perfect House, House of Afflictions, Dead Woman's Hollow, The Long Island Serial Killer, The Ghouligans, Devil Knows His Own, Coyote, and others being discussed at this very moment. Will yours be next?

EIDF, Presented by Korea Educational Broadcasting System. is 12th edition this year.
As an unique documentary festival of which all the selected works are screened at theaters and are broadcast during festival, EIDF has contributed to introduce the excellent, various documentaries to the audeince and develop the quialify of docuemtary making.

ANIMA – Córdoba International Animation Festival is both an academic and cultural event, devoted specifically to animation in its artistic and technological dimensions. Held every odd year since 2001, ANIMA is the main animation event in Argentina and a very influential player in its field in Latin America.

Every edition, ANIMA gathers a wonderful community of animators and live action filmmakers, designers, producers, visual and audiovisual artists, who get together the three days of the festival through panels, seminars, exhibitions, screenings and social networking opportunities.

The Ko&digital: Festival Internacional de Cine Solidario project starts its Call for entries for short films (fiction, documentary, animation) which focus on social, environmental and solidarity related themes.

BOSIFEST is the International Film Festival for and by persons with disabilities, the only one of this kind in the Southeast Europe, which will be organized this year for the fourteenth time in Serbia by the Hendi Center Koloseum. As in past thirteen years, this year on the big screen a great number of films will be shown both in competitive and non-competitive part. So far visitors of the BOSIFEST had an opportunity to watch 700 films that had life of the people with disabilities as their subject or were created by the disabled authors.

Axolotl Film Festival of Mexico City with Cactus Films invite Mexican and international filmmakers residing in and outside the country to participate in its second edition to be be held from the 9th to the 13th of November, 2016 in the windows of different shops on the main streets of the Historical Center of Mexico City.

The shop windows are natural screens, generally disregarded, ready to present and recreate our lives and experiences in Mexico City. Commercial establishments are no longer meeting places for citizens and, conversely, are spaces that separate us. We believe that cinema can generate and promote a sense of community among the residents and the visitors of the city.

All participating short film and video need to reference, in their subject matter, characters, settings and/ or storyline, to Mexico City. The short films could have been produced in Mexico City, in other states or abroad.

The cultural associations AlchemicartS and Gruppo Augusteo, in collaboration with Tetra Vision Production, are pleased to announce the 15th International Short Film Festival, "CORTISONANTI 2024," renowned for its innovation and well-organized filmmaking workshops in Naples, Italy.

A-TAR: International Festival of Film Schools is now accepting submissions from all colleges, universities and film institutes. It will screen shorts and feature films produced by film students and faculty.

A-TAR will take place from September 23 rd to September 27 th, 2019 in the city of Mexicali, Mexico.

Ars Independent Festival 2019 will be the 9th multimedia festival of film, animation, video games and music videos. The upcoming edition will take place in Katowice, between the 24th and 29th of September 2019.

The festival is searching for what’s cool in young, debuting, contemporary audio-visual culture. It’s not afraid to watch videos with 27 views on YouTube, it’s missing the “least popular” sorting option on itch.io and considers Festival Scope Pro decidedly “too mainstream”.

The heart of the festival are four international competitions, in which the audience decides about the awarding of prizes. The Black Horse of Film (feature films from all over the world) and the Black Horse of Animation (short features) present the cinematographic debuts by directors from the entire world, often as their Polish premieres. The Black Horse of Video Games and the Black Horse of Music Video are devoted to new games and music videos.

Additionally, every year festivalgoers are treated to: screenings of films, animations and music videos, video game exhibitions, virtual reality and new technologies, discussion panels and Q&As with artists, concerts, live acts and musical afterparties.

In previous years, the festival hosted a variety of artists from all over the world, including Béla Tarr, Nina Menkes, Phil Mulloy, Laila Pakalnina, Bruce LaBruce, Tami Tamaki, Stephen „M.O.O.N.” Gilarde, Jakuba Dvorský, Mariola Brillowska, Piotr Dumała, Arkadiusz Jakubik, Bodo Kox, Łukasz Barczyk, Sos Sosowski, Wiktor Stribog and Władysław Komendarek.

The event is organized by the culture institution Katowice the City of Gardens and the City of Katowice.

To participate in the first edition of "Cefalu Film Festival Pino Scicluna» must register by April 25, 2015 using the special form that is on the page of the competition and also published in the electronic journal 'Cefalunews. "Participation in the competition is free. Each participant will have to get your movie to the secretariat of the "Cefalu Film Festival Pino Scicolone" in digital format, for the projection to the public, by May 31, 2015.

Internation Film Festival of Sao Tome and Principe.

The competition is addressed to filmmakers from all over the world who produce short films and documentaries.

Its purpose is to appraise short films and documentary-films whose goal is expressiveness and cultural disclosure starting a cinematographic event throughout Val d’Intelvi.

The Inffinito Festival Circuit opens registration for its editions in 2020!

The Inffinito Circuit is a pioneering action to promote Brazil in the international market, through film festivals. It is a reference in the diffusion of Brazilian products and services, in addition to building an effective platform for business exchanging and promotion of the country's tourist destinations.

Over our 24 years of experience in organizing festivals abroad, we have held 82 festivals in 13 cities. We presented 62 concerts by renowned artists of Brazilian music and exhibited 865 national films. We confirm the interest of the foreign public in getting to know Brazil better, its culture, customs, products and tourist destinations.

PROGRAM 2020
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14th Braff New York - June 21st to 27th, 2020
24th Braff Miami - September 12th to 19th, 2020

14th Brazilian Film Festival of New York - June 21st to 27th, 2020.
Braff NY is an official event on the New York cultural calendar and is known as a powerful tool for visibility and promotion of Brazil in the United States.

24th Brazilian Film Festival of Miami - September 12th to 19th, 2020.
BRAFF Miami is an official festival of Miami Dade County, the cities of Miami and Miami Beach and the government of Florida. The Brazilian Film Festival of Miami (BRAFF) is the pioneer and the world's longest continually running Brazilian Film Festival. Held for 24 consecutive years, since the resumption of Brazilian cinema. Its commitment and dedication to showcase Brazilian films overseas have conquered a larger loyal audience that looks forward to the annual event for an updated overview of Brazilian cinema. The Festival has proven itself as a fundamental and valuable resource for introducing Brazil’s finest new productions to US audiences, a natural showcase for promotion in addition to be a business environment with extraordinary economic potential for the Brazilian production chain.

We screen the best documentaries from around the world at the Roxie Cinema, the oldest art house theater west of the Mississippi. Many of our titles end up with calendared runs at the Roxie later in the year. We get great press coverage in San Francisco, the second largest film market in the country, plus industry reviews.

San Francisco is a very receptive town for documentaries and our fest has built a passionate following over the past 24 years.

LAST YEAR'S PRESS COVERAGE: https://sfindie.com/press-coverage

SF DocFest is an annual festival devoted to documentary cinema. Since 2001, this event has brought the most weird and wonderful aspects of real life to the big screen.

"What makes the scrappy San Francisco Documentary Film Festival a treasure to SF Bay Area filmgoers is its willingness to take that extra step to show films a little more out there than bog standard documentaries." - Peter Wong, Broke Ass Stuart

“Docfest offers a zippy blend of politics, music, social issues and youth-oriented subcultures. The good news is that DocFest promotes documentaries as a vibrant, irreverent form of entertainment to a younger demographic, blasting the notion of educational films to smithereens. There’s no room for anything approximating — watch it, I’m about to blaspheme – the obsessively measured and utterly somnambulant musings of Ken Burns.” – Michael Fox, KQED

“Since its inception, DocFest (May 31-June 15 at the Roxie and the Vogue, with opening night at Alamo Drafthouse) has compiled a colorful scrapbook of genuine characters in contrast to the current events survey, educational seminar or social-issue forum that defines many documentary series… There are one or two people in Off the Charts you won’t soon forget, which could be said about nearly every film in DocFest. That’s one of the pleasures of scrapbooks.” – also Michael Fox, KQED

Michael Fox just loves DocFest, here's another:

"Welcome to SF DocFest, the beloved annual compendium of odd, unusual nonfiction films from every nook and corner of our bizarro country and beyond. Waving off the pedigreed, high-profile docs that premiere at Sundance, get theatrical releases (or these days, national virtual releases) and chart a course for the Academy Awards, SF DocFest’s programmers opt for poignant, intimate works that miss the mainstream by dint of their iconoclasm and/or lack of a marketing hook." -KQED

"This week brings the kickoff to the 20th edition of SF Docfest, the rapidly-becoming-venerable nonfiction showcase that nonetheless continues to put the fun in documentary cinema appreciation. While other such showcases tend to be soberly issue-themed, focusing on the environment, activism, or some such, Docfest pursues—though not exclusively—colorful human interest stories, musician profiles, and other subjects on which there will not be a class quiz afterward." - Dennis Harvey, 48Hills

We are a festival that emphatically promotes independent social cinema, that cinema that tells stories of people, places, conditions and situations common to the bulk of humanity. In other words, stories of flesh and blood, sensitive and true.

On the other hand, we are convinced that cinema is the most important tool of social and cultural transformation in the world; and that festivals are alternative media and windows of exhibition, whose specific function is the dynamic interaction with the target audience, in order to reach levels of deep awareness for those spectators.

Therefore, we want to introduce ourselves to you, filmmakers, in a formal and honest way, pretending to be considered a bridge between those who see, interpret and shape reality in a different way and the inhabitants of our region; a region located in Colombia, which urgently needs to hear messages of social and cultural hope through art, in order to achieve inner peace and radical changes in their lives.