Blog: Film festivals

We are an annual independent short film festival based in Brussels, Belgium, from January 20 to 24, 2021. Every year, we select over 100 short films and invite more than 40 filmmakers from all around the world.

The festival has been running for 16 years now with increasing success. We screen mainly independent films, not specially trashy movies. we love originality and creativity. Cheapness and Beauty !

The idea for Courts Mais Trash originated from a lack of a proper platform for independent short films to be screened.

Films that fail to meet conservative cinematographic standards are mostly snubbed by festival programmers and legitimate audio-visual venues. Trash is often just perceived in the provocative sense of the word; shocking and equally alternative, political, cheap and offbeat… .

Every category of film will be projected, from experimental to animation, through video clips and documentaries. No genre is left unexploited. The shorts don’t have to be ‘trash’ per se, but we do encourage work that is ‘out there’, on the cusp of the cutting edge and stimulating to the spectators interests. To avoid any possible confusion: the screenings are adults only.

Do you wish to participate in the biggest blowout alternative, underground and independent cinema has to offer, then act now! What are you waiting for?

Patagonia Eco Film Fest, calls filmmakers from all over the world to participate in the 9th International Environmental Film Festival of Patagonia which will take place in Puerto Madryn city, Chubut, Argentina from September 5-10, 2024.

The festival will accept documentary, fiction, animation films, about environmental issues.

The Festival de Cine Comprometido de Guadalajara (FESCIGU) celebrates its 22nd edition this year, and it does so with a change of venue, since the Guadalajara City Council has decided to censor it and cancel the agreement. Therefore, starting this year the festival will take place in Azuqueca de Henares. Throughout these years, we have tried to bring our audience the best of the world of short films, with social, protest or simply humanist content. All genres fit, as long as violence is not advocated. The FESCIGU is a preselection festival for the Goya Awards.

About
This Festival was founded in 2011

Film night at the castle is multicultural open air galery of short films, unique in Europe and Slovak area. Thanks to its` unique placement at Saris castle open air grounds, festival attracts` film lovers since 2011.

Since then around 500 short films has been screened at Saris Castle hill. In 2020 we would like to increase this number, using not only one screening place as it was usual during previous years, but 3 screening places during two film nights. Festival will be accompanied with series of workshops about audio-visual and film, and other activities focused on families (theatre for kids, painting activities,) and music performances for all. During this year we would like to offer two, new competition sections. Award for
- The best protagonist at the documentary film (selected by expert jury), and Anti Award -

Worst short film of the festival (audience award). We also want to create new ‘Chill out zone’ for visitors who want to enjoy nature around The Castle Saris. For Family visitors we would like to offer full-fledged program as usual. Visitors will also appreciate unique opportunity for camping which is not allowed during regular year. This opportunity is one of many benefits visitors enjoy during our festival. Film night starts with one feature film and a whole night of short films after from various productions and countries.

Cinema as a social phenomenon has become one of the most innovative and enriching cultural consumptions and practices of the XX century. Clearly, cinema changes us but this transformation that film provokes is not just individual. We’re also asking for as a community. Therefore, cinema must be understood as a social phenomenon, as a cultural vehicle, as a complex device which catalyze the yearnings and portraits of a society, as a producer of subjectivities.

For the city of Chivilcoy the launching of an international film festival represents a chimerical cultural proposal. Its background is based on previous experiences that bond these individual and collective practices: shootings, film’s retrospectives, workshops, festivals and other events that take place in our community. This whole set of inputs is a key component, coupled with the suitable reaction of the local public who are eager to rejoice at the "seventh art" and to enjoy a festival as a space for exchange, dialogue and circulation of cultural goods.

16th Rodinia Short Film Festival 2024

The objective is to present a selection of the best short films in the fiction, animation, experimental and documentary genres in order to allow the dissemination, dialogue and evaluation of the development and importance of the short film within audiovisual production.

CALL FOR SHORT FILMS
AL BAHR INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM FESTIVAL ON THE ARAB WORLD المهرجان الدولي للأفلام القصيرة حول العالم العربي - البحر
The Al-Quds Association announces a call for submission of short films to the 1st Edition of the Al Bahr International Festival of Short Films on the Arab World, with the objective of promoting Arab films in our country and reconsidering our orientalist vision of contemporary Arab societies. From these shores of the Mediterranean, with a critical outlook based on human rights and social denunciation, we seek to make visible the plurality and diversity of the people who inhabit the Arab World and of the communities who come from said world but who live elsewhere.

THE NEW RENAISSANCE

The spacious cinema LAB111 will again be the home of the New Renaissance Film Festival (NRFF) for its seventh edition. This friendly art-house festival which is based in London, and was called “One of the UK’s top film festivals” (London METRO, O1.08.16), has premiered and screened films that went on to win an Oscar or received a major distribution deal.

Despite its relatively small size, there are each year many gems to be found among the many short and feature films in the programme. Furthermore, many filmmakers and actors are traditionally present, and a lot of productive networking takes place.

Apart from a high number of international films, NRFF Amsterdam has a strong LGBT presence, and a category for Dutch Films.

ARTISTICALLY-DRIVEN FILMS, INSPIRING STORIES

Film is a unique medium, and NRFF’s mission is to support and champion inspiring, independent artists and storytellers. This includes experimental work, emotional drama, SF films and an exciting variety of LGBT shorts and features.

Our festival is built around ARTISTS and their STORIES. By doing so, we aim to establish an international COMMUNITY of inspiring storytellers. We are not interested in following current fashions or being political. We seek out stories that are genuinely imaginative, emotional and life-affirming. At the heart of what we do is our passion to tell great stories.

To get a feel for the festival, watch the trailer of the previous year: https://vimeo.com/523206192 and visit the 2022 programme website: www.nrff.nl

INCLUSIVE AND UNIQUE

The festival has several categories for International, Dutch and LGBT filmmakers. We especially love quality dramas with strong emotional themes, but we accept ALL genres. We are also proud to attract a high number of female directors.

Follow our NRFF page on Instagram and Facebook for photos and interesting updates.

SUPPORTING THE INDEPENDENT FILM COMMUNITY

It is our passion to not only provide a stage for our filmmakers but also to strengthen the INDEPENDENT film community, By building an engaged audience through social media. We actively encourage directors, screenwriters, producers and actors to network during the festival and after the event. By doing so, new collaborations have occurred.

Dulcísimo Ovario is a Festival of Female Video and Cinema that showcases and recognizes the work of Mexican women filmmakers and video artists.

We believe in the need to approach new narratives that display a diversity of realities, thoughts, and ways of relating.

Our goal is to organize cycles of presentations, conferences, and screenings of cinema and video, in their different formats and genres, directed by Mexican woman filmmakers and video artists.

For Dulcísimo Ovario, questioning and deconstructing gender representations in audiovisual media has been a starting point since 2017 and in each edition.

The cinema festival Fantasmagoria- Festival de Cine Fantástico y de Terror de Medellín - reaches its 6th edition (Curse of the Full Moon – werewolf cinema). Our competition opens to the world and the city of Medellín to explore genre cinema and reflect on these thematic. The festival has several sections of short films and feature films to embrace the fantastic and horror genre spectrum. Also, to consider relevant national and international people who have done significant work to the genre through their filmography.

Short films and feature films will be selected from any nationality, produced in 2023 or 2024 which have yet to be seen in Colombia. The films have to be related to the fantastic genre. They will be exhibited during the festival in Fantasmagoria in October 2024 in Medellín city, Colombia. The film features will compete for the El Cura Sin Cabeza statuette award.

Green Screen is a new International Film and Photography Festival that aspires to become a leader for environmental causes, raising both the problem and the solution.


NOTICE:
Due to the current situation of abnormality, derived from the COVID19 pandemic and given that this does not allow for mass events to be carried out, as the Green Screen Festival would require, our general meeting has determined not to carry out the edition this year and postpone it for the next .

The festival has an international character and all authors with films in compliance with other propositions can participate. Films selected for competition will be judged in two categories:

1. FILM RECIPE - a sort of documentary that should display complete image and/or text instructions for preparation of culinary creations (meals, drinks or deserts), including information about required ingredients and sequence of work. Based on those, after watching film one should be able to prepare the recipe.

2. OPEN CATEGORY - a film that should thematize or depict content related to food and/or drink.

Duration of individual films submitted is limited to 15 minutes.

The 17th edition of the Alicante Film Festival will be held in October 2020 (final dates to be determined) and will be open to filmmakers worldwide.

Visioni Notturne, in its first edition, is a short horror film festival (science fiction films and fantasy films are included) that represents a snapshot of the horror genre in the varied and always innovative landscape of independent cinema, especially the Italian one.

The program of the festival is the result of a careful examination of the most important films in recent years. It faces with courage personal psychosis, social phobias, clichés and the darkest fears. The horror genre, in a classical sense or not, it’s always one of the most important cinema genres in the history of cinema.
In an adrenaline and precarious balance between today filmmakers and the great film masters of the past, that perhaps have been penalized by the technological limits of their time, Visioni Notturne highlights a bunch of feelings that force the audience to deal with ancestral fears, dark forces and evil characters.

Celebrating its 13th anniversary this year, Tangier Film Festival has firmly established itself on the regional film fest circuit as one of the most reputable african and arab film festivals.

Offering an impressive selection of competitive Features, Fiction shorts, animation shorts and documentary shorts with the presence of very important distributors and festival agents from around the world.

This year, Tangier film festival is inviting filmmakers from around the world to submit their films to get a highlighted news feature by participating for free (if you are selected) at the Tangier Film Market network and have the opportunity to meet many importants producers, buyers and distributors and get your film featured on the Market platform website and promoted to all our members worldwide.

Out of Bounds is an independent event, in Puglia, southern Italy.

In 1945 the American army landed in southern Italy for the "liberation" campaign and suddenly passed through Molfetta, our base city. During their stay the allies reported some neighborhoods as "OUT OF LIMITS" due to the "social danger" of the people who lived there. In the first two editions, 2013 and 2014, our festival took place in two squares, Piazza San Michele and Piazza delle Erbe, near the areas still considered by many to be "out of bounds", in Molfetta.

The “Out Of Bounds” film event is run by filmmakers and focuses on empowering the best independent artists and encouraging all aspects of independent film production. We seek the unconventional, the unusual, the underground, the intuitive, the innovative and the true.

Subsequent editions took place in the cloister of the church of San Domenico, in the port area of ​​the town and in the ancient arena of the castle of Barletta, an evocative and historic medieval place and at the Artists' Citadel of Molfetta.

The special section chosen for the latest editions is "Film School Short". The new section for both national and international works is “Short from the sea”.

This year the Festival will host the first stage of the fourth edition of the "Out of Bounds Film School", a film school supported by the Ministries of Culture and Education.

European Cinefest GOLDEN NIKA is a film competition focusing on international independent cinema.

ECGN is located in the Heart of Europe – Germany.

Our mission is to create a platform where both experienced and new filmmakers can share their art and connect to diverse audiences.

We seek to showcase and honor innovative and exciting voices in the European and international film communities. With ten categories, our goal is to recognize a large and diverse selection of films from all genres and from all over the world.

2019 the best films from each category will be screened on one of the most beautiful venues of Potsdam, THALIA CINEMA, a place with longstanding tradition for independent film lovers. The Thalia has always been one of the most exciting cinemas in Potsdam. This is the place for controversial discoveries and heated debate.

Films will be judged by a jury of film industry professionals, that will look for powerful and innovative ideas, creativity, talent and quality, regardless of the experience of those involved in the creation process and the budget of the submitted works.

¡Hola! We are MADRIFF • Madrid Indie Film Festival, an international film festival with monthly screening events from Madrid, Spain, and member of the IBERIFF • Iberia Indie Film Festivals, which celebrates and showcases new productions and independent artists from all over the world in Madrid (MADRIFF), Barcelona (BARCIFF), València (VALÈIFF), Seville (SEVIFF), Lisbon (LISBIFF) and Montpellier (MONTIFF), that you can also find them here in Festhome.

MADRIFF also promotes the selected films on its official website www.iberiff.org and social media channels, where the nominees can share their nominations with their followers. Fiction, animation, documentary and experimental films of any genre and subject are welcome!

AMOR International LGBT+ Film Festival is the first international film festival in Santiago of Chile focused on the subject of sexual and gender diversity, of independent and competitive nature. The seventh edition of AMOR Festival will take place from June 27th to July 2nd, 2023, in a hybrid format, with digital and physical screenings and activities specifically at national territory.

As in every edition, the festival is proposed as an inclusive space where the programme invites different sectors of society to approach cinema focused on LGBT+ themes (Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transsexuals and all sexual, identity and gender diversities); a safe space for the community in which they can participate, make visible, identify and share. AMOR Festival has positioned itself as an event of high artistic quality that seeks to exhibit the most interesting and unique national and foreign titles that expose diversity, as well as outstanding films that have won awards at world-renowned festivals; and as a space where programming is structured based on gender equality in competitions and activities, giving visibility to women filmmakers.

Love is totally transverse to any sexuality, so with AMOR Festival we hope to contribute to the inclusion of sexual diversity, to strengthen understanding and to celebrate the visibility of sexualities through the seventh art.