The PUCHO DORADO 2026 Festival is now accepting submissions for its international music video competition. We invite musicians, filmmakers, producers, record labels, and bands from around the world to submit their work by July 1, 2026, via the Festhome platform.
This international music video festival is a platform that celebrates the creation and distribution of music videos as an essential artistic expression within the musical universe. Our purpose is to promote the production of audiovisual works that fuse music and image with an authorial vision, fostering the talent of filmmakers, bands, and artists from diverse backgrounds.
Through an open call at both the local and international levels, PUCHO DORADO seeks to establish itself as a meeting place for new audiovisual narratives, where the music video is recognized as a creative piece with its own identity, capable of expanding the aesthetic, cultural, and technological boundaries of contemporary music.
Ricardo Mahnke H.
Audiovisual Communicator
Director, Pucho Dorado Festival
The 19th edition of the Razor Reel Flanders Film Fest, the only Flemish genre film festival, takes place in Fall 2026, in the city center of Bruges. During the Razor Reel Flanders Film Fest, we present a quality selection of the best national and international genre films (fantasy, thrillers, action, fantastic comedies, animated films,...) to our audience, in a unique, intimate and cosy atmosphere! We also welcome many guests and we host lectures and Q&A's that enrich the visitor’s knowledge.
A festival that rises from the underground, with no red carpets or walkways. It’s a space for those who live and breathe fantastic cinema in all its forms: horror, science fiction, supernatural thriller, dark fantasy and anything bold enough to break the rules.
¡For one weekend, we’ll come together to watch what’s emerging from the most restless minds of the Madrid and the international film community! Short films made with grit, with passion, without big budgets but with big ideas. We’re not looking for big names or shelves full of international awards. Here the production value doesn’t matter: ¡what matters is creativity and the desire to shake the audience!
The Babylon International Documentary Film Festival is the first international documentary film festival in Iraq. The festival is a 5 days special event that aims to empower and uplift documentary filmmakers from the MENA region as well as shedding light on Human Rights topics in the region, while also fostering cooperation and cultural exchange between international filmmakers. The festival focuses on showcasing a diverse range of international independent documentary films, with a special emphasis on promoting and supporting MENA talent.
The festival's primary goal is to provide a community for MENA documentary filmmakers to showcase their works and gain recognition on an international stage. The festival actively seeks to empower and uplift filmmakers to tell stories about important topics such as human rights. By offering filmmakers a dedicated community to present their documentaries alongside international films. Through screenings, discussions, and Q&A sessions with industry professionals, The festival creates opportunities for filmmakers from the MENA region to engage with a global audience, gain exposure, and build valuable connections within the international documentary community.
In addition to celebrating Independent documentary cinema, the festival also fosters collaboration and cultural exchange with filmmakers from around the world. By bringing together international filmmakers, directors, and producers, the festival promotes dialogue, understanding, and the sharing of diverse perspectives.
The festival serves as a dynamic platform that not only celebrates documentary filmmaking on an international scale but also seeks to empower and elevate filmmakers from the MENA region, promoting their voices and stories to a global audience.
Starts the third edition of the Viagrande Short Film fest. The festival aims to give light to emerging and non-emerging directors, with particular attention to independent and historical films.
SDG Entertainment Pictures, an aspiring film production company & distributor based in Germany, is searching for new, interesting & high qualitative movies around the globe.
Do you ever wanted distribution & promotion for your film? The Stuttgart Film Festival is an international Film Festival with live screening event in the heart of Stuttgart (Germany) and goes into the second round. Our festival is dedicated to discovering and supporting independent as well as new talents and offers as a special award distribution & promotion with profit sharing. But that's not enough: your film will be also a part of the future streaming channel of the SDG Entertainment Pictures Film Company. Cinema distribution is possible under certain conditions. We welcome films on any topic, from anywhere in the world.
Event evening: beside our screenings, you will have the opportunity to take part in a Q&A session and after that to network with industry professionals over a glass of sparkling wine.
Winning films: All award winners are invited and encouraged to take part in the festival free of charge. Travel and accommodation costs must be covered by the winners themselves.
Zinema Film Festival - Is a film festival whose objective is to showcase independent cinema with auteurist and experimental narratives and forms. The 3rd edition of the Zinema Film Festival will take place in November 2026.
Open Call – International Experimental Film Festival 2026
The 4rd International Experimental Film Festival (IEFF) – 2026
organized by the Institute for Experimental Arts
“The future of film is female and experimental. We need to destroy and reconstruct cinema itself.” – Maya Deren
About the Festival The 4rd International Experimental Film Festival is an international encounter dedicated to experimental film art, announcing its call for submissions. The festival will take place in Greece, creating a dynamic space for screenings, installations, performances, conferences, film concerts, and workshops. The festival seeks to expand the possibilities of film beyond traditional formats and spaces, creating a zone of creative contagions between cinema and the visual arts, historical works and current production, analog and digital, filmmaking and critical thinking.
“I make films to prevent myself from disappearing. Each frame is an act of resistance against the prescribed narratives.” – Chantal Akerman
Our Vision of Experimental Cinema Experimental cinema is a free, radical, and purposeful cinema that responds to the aesthetic, political, or philosophical need to see and explore cinematic horizons, away from large industries and hegemonic formulas of creation. It is through experimental cinema that we find authentic ways to create audiovisual art.
“Experimental film is not just about breaking rules – it’s about proving those rules never really existed.” – Barbara Hammer
We celebrate a cinema that breaks the narrative, and most of all visual, bounds to which we’re used. A cinema that elaborates on film medium to its fullest, by including even the most extreme possibilities. A cinema that confronts, disrupts, and reimagines. As John Cage said it well: “an experimental action is one the outcome of which is not foreseen” – the cinema we’re looking for is a cinema of the unpredictable.
“The experimental is political. Every frame can be an act of rebellion.” – Agnès Varda
FESTIVAL MISSION
The 4rd IEFF continues to be the pioneering space in the exhibition of experimental content in cinema, which seeks to show excellence and innovation in the independent production of the film world. We celebrate aesthetic diversity, new narratives, and new media and formats; a program that reveals the complexity of social, cultural, and artistic phenomena. We understand experimental cinema as a divergent cinema that vanishes the boundaries with art, emphasizing the experimental modes of creation.
“In experimental cinema, we find the freedom to imagine different futures and to remember different pasts.” – Trinh T. Minh-ha
Special Focus for 2026
- Feminist Experimental Practices
- Gender and Technology
- Body Politics in Digital Age
- Queer Experimental Narratives
- Decolonial Experimental Cinema
- Eco-feminist Approaches to Film
- Cross-disciplinary Collaborations
- Digital/Analog Hybrid Works
- Experimental AR/VR Projects
ABOUT
The Institute The Institute for Experimental Arts was founded in 2008 in Athens, Greece as a non-profit platform of creative expression and research in the fields of theater, performance art, digital media, installation, poetry and art theory. The Institute is committed to existing as an open meeting point for poets-writers, directors, actors, theater engineers/technicians, performance artists, photographers, video artists and the writers who develop new analytical tools on contemporary art, media & communication.
CRITICAL DISCOURSE
The festival will always see the development of the cinematic language with critical thinking, regardless of the terms ‘cinema industry’ or independent cinema. For this reason, the 4rd IEFF will bring a critical discourse through curatorial programs, symposium, and public lectures to broaden the knowledge of the ever-changing cutting-edge cinema aesthetics.
“Cinema is not neutral. Experiment is our way to fight back.” – Sally Potter
SUBMISSION CATEGORIES
We accept all works that fit into the experimental film category and all its sub-genres including:
- Found footage
- Essay film
- Expanded cinema
- Experimental animation
- Abstract film
- Experimental documentary
- Video art
- Virtual reality
- Direct animation
- Any other experimental approaches
There are no genre, topic or length restrictions.
The 4rd IEFF features Avant-Garde and Experimental films of any length.
IMPORTANT REQUIREMENTS
+ All films with dialogue must have ENGLISH or GREEK subtitles
+ Submissions without subtitles will be considered incomplete
+ Films that have screened before are eligible
AWARDS
We believe in culture as a pluralistic and intangible value. The awards assigned by our diverse jury are purely symbolic. Selected films will be judged by an exceptional jury and seen by a vast audience of film lovers.
Golden Arrow Awards Categories
- Best Film
- Best Short Film
- Best Director
- Best Original Screenplay
- Best Music
- Best Performance
- Best Picture
Submission Deadlines and Fees Deadline:
August 15, 2026
Submission fee: 25 euro per video or media project
Program Announcement: October 2026
Contact Information For any questions: theinstitutecontact@gmail.com
RIGHTS
The International Experimental Film Festival reserves the right to use small portions and stills of accepted films for promotion of events.
We actively encourage submissions from women, non-binary, and gender non-conforming filmmakers, as well as creators from underrepresented communities. Our commitment to diversity extends to our jury selection and programming decisions.
“The revolution will be filmed experimentally.” – Su Friedrich
The 4rd International Experimental Film Festival is a project of the Institute for Experimental Arts, celebrating the radical potential of cinema to transform our understanding of art, society, and ourselves.
THE FESTIVAL
Miradas del Mundo is a film festival aimed at independent filmmakers from around the world, which receives and awards feature films, fiction short films and documentaries. A cultural and artistic event where filmmakers can exchange experiences and connect with colleagues and audiences from different cultures around the world.The Festival provides a unique opportunity for filmmakers to showcase their innovative artistic and narrative proposal, which also represents a commitment to their environment and a passion for cinema.
Diversity of views, heterogeneity of thought and creative risk are welcome at our Festival. Every look is political. Every look is moral. And there's nothing like cinema to express it. Views of the World is looking for films that raise more questions than answers. Let them excite. That they call for reflection. Let them be unsettling. That awaken fantasies. Let them make you dream. Don't settle. Let them take risks. That they are passionate and propose different views of the world and cinema. We are proud to host an event designed to bring audiences and filmmakers together in an environment where enthusiastic discussions, collaboration and solidarity can flourish in a fraternal and creative environment.
Because culture unites us and stories tell us.
The FINECAA is an animation film festival dedicated to new experiences/ new technologies. It welcomes any animated short film - partially or entirely produced in animation - which will have participated in renewing the cinematographic genre, whether from a technological point of view, in its format, its storytelling, its narrative construction, the production methods or its relation to the public.
a. Screenings
1. International Competition Screenings:
The shortlisted works of this year’s ISFVF will be screened, and the audience will vote on the screened works. Post-screening exchanges with the main creators and teachers will be arranged, and they will be asked to share their experiences with the audience through discussions.
2. Featured Showcase:
To promote high-quality film education resources from around the world, the Festival will collaborate with other film and television schools, cultural institutions or short film festivals to present joint screenings and thematic screenings. They will provide a platform toshowcase and inspire discussions on diverse cultural expressions in cinematic works from around the world.
3. Screening Tour in Universities:
Following the conclusion of this year’s Festival, some representative works from the award-winning entries will be chosen for academic screenings and exchanges at other universities.
b. Exchange Activities
1. Academic Exchanges in Classes:
The main creators of shortlisted works will be invited to Beijing Film Academy’s classrooms to conduct academic discussions and share their creative experiences with faculty and students in the relevant courses.
2. Thematic Forums and Lectures:
Experts, scholars and practitioners in the film and television industry will be invited to conduct themed discussions aimed at guiding the creative path and development of young film and television students.
3. Thematic Workshops:
Thematic interactions based on professional practice will be conducted to inspire participants with new methods and ideas, and nurture their creativity.
c. Opening and Closing Ceremonies
The Opening and Closing Ceremonies will be held. The announcement of awards will take place at the Closing Ceremony.
For three thousand years, the Jewish people have been scattered around the world. That is why Jewish cinema is created in many different countries, alongside with special festivals that select and showcase those films. The Jewish Film Festival® in Moscow became the first of its kind in Russia. It was founded in 2015 and has been held annually ever since.
What is the Jewish cinema, after all? It encompasses far more than films made by Jewish directors or films which star famous Jewish actors. The never-ending search for Jewish identity, assimilation of diasporas and philosophy of self-determination and separation of the Jewish people in a society, return to the past, glorification of national heroes and mourning of victims, challenges of today’s world and the problem of relevance and preservation of traditions - these and many other issues attract filmmakers of all countries and continents. By searching and selecting the best Jewish films during the course of the past year we have attempted to shape an answer to the question of what these rapidly changing ethnic-themed films really are. Moscow, a large metropolitan area, a place where many cultures and nationalities live side-by-side, is one of the world’s most fitting locations for a festival that represents a dialogue of national communities.
The MJFF holds screenings of the most important and resonant Jewish films of the latest years. At the centre of the Festival is the Feature Films Competition Program, which is complemented by screenings of documentary films, short films and documentary shorts (as part of either competition programs or special screenings), as well as by discussions with experts on different topics raised in films and critics who specialize in Jewish cinema.
Animacción is an international festival of animated short films, which showcases the artistic potential of a whole new generation of animators. Organised by the cultural association dedicated to animation ‘Ánimas Anónimas’, the festival returns this year for its 10th edition.
I would put this whole paragraph like this: The selected short films will be screened from 27/10 to 31/10 in different venues in the metropolitan area of A Coruña, and the winning films from both the general section and the children's and Galician sections will be chosen by voting by the audience attending the screenings.
The days of the screenings will be an opportunity to create a bridge between professionals from the world of animation and the public, as we will be programming talks and activities for all audiences related to this discipline.
In addition, the programme will include a series of talks and activities which, together with the screenings of the short films, will serve to create a bridge between professionals from the world of animation and the public.
FantasticGijón was born with the illusion of filling a space that we believe empty in Asturias, to accommodate national and international productions of the Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction genres that, due to the genre to which they belong, have less chance of reaching our community within of the programming of the rest of regional festivals.
Celaya Experimental Film Fest is a platform for the creation and exhibition of audiovisual works that focus on technical, conceptual, and narrative experimentation. The festival welcomes artists who have transgressed and transcended the boundaries of aesthetics, technique, and semiotics to break the dominant standards of the industry. We believe that experimental cinema is free, radical, and forward-thinking, while also responding to the anthropological, social, artistic, and philosophical need to explore horizons beyond the hegemonic forms of cinematic creation, discovering authentic ways of making audiovisual art.
The Caracas Film Criticism Festival is conceived as a space to reflect and reward the expression of significance of film criticism in various national and international works. From In this way, it seeks to encourage, promote and disseminate Venezuelan cinema, as well as the analysis depth of the cinema made in Venezuela in comparison with the international cinema awarded in the festivals in Berlin, Cannes, Locarno, San Sebastián and Venice.
The Caracas Film Critics Festival is designed as a space for reflection which aims to reward the best national and international works, according to the standards of film criticism.
In this way, we seek to carry out an in-depth analysis of the cinema made in Venezuela and abroad.
Of it, as well as encourage, promote and disseminate the cinematographic act. From a point of view external, thanks to the participation of foreign collaborators.
