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.
QueerCineMad, formerly known as LesGaiCineMad, Madrid International LGBTIAQ+ Film Festival is a LGTBI+ Film Festival in seen in Spanish Speaking countries. The inaugural edition was held in 1996. With an estimated audience of more than 10,000 spectators, it is a well attended festival by members of the Community of Madrid and is covered by the Spanish Press.
RIZOMA, Festival Internacional de Cine & Cultura Entrelaza aims to celebrate groundbreaking work on the international scene, discover and support new voices in Spanish-language cinema, and reflect contemporary trends in audiovisual creation.
Contest is open to everyone !
Topic of the contest is "The Dream life".
You can submit your any type of film up to 15 minutes max.
Festival Atmospheres uses all kinds of art forms in order to arouse afterthought and commitment to an accessible and constructive sustainable development.
MANIATIC- FANTASTIC INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL OF VALENCIA 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.
FesticineKids 28 is an international children's and youth film festival in Cartagena de Indias, it is a film competition that orients its efforts towards strengthening the production and distribution of Colombian, Latin American and world cinema for children and young people.
In 2026, FesticineKids reaches its 28th, edition with the same spirit of highlighting and celebrating cinema for girls, boys and young people. The phrase has been chosen as the slogan: OUR KIDS VALUES. From this concept it is intended to invite children and young people to be aware of the responsibility they have to be agents of change in their environments. Children and young people are the future that should encourage the care of our planet earth, the human beings that surround them, animals and plants, as well as the places they visit. The tendency to Afro movies and ones oriented to indigenous people.
In the construction of the profile of the FesticineKids 28, the screen is problematized as a point of confluence of girls, boys and adolescents. By postulating cinema as that scenario in which feelings, emotions and beliefs are expressed, it is intended that girls, boys and adolescents, understanding what the cinema evokes them, what they extract from it and its meanings, wonder about the place that cinema has in their lives, in their environment, in parallel to the place they want and dream of.
It is also an opportunity for adults, parents, teachers, cultural and cinematographic authorities, to think about the need to strengthen their capacities to be trainers in tension and interaction with the audiovisual media, especially the cinema.
2024 New York Times names Screamfest as one of the top 5 Halloween Film Festivals Worth Traveling For!
The 26th annual Screamfest® Horror Film Festival will take place at the TCL Chinese Theatres in Hollywood.
Some of the largest horror online publications have called it the "Sundance of Horror."
Dread Central's Best Genre Fests 2025-26
Moviemaker Magazine's 50 Film Festival's Worth the Entry Fee 2023
50 Best Genre Fests in the World 2021
25 Film Festival's Worth the Entry Fee & 13 Film Festivals to Die For
30 Bloody Best Genre Fests in the World 2019.
Screamfest® Horror Film Festival is the largest and longest running horror film festival in the United States. Paranormal Activity was discovered and premiered at the festival in 2007.
The festival showcases new genre films from around the world. Other premieres have included Steven Soderbergh Presents Divinity, world premiere of Hulu's Carved and Mr. Crocket, ICK, Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, Paranormal Activity, Dead Ant, Trick 'r' Treat, 30 Days of Night, The Human Centipede, American Mary, Diary of the Dead
To view past Screamfest® short films visit our YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/screamfestla
It have been already Sixteen years of this festival, which year after year, with firm step, has expanded its proposals for good cinema. Lies far away 1999, when sponsored by the humoristic duo Gomaespuma and M-80 Radio began the first edition of the festival with the slogan “the Indians are coming! ”. Eventually Imagineindia has internationalized, showing films from all over the world while those from Asia are still assuming the bulk of the festival.
LA PECCA -Small Environmental Film Contest- was born in 2007 by the DeFrente Association.
The main purpose of this project is to promote respect for sexual and gender diversity through cinema, contributing to the development of a plural and inclusive society.
Taking a quality film event as a vehicle, we show plural life stories and encourage people to visibly live their sexual and gender identity, to promote social awareness and claim at the same time the right of the LGTBIQ + community to be present in culture and in society equally.
We also give visibility and support to quality cinematography, promoting the discovery of new talents.
---
ASOCIACIÓN DEFRENTE is a non-profit organization in Seville that was established in 2006. Since its inception, its objectives have been aimed at serving the lesbian, gay, transsexual and bisexual community in response to a social demand by being this group in a situation of marginalization and discrimination in many areas of daily life.
