Your recognition should be SOLELY based on how good your work is, but to be honest, it's not. There's so much politics and agendas, and personal ties in this industry.
The people who get accepted into the big festivals are so rarely the little guy/girl, and it's basically a circle jerk of only those who have a big name or star attached getting in.
You hate that, and I hate that. That's why this this is built by filmmakers, in fact, we just completed our first feature which premiered at TIFF Lightbox last year.
We don't discriminate in genre, in length, in anything asides from "How good is your god damned film?"
You already have a lot debt and a lot of disappointments as an indie. Maybe you get accepted at a festival that shows your work some where in some guy's basement, but does that really matter in the end?
What about getting screened at the "BIG SCREEN", having your name on the Marquee?
When will making your short actually translate to MAKING IT in the business?
We're filmmakers too here at indiefilmTO which is why we've designed this from the ground up for filmmakers who are ready to take that next step.
indiefilmTO Festival was founded in 2015, and screened at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) Bell Lightbox, since we know how important the VENUE is to filmmakers.
Be we don't stop there. We invite industry producers and Executive producers to come to the screening, to mingle, so you get a chance to get your film in front of the eyes of those who matter.
This year, we will again be screened at TIFF (350 King St. W, Toronto ON) in Nov / Dec 2017.
If you want your name on that marquee, and want to stop going more and more into debt, waking up and wondering when will this Groundhog Day circle of making-films-and-going-nowhere to end, then submit to indiefilmTO Festival.
*indiefilmTO is a non-profit based in Toronto founded by filmmakers, which seeks to help grow the indie film scene in Toronto.
SEAFF 2018 is the film festival in Stockholm that focuses on animated short and experimental film.
Stockholm Experimental and Animation Film Festival, SEAFF, present highly recognized artists and directors from the international scene as well as new and emerging independent artists and storytellers.
Are you an artist, animator or experimental filmmaker, or aspiring to be? Then your work is relevant to us!
Are you a creative person who uses moving pictures as your artistic expression to tell a story? We would love to see it!
We accept narrative and none narrative film, video art, computer animation (2D & 3D), music videos, traditional animation and stop-motion animation on any topic, from every country around the world.
- Attention will be given to artistic originality and creativity.
- We welcome ideas with experimental ambitions.
- Our selection is based solely on aesthetic values.
The past two editions of SEAFF have been held at Zita and Rio, two of Stockholms oldest and finest cinemas. SEAFF enriches and provides Stockholm and Scandinavia with a piece of the great diversity of ambitious and qualitative films made internationally.
The festival has been given attention in both Swedish and international press and has been supported by the cultural department of Stockholm City and by the Art Grant Committee in Sweden.
The purpose and goal with SEAFF is to draw attention to filmmakers who through their versatility, artistic originality and creativity leave an unique impression on the art of film!
The International Film Festival of the Autonomous University of Baja California promotes the exchange of experiences in the field of audiovisual production, as well as knowledge building around the cinematographic phenomenon.
Welcome to Edinburgh Independent Film Awards!
We are an Independent film festival with live screenings, that takes place annually in the heart of Edinburgh.
Our mission is designed to help create a platform for our filmmakers to be seen, but more importantly, get them the industry exposure to help sustain their craft for many years to come.
The EIFA is extremely excited for its showcase season and plans on becoming one of the biggest Independent film festival in the UK.
The Edinburgh Independent Film Awards attempts to provide spaces for independent filmmakers to create and display their stories without commercial pressure, in order to discover and celebrate extraordinary films and develop independent filmmaking.
Our judging team is looking for potential films and filmmakers for scheduled meetings with executives from the film and television industry.
EIFA will host screening events at the Edinburgh with post-screening Q&A with directors, producers and actors and the opportunity for them to network with industry professionals at our networking events
Award winners will be announced at our festival and receive hard copy certificates at our award ceremony along with engraved 'Edinburgh Independent Film Awards' trophy, winner laurels.
2019 Edinburgh Independent Film Awards Screenplay Competition:
We accept screenplays from across all genres. Please read the following criteria before submitting your Screenplay/Script.
MALDITO FESTIVAL is a videopoetic contest held in the city of Albacete (Spain) since 2017.
The festival announces the International Videopoetry Contest and the International Poetic Film Showcase with the purpose of making visible two disciplines that, both together and separately, are much more distant and forgotten than we would like.
We, as lovers of poetry, image and the expressive possibilities of their symbiosis, propose a line of action, encouraging the approach of the general public to videopoetry and poetic films.
MALDITO seeks to vindicate these disciplines as art that connects people, that transmits feelings and promotes original or different ways of seeing the world, to try to be a grain of sand that makes any kind of visual or poetic art stop being marginal and cursed.
Sections:
- International Videopoetry Contest
- International Poetic Film Showcase
NOCTURNA MADRID, International Fantastic Film Festival is the most important Festival of its kind held in the city of Madrid.
Dear Filmmaker,
We’re happy to share some important news with you. Over the past years, we’ve been organizing two editions of the Travel Film Festival — one in Cyprus and another in Russia. This year, we’ve decided to combine them into one united international festival, which will now be held annually in March, starting from 2026.
The unified Travel FilmFest brings together the best travel and outdoor sports films from around the world — created by professionals and passionate enthusiasts.
Whether you’re a seasoned filmmaker or an adventurer with a camera, your story matters. The originality and spirit of exploration in your film are far more important than its budget or production scale.
We warmly invite you to submit your next film to the unified Travel Film Festival, where travel and outdoor sports cinema inspire audiences worldwide.
We collaborate with TRAVEL FILM International Film Festival.
SOFIA BITING DOCS presents a selection of documentary films, going into topics such as human rights, environmental problems, discrimination, disrespect for diversities, integration of minority groups - on the face of it, seemingly overexploited, but actually topical, controversial issues of key importance for the society, raising discussions and arguments. The festival focuses on all kind of curious people and spiels, shot in documentary cinema. It is fixed on stories, aiming to inform, meant to provoke, putting forward questions, intended to be debated.
MSFFF was born from a mission:
We’ll take you on a journey through the genre’s cinematographic productions from all over the world.
The next March we will be able to enjoy the best and most current animated productions in Madrid.
The City in Film Award will distinguish the best films related to urban issues. It can be fiction or documentary, a short or a long feature. We are looking for films that relate to the city, where the city plays a relevant role in the mood, theme or narrative of the film.
All genres and durations are welcome.
The 4 selected films will be screened live and the best film awarded in July 2021, right in the heart of historical Lisbon, in the mystical Alfama.
—
THE CITY IN FILM AWARD IS A SPECIAL PARALLEL SECTION OF THE CINALFAMA LISBON INTERNATIONAL FILM AWARDS AND IT WILL FILL A SPECIFIC DATE OF ITS MAIN EVENT PROGRAM: THE CINALFAMA ANNUAL AWARDS!
The purpose of the festival refers to awareness of both the external filters on the screen, including censorship (commercial, ideological, aesthetic), and the internal filters of screen perception and projection, including self-censorship. NEFILTRAVANAE KINO is an exploration of aestheticization and commodification in art. The next aim of the festival is to expose the complexity, manysidedness, and variety of filmmaking.
NEFILTRAVANAE KINO (NoFilter Kino) is a film festival that is held by the Short Movie Club, the platform for cinematic projects. NEFILTRAVANAE KINO is ADAMI Media Prize qualified festival. The International Film Studies Conference is held at the same time as the film festival. In this way, film theory and practice are integrated together at the NEFILTRAVANAE KINO.
Originally the festival was held in Belarus, but because of political repression and publicly stated anti-war stance, screenings and events can be held in different countries. First of all in Poland (Warsaw), Germany (Berlin, Hamburg), Lithuania (Vilnius). For example, the 11th and 10th Nefiltravanae Kino took place in Warsaw, Berlin, Hamburg, Vilnius and Helsinki. The content of past years' film programs can be found on the website https://shortmovie.club/programmes/
The festival will be held in a hybrid format. We will have a part of live screenings and online screenings on a video platform https://film.nofilterkino.org/ . The video is cryptographically secured. In addition, we pay attention and promote films from our previous years that are released to the public on the Internet after their festival curcuit.
Nefiltravanae Kino involves theater, artists to interpret symbols and history. We work with the audience's reaction and participants' as well.
--------------------------------------------------------
The concept of the NEFILTRAVANAE KINO (NoFilter Kino):
ALIENATION PROBLEM
We live in a world of malls and cinema multiplexes. We see that indie cinema and non-commodity art go to the periphery of public attention. Primitive attractions replace the cinematography. The escape audience is alienated behind the big screen. So modern mainstream cinema is part of a manipulating tool that leads to the society of alienation. Thus the tendency is that indie cinema becomes more unreadable for the wide audience. We should understand the context of the filmmaker to understand the independent cinema. That is why the NEFILTRAVANAE KINO concept implies the physical presence of filmmakers.
FILM SELECTION PROBLEM
Filmmakers shoot millions of movies. And thousands of short film festivals organize screenings all over the world every year. On average, several thousand films are submitted to a film festival. So various good films can be neglected for whatever reason. Often selecting probability is like winning a lottery. As a result, filmmakers are left with no feedback. It is a paradox that no one can hear you in the age of the Internet! The mainstream culture prefers attractions and casual viewing.
Also, this idea is based on the film selection problem. Perhaps it’s no surprise one person, i.e. programme director at best, or even students of film schools make a preliminary decision to select a movie. Сoncordance of judges or previewers is more seldom thing than the difference of background, tastes. So selection or judging can be one-sided or perfunctory. It is not bad as the programme director has a good taste and aesthetic sensitivity, of course. But we’ve discovered another conception of “unfiltered cinema”. We matched it against “the best of the best” way. This way aids to perceive cinematic idiom without the dictate of art-curators.
CELEBRATION OF INDIE CINEMA
So the NoFilter Kino tries to avoid “the best of the best” way but it does not ignore it completely, sure. The festival selects fiction, animation, documentary, experimental and virtual reality sections. A jury awards the best film in every section. The festival holds the screenings at cinema theatres, the National Centre for Contemporary Arts, and art-spaces.
Our aim is to gather people in art, to have a dialogue to be happy with smart communication. Cinema is art but not sport. The key point of our project is to establish communication between the filmmaker and the audience.
Please, read about the festival history through the link to the festival's website. http://shortmovie.club/history/
FanCineQueer, the International LGBTI Film Festival of Extremadura, celebrates this year its 28th edition between the 7th and the 16th of November launching its traditional Short Films Call with the purpose of recognising, visibilising and fostering the production and dissemination of recent or unreleased LGBTI works.
The CINALFAMA FILM OBSERVATORY, held in a historic neighborhood, emerges as a transformative cultural initiative that strengthens the community network. By showing independent films, the project not only widens access to alternative and innovative narratives but also stimulates cultural engagement among residents, fostering a sense of identity and belonging.
This regular event, which takes place at Museu do Fado Auditorium, becomes a meeting point where generations cross paths, sharing experiences and reflections that transcend mere film viewing. In addition, by being located in a neighborhood with a rich historical heritage, the observatory revitalizes the urban space, attracting visitors and enhancing the appreciation of the local heritage, generating a very positive cultural dynamic
The Cinalfama Film Observatory is a regular cinema competition in January, April, and October.
The winning films of each of the three editions (Jan, Apr, Oct), will be showcased in our annual outdoor cinema event, Cinalfama Lisbon International Film Festival, in July 2025.
L'Eliana Cinema is an international film festival located in L'Eliana (Valencia). Now, on september 2018, the festival celebrates its 3rd edition. The first award is 1.500 €.
The Festival’s goal is to dive the audience into the Seventh art, for this reason it supports and spread the local and national films, screening the artwork in an intimate atmosphere, with the purpose of motivating the artists to produce films, involving them in the art and culture that makes Mexico and outstading country.
International film festival of entertaining, fantastic and arthouse free genre films.
The Obscura Filmfest was founded by David Ghane in 2016 and has been run by him alone ever since. He is a passionate genre film fan since 1996, attends several film festivals per year since 2004, sometimes helps out there, acts as an extra in horror films and is an extreme film collector.
The Obscura Film Festival specializes in entertaining and fantastic films, big and small, films that almost never get a regular screening. The films shown there are mostly mainstream blockbusters or arthouse films that can be found at most other regular film festivals. Even comparable festivals are expanding their programmes to include more and more arthouse. Those who instead like entertaining, smaller and special independent films, but can also imagine bigger productions from far away countries, will find what they are looking for at the Obscura Filmfest: Films that are fun with rough edges, raw and uncompromising; from nasty little horror films to Asian battle epics, there is something for every fan, just no boredom.
It started with small, offbeat, trashy and depraved underground grindhouse films, meanwhile the Obscura also screens commercial, mid-sized films that are traded on the big film markets.
Highlights of the previous festival editions included the German premieres of the Argentinian fantasy sci fi cyberpunk action film "Daemonium", the Ukrainian thriller "Egregor", the Filipino zombie shocker "Day Zero", the Danish horror film "Finale", the ghost comedy "Deadtectives" and the two Backwoods films "What the Waters Left Behind" and its sequel "Scars" 5 years later.
The European premieres of the Indonesian comic superhero film "Valentine" and the Backwoods film "Drifter" were also screened.
Another highlight was the crazy Japanese splatterfest "Kodoku - Meatball Machine" which can look back on a long festival history including the biggest festivals of its kind, as well as the Universal/Blumhouse production "The Hunt".
With "Redbad" and "The Great Battle", two big battle epics were also screened at the Obscura.
The German premiere of the hard-hitting exploitation film "Trauma" in Hanover was even attended by visitors from the Ruhr area.
After its international premiere at the Obscura, the cowboy backwoods film "Lasso" was shown a few months later at the famous british Frightfest.
In 2022, the Obscura had its first two feature-length film world premieres with "All through the Hall" and "Hidden in the Woods II".
At every Obscura filmfest there were film guests who introduced their film in person and were available for a Q&A. They came from Ireland, UK, Belgium, Finland, Denmark, Spain, Greece, Hungary, The Netherlands, USA, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia and of course Germany.
In 2024, there was a record number of guests from 7 different countries, as well as "The Witch. Revenge," a Ukrainian war horror film that was shot during and about the current war.
Short films shot in Castilla y León, at least 50% of them, or whose director was born in Castilla y León, are welcome to participate.
