In today’s film climate it is hard to showcase short films. Many festivals focus on features and it seems like this art of shorts is dwindling to silly videos about kittens on the internet. Even though we love kittens (who doesn’t?) here at the Short. Sweet. Film Fest., we love short films more.
With eight festivals under our belt, our goal for our ninth annual film festival is to showcase films under 30 minutes to the growing art scene in the greater Cleveland area and highlight the works of student to veteran filmmakers across the country.
Students should submit to the short student film category to receive a significant discount off of the submission fee.
We are looking for the best short films locally, nationally, and internationally. So send them our way!
Our festival will take place in the Alex Theater at the Metropolitan at the 9 hotel in the heart of downtown Cleveland. Filmmakers and patrons can stay at the hotel at a discounted rate and enjoy food and beverages throughout the festival.
3D Wire Fest takes place during the 11th edition of the International Animation, Video Games and New Media Market, with an oficial selection of international and national short films. 3D Wire Fest is qualifying festival to the European Animation Awards and the European and Spanish short film winners will be automatically preselected and can participate in the prestigious European award.
3D Wire has been qualified with the ‘AIC Quality Certificate for Short Film Festivals’ for its edition 2017. (AIC, Short film Industry Association).
Cinema is an art form that needs to be simultaneously nourished and challenged and ÉCU - The European Independent Film Festival provides the perfect arena for indie filmmakers to express authentic cinematic storytelling in the most compelling ways possible.
As one the World’s truly stand out independent film festivals, ÉCU embraces innovation and creativity and allows directors in competition to showcase their films to audiences who appreciate and love independent cinema. Filmmakers who are selected into ÉCU’s Official Selection join an active community of creatives who continually push the boundaries of indie cinema.
"It is always an absolute joy to present one's work at ECU. The team are fantastically helpful, the jury extremely competent, and the selection of the highest quality. I would recommend participating to anyone who's in love with indie filmmaking!" - Celina Liesegang, producer of Viscera: Autopsy of a (non)human body, ÉCU 2022 Official Selection
"It's always a pleasure having our films at ÉCU, especially this year with our awarded short film "Useless"! The communication has been great during the whole process and our filmmakers are so excited to be part of this competition. See you again next year with new projects!" - Marta Salvador Tato, distributor of USELESS, the winner of the Best European Independent Dramatic Short award 2022
Since its inception in 2006 ÉCU has forged a path for independent film and the scope of its presence has grown to a global scale with the festival often being referenced as the European equivalent of Sundance, an honour that we don’t take lightly.
Spring is not only a fabulous time for Paris but an exciting time for ÉCU because that is when we showcase roughly around 100 of the World’s very best independent films. Although ÉCU emphasises European talent, it also recognises the genius of international filmmakers with several categories allocated to non-European films.
The next ÉCU, the 19th edition, will take place on the 19th, 20th and 21st of April, 2024 in Paris, France.
ÉCU isn’t just all about screening an amazing slate of films over its three-day event in Paris in April. There are also professional workshops led by experts in the industry, Q&A’s held with the attending filmmakers after every screening session and a chance to network with fellow filmmakers, producers, agents, industry representatives, prospective film buyers and, of course, the cinema-loving public. At ÉCU, there is a continual dialogue celebrating and critiquing the world’s best indie cinema of today.
Though ÉCU’s main event IS the three-day festival in Paris each spring, there is even more! Thanks to our over 50 partner festivals, partner organizations, film centres and film commissions, ÉCU’s goes on an annual world tour called ÉCU-On-The-Road, which gives award-winning films (as well as many of the Official Selection films) the opportunity to have their films screened to a broader, global audience. ÉCU-On-The-Road showcased films in over 80 countries around the globe in 2016 - 2023 at special ÉCU mini-festivals, partner festivals, cultural institutions and film schools, including an amazing seven day special festival in São Paulo, Brazil. The event was made possible through the support of Caixa Cultural, São Paulo and was a huge success. ÉCU also held special events in Berlin (Germany), Cannes (France) and was part of festivals in Lebanon, Italy, Russia, USA, Romania, Austria, Denmark and other countries. This gives ÉCU filmmakers great exposure to audiences that they may never have reached.
Since 2006, ÉCU has helped the careers of literally hundreds of independent filmmakers, actors, DPs, editors, screenwriters and is honoured to be firmly established as one of the World’s eminent indie film festivals.
Above all, we are proud to be a filmmakers’ festival!
Equinoxio Film Festival will hold its 27th edition from September 19th to 27th. It provides a space for gathering and reflection concerning student filmmaking while allowing interaction with the aesthetic perspective of emerging talents, along with artistic, social and personal concerns of young filmmakers.
This edition of Equinoxio revolves around the thematic line “Pulsiones: Incarnating Desire”. We are looking for an emerging cinema that sheds light on the path taken by desires and the transmuted forms it assumes in the perceived world, as a result of its inescapable relationship with the other and the others. It is a film that exposes structures and patterns that, from language and aesthetics, have conditioned human longings and drives, inviting us to question the place of desire both in front of and outside the camera, exploring its origins, the normative and dissident space, the relationship with the body, morality, censorship and the role of art.
This short films contest up in order to motivate people to convey their ideas through cinema.
The theme that identifies it is based on the idea of "slowness" or "slow life", what we understand as a bunch of actions (respect for the Environment and people, responsible consumption, defense of culture, decrease, life and leisure alternative, cooperation, food sovereignty, social economy ...) that make individuals improve their quality of life, control their time and be critical of the current economic and social system.
The 4th COLOMBIAN QUEER FILM FESTIVAL is an annual non competitive LGBT film festival created by Fundación Cineteca Pública de Santander, to reward and celebrate each films of Colombian and international filmmakers, who make visible an aesthetic-political nature with discussions on gender, diversity of sexual orientation and identity along with films in commercial circuits and festivals, to generate intercultural encounters and consolidate organization processes and self-representation.
Gender doesn't define us. The sexuality-gender-body relationship surrounds us with inexhaustible questions and reflections. That’s why in this fourth edition we adopt the proposal to explore the different possibilities that this relationship offers in Cinema. #GENDERisOVER
Held Just a few days before the Cannes International film festival in May, our festival is
One of the greatest festival in the world to help filmmakers find a market to support their aims with people attending that can give good solid advice to work with established film industry professionals if you wish, screening, meetings, networking, world famous international awards ceremony, at the same time as Cannes International film festival, in 2018, what we have created over the years is a unique festival with our other festivals a real platform for filmmakers to meet, network, do business festival week.
This year 2018 in Nice at the festival we gave three deals to filmmakers to make there future productions of 100,000 dollars each, we will be allocating up to 5 a year in 2019/20 enter to get a chance at this budget
We have built a small but exceptional professional network of industry professional that will look at all films entered and will give business and commercial advice, in some cases the distributors attending will make offers to the filmmakers for their work and to work together to put your movies in the market place, we have the people and skills in our professional team to make this happen, if the professional attending feel there is a market for your movie, they will as with many films over the years of our other festival make it happen.
We are unique in the amount of platforms and festival we offer filmmakers, we can create a ripple for your movie to be seen around the world, it all starts here by entering your movie.
Carl Tooney
Festival President
The Flor Azul international short film festival will be held at the 25 de Febrero Cultural Center (Caballito, City of Buenos Aires, Argentina) on September 25, 2021.
The festival is organized by the 25 de Febrero Cultural Center and the 25 de Febrero group.
Category C: “Finished short-film 2020/21/22”
Category description:
Summa3D competition category aimed at those producers, directors and screenwriters who have completed an animated short film during the years 2020, 2021 or 2022, which will be evaluated in the artistic field.
CINEfoot - International Football Film Festival is the first film festival in Brazil and Latin America with unique curatorial and conceptual approaches about football. The event aims the promotion, diffusion, reflection and appreciation of football films from all over the world.
ANTOFACINE, the Antofagasta International Film Festival, is a gathering instance for national and international filmmakers; based on this premise we would like to contribute to:
● Promoting fiction, nonfiction and animations films as tools for cultural and social transformation and to benefit all of Antofagasta Region residents.
● Fostering the development of audiovisual projects in the region and country, supporting the creation of a professional space in order to promote local, national and international audiovisual works; contributing to audience formation and generating a gathering point in Antofagasta for the necessary interaction of all relevant agents of the audiovisual industry.
The 12 version of the Antofagasta International Film Festival, ANTOFACINE 2023 will be held from November 14 to 18, in the city of Antofagasta and other places of the region.
The Oruro International Film Festival is headquartered in the city of Oruro (Plurinational State of Bolivia).
The city is known for its cultural and folkloric wealth, being the Oruro Carnival its greatest expression. This Carnival, which annually gathers thousands of national and international visitors, was declared in 2001 as "Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" by UNESCO, thus recognizing the multicultural and religious value it expresses.
The Festival, whose eleventh edition will be held from October 17 to 24, 2025, aims to recognize and disseminate national and international cinematographic works that show strong artistic, aesthetic and human values.
3rd Edition of KIFFI-JAIPUR will be on 4-6 December 2020
Afro Film Fest is an annual film festival that will take place in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia with the aim to make an impact on the development of the film sector in Ethiopia. Through showcasing local and international films, Workshop for local film makers and by giving awards to deserving ones. The event is organized by Afroasiatic Promotion & Event and Afro Century Events.
A seven days fest planned to screen fifty + one films in seven venues of different categories: Feature film, Short film, Documentary, TV series, TV show, TV commercial and Music video. Besides screening and having a workshop for young upcoming film makers the festival also gives awards and recognitions for deserving personalities and films.
We would like to invite your company/organization to be part of the festival by sponsoring this big event.
Our goal is a simple one: to focus on the art of film making in the purest sense by presenting the best independent genre films from around the world, and to shine a spotlight on local filmmakers, especially those new to the film festival experience. We are proud to start Afro Film Fest to serve an important role in supporting and sharing in the current growth of film production in the country.
Fantàstik Granollers is the fantastic and horror film festival of Granollers, which has been held since 2012. It has become a unique event in the city, in which a cultural proposal related exclusively to fantastic and horror films is offered. and everything that is related to it, betting very strongly on short films.
It is an excellent opportunity for film lovers to see innovative films, as well as to connect with other people interested in this topic.
Apart from the festival, other activities are carried out during the year related to the dissemination of fantasy and horror films.
DOKer was created 9 years ago to bring wonderful independent documentary films from all over the world to the Russian audience and provide a discussion platform for authors, experts and spectators.
The principles of DOKer are:
- When we say 'documentary film' we put the emphasis on ‘film'.
- There are countless ways to make a documentary but we believe it has to be dramatic and interesting.
- Image and sound are as important for docs as they are for fiction films. The film language is universal, and we use it to tell our stories.
