Blog: Film festivals

The Benin City Film Festival was launched in November 2018, as a new entity that offers a platform encouraging and promoting the works of local (community based) as well as National, and International emerging filmmakers. It is a cost friendly platform for showcasing these works in an environment where they have access to experienced industry professionals. BCFF is the only independent film festival in Edo State, and the only film festival that takes place in Benin City. BCFF screens premieres of international and national feature films, short films and documentaries on social issues. This year edition, with the theme CREATIVE INDUSTRY BEYOUND THE PANDEMIC is scheduled to take place at Film House Cinema, Benin City.

At least 50% of our festival schedule is dedicated to foreign films, which broadens the film culture experience to all who attend the screenings in Benin City during the festivals duration.

The Benin City Film Festival is a team of people who work effortlessly to deliver a quality service to emerging filmmakers. We will give festival contributors access to some of the Industries most prolific names, both nationally and internationally.

Objectives

The primary objectives of the Festival are to provide a resourceful platform:

1. Where the business and craft of Nigerian films are enhanced and marketed to the film content consuming world by attracting quality film resource persons, buyers and critics from all over Nigeria and around the world to BCFF events every year.

2. for viewing some of the best of feature films, documentaries, shorts, and experimental projects for the entertainment and instructions of attendees and participants at the BCFF annually.

To this end, BCFF is committed to being:

A. A place for dialogues, healthy discussions and trainings to film business and film craft professionals and amateurs in and around the world by ensuring that BCFF is attractive to international film and motion picture contents directors to help enrich festival and participants through insights from their works and about the art of filmmaking

B. A machinery for exposing the ancient City of Benin in particular and the entire Edo State in general to a sustainable long term to a long term patronage of its vast tourism realities and potential to resourceful global creative business and craft audiences.

Finally BCFF is geared towards encouraging co-production relationships in films, TV shows, Documentaries and any other rewarding motion picture content between local players.

Modalities

The film festival pursues these objectives by making local and international visitors at the festival engage in the creative film-making process discussions through symposia seminars, trainings, screenings, content critiques, tourism events and workshops as well as providing quality entertainment (music, local , and sundry other events).

INDEPENDENT CINEMA IN THE HEART OF MEDIEVAL ITALY

The Cultural Association Aedon is pleased to found and inaugurate the Festival dei Lumi, an arts festival that takes place annually in Soriano nel Cimino, in the heart of the Cimini mountains, in the province of Viterbo.

A PLACE FULL OF HISTORY, LOVED BY ARTISTS

A place steeped in history, which belonged to the greatest families of the Italian papal aristocracy (Orsini, Colonna, Albani), it retains a strong tradition and in its recent history was the creative residence of world-famous Italian artists such as PierPaolo Pasolini, who lived in the of Chia, or Luigi Pirandello who also dedicated a poem to the beech forest of Soriano nel Cimino, from which he was greatly entranced.

WE ARE LOOKING FOR YOUR ART

Festival dei Lumi aims to propose independent Italian and international cinema to the Soriano audience.

We are looking for spontaneous films, created by artists who have the courage to use their intelligence and put their essence into their work. We are looking for sincere works, we don't care about the budget, the genre, the nation, the medium used for filming.

We are looking for artists who care about their work, who love the creative process and who don't make art out of vanity.

For more than a decade, community film festivals have emerged in Colombia, as scenarios that have made possible the exhibition of images and the meeting of different actors linked to community, local and independent cinema.

With this objective in 2016, the Commune Film Festival 6 (FECICO 6) was born in the city of Medellín, which is recognized as a neighborhood festival that seeks to offer the population meetings around independent, non-commercial and community cinema, mainly from Latin America; in order to generate reflections and bets for the transformation of social, cultural and political realities.

Amagi is the annual invitation that the FECICO6 expands to all the territories of the world, mainly in Latin America (Abya Yala Aframerindia) that has the intention of promoting and disseminating productions of groups, organizations and people who find in the audiovisual a possibility to express their disagreements and proposals for social, political, cultural and creative transformation. The exhibition of the platform will be within the framework of the VII version of the Comuna 6 Film Festival, which will take place from November 11 to December 3, 2022.

BAKUNAWA FEST [Fantastic Film, Art + Music] - (formerly Bakunawa Young Cinema) - is the first fantastic & genre-based film, art & music festival based in The Philippines currently presented by Negros Museum and E Unlimited; and ran by volunteer filmmakers and artists. Bakunawa is a dragon-like creature in Philippine mythology that devoured moons. Because we are a genre-bending film fest, we want to flip the Bakunawa's role and we want it to instead symbolize the creative monsters inside us.

On its tenth year, Bakunawa Fest adds a new cinema to its in-person fest screenings: UPFI Film Center in Quezon City, Metro Manila. Across the islands, The Negros Museum remains our main venue in Bacolod City, Negros Occidental in Western Visayas Region. This year, Bakunawa Fest X opens on August 22, 2023 and will have a five-day physical festival run with a Bakunawa Funtastik Fair at the UPFI Film Center while we're having the Film Camp for first-time filmmakersy this July 2022 in Bacolod City. [Filipino students who want to join the FILM CAMP, pls email us at bakunawafilmfest@gmail.com]

Bakunawa Fest runs annually in one season - spread in fourth months becoming a hybrid festival resulting from the pandemic lockdowns. Bakunawa Fest starts with a film camp which includes a series of film workshops for first time young filmmakers that culminates into a competition - their final works are mostly genre films (horror, sci-fi, fantasy, folk, noir, folk, etc). From the Film Camp, Bakunawa Fest celebrates the year's crop of genre films through both an online and in-person festival screenings (with competitive and curated sections) of local and international films making their Philippine Premiere. Bakunawa Fest ends its season run with Primetime Philippine Cable TV airing and an Awards Show via SolarFlix TV where we can reach to millions of Filipino viewers.

Bakunawa was initially created with this principle: "new visions, new voices". We still stand by this principle as we continue to program young promising filmmakers, artists & musicians who either have no access to expensive workshops and may not have the name recognition to be programmed in festivals. Since our third edition, we have included a section that screens curated local and international selected films mainly for educational purposes. Most of our Bakunawa Fest's film camps are done as outreach programs/workshops and are mostly free. Here our participants are scholars paid for by the festival and its partners usually hosted by different cities/municipalities in the Philippines.

During the pandemic years and lockdowns from 2020-2022, we have temporarily migrated to mostly online screenings but this year 2023, we will conduct more live screenings following health protocols. For our tenth edition, we will do a semi-hybrid festival wherein we screen more films in live venues and do a limited program online.

[ Please note that, since we are an artist and volunteer-ran filmfest, we can't fund filmmakers to come physically and we don't pay screening fees. ]

We are a fantastic film fest. Our festival is interested in: Horror or Thriller Films / Sci-Fi, Fantasy or Adventure / Experimental Films / New Media, Expanded Cinema / Genre-Bending Films / Music Videos / Creative Documentaries / Contemporary Art / Photography.

For 2023, we have made our submissions more streamlined (This is NOT our programming approach though, just for submissions):
► Fantastic Full-legth Features
► Fantastic International Shorts
► Fantastic Indigenous Shorts
► Fantastic Filipino Shorts
► BAKUNAWA FEST Alumni Filmmakers
► Midnight Films
► Digital Art & Photography
► One-Minute Films
► Trash, B-Movie-esque, Underground Shorts
► Rewind (Past films released earlier than 2021)
► Pinoy Horror (no restrictions, no premiere status required)

OUR PROGRAMMING PRINCIPLE - A NOTE ON FILM SUBMISSIONS
Our programmers pride themselves on watching all submitted films with an annual 98-100% watching average. We don't base our decisions on which festivals your film has been accepted. We decide on the merit of your film and not on the popularity of the filmmakers and its actors. Last year (9th edition), all 100% of our competition shorts came from submissions via Festhome and Bakunawa Forms. Bakunawa has two festival advisers and curators who recommend films from around the world - especially, Asia - but these recommendations still has to pass through our chief programmer and are mostly programmed out of competition. So just submit and don't send us all your laurels. While we are happy of your achievements (because we're filmmakers too!), we still look at each film at "face value" - we watch them (usually more than twice) and decide.

International Film Festival "Prvi kadar"/First Frame is an important film event in Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose mission is to promote film art of authors from all over the world. The Festival is of competitive character neither. Films compete in two categories: documentary and short films.

Fifteen editions of the festival, a large number of authors interested in the festival, proving that the festival recognized among artists all over the world, as an important and prestigious film event.

Festival selections confirm continuity, primarily artistic approach, on which is built the whole idea of the first frame. In considering the relationship between themes and ideas, stress is given to the author's attitude or an artistic idea.

Rich noncompetitive and competitive program of high artistic quality, educational programs, lectures DokMasterClass, Film Campus of art documentaries, exhibitions, promotion of book of film art, numerous guests from the world of film, proof that the festival from year to year expanding, enriching the content of the program. This years Festival will takes place from 20th to 24th November 2023 in East Sarajevo and Zvornik, Republic of Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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.

At Phenomena Festival, we celebrate the most imaginative and captivating genre films from around the world. From fantasy and sci-fi to horror and thrillers, we're on the hunt for the most unique and surreal films to showcase for a global audience of film enthusiasts.

Our goal is to discover films that not only entertain, but also have a deeper meaning or message hidden within. These are the films that stay with us long after the credits have rolled, the ones that transport us on a journey beyond the ordinary. We believe that genre films offer a rare opportunity to combine art and entertainment in a meaningful way, and we're passionate about promoting and celebrating this type of storytelling.

The festival takes place in the bustling metropolis of São Paulo, Brazil, and in the picturesque coastal town of Paraty, Rio de Janeiro, with a full week of screenings, panel discussions and workshops. As one of the biggest markets for independent films, São Paulo is the perfect location to showcase the best in genre filmmaking.

So if you're a filmmaker or artist with a genre-bending film, we invite you to submit your work to Phenomena Festival. We welcome diversity and originality, and impose no ratings restrictions. Join us for a week of great films and an unforgettable experience. Submit your film now!

Memorimage, International Film Festival of Reus is a Festival targeting films that use archival moving images.

The 19th edition of Memorimage will be celebrated from the 6th to the 9th of November 2024.

Festigol® is an independent non-competitive Football Film and Documentaries Festival held in Santiago of Chile since 2016. It aims to create a space where football is shown as a creator of stories beyond the pitch demanding it as a social and cultural phenomenon in Chile as well as in the whole world. We see football as a constructor of identities mobilizing our society’s affections, narratives and memories. We are seeking to be a means of appropriation and revaluation of the football-related cultural manifestations.

Besides the exhibition of films, we seek to bring together different audiences creating a meeting place for different football-related cultural expressions allowing us to develop emerging issues connected to this sport and to our society being today the single space offering movie showtimes related to the sport as a social manifestation in our country.

For its fifth version, Festigol® will be held from October 21 to 30, 2022 in Santiago de Chile with face-to-face exhibitions and through the festival's digital platform.

A non-competitive call will be issued for the exhibition of documentaries, short films, animations and feature films in order to promote and bring together the film production about football and related topics.

MAFIC: “MÁLAGA- INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL”: Training, BUSINESS AND APPRECIATION Space for new audiovisual, Artistic and Cinematographic products; Academic laboratories; suitable land for the meeting and exchange of alliances and development of projects between the regional, national and international industry.

MAFIC: is composed of 3 EXPERIENCES designed as follows:

REMA: "EXHIBITION ROUTE - MALAGUEÑA": Exclusive Exhibition Spaces throughout the municipality, of the latest Audiovisual Productions - Cinematographic, International, National, and Regional.

MAM “MÁLAGA AUDIOVISUAL AND ART, MARKETING” offers you opportunities that allow you to expand your network of contacts and learn about the regional, national or international Audiovisual market in artistic areas (cinema, theater, music, designers, plastic artists, costumes, decoration, comics, etc.)

LAFAMA "MALAGUEÑA AUDIOVISUAL TRAINING LABORATORIES"
They are laboratories of investigation and knowledge, where illustrious and recognized personages, will expose to the public in general or specific, detailed information of subjects of the cinematographic industry.

The festival champions great films but is particularly seeking work from those filmmakers who might not yet have had a prestigious public screening of their work.

Screening in the heart of London UKFF welcomes films of all types from all over the World - connecting up-and-coming filmmakers with more established names such as Judi Dench, Dustin Hoffman, James Corden, Bill Nighy, Timothy Spall, Steven Berkoff and most recently Willem Dafoe.

Category awards are given for Best Feature Film; Best Feature Documentary; Best Short Documentary; Best Animation; Best Music Video; Best British Short; Best International Short; Best Student Film; as well as special awards for excellence.

Mat Kirkby, Oscar Winner and Director at Ridley Scott Associates states that "The UK Film Festival is the most focused, passionate and quality driven film festival in the UK. Their invaluable support helped get me to the Oscars in 2015, where I won the Academy Award for best short film."

With a programme that showcases new talent alongside established directors, filmmakers and actors UKFF is a lively networking hub. Over the last 7 years UKFF has quickly become a career stepping stone, establishing a tradition of discovering and promoting films which have gone on to be Oscar and BAFTA nominees and winners. The script competitions have also made a big impact - five scripts have been optioned and three have been produced and gone on to win multiple awards and gained prestigious worldwide distribution deals.

Led by a jury of well respected professional filmmakers and as a member of Universal Films and Festivals Organisation we ensure a fair selection and judging process.

Our exciting screening events have created a networking hub that continues to connect new filmmakers to industry including television exposure by leading British broadcaster, Channel 4.

Wallachia International Film Festival is a highly professional, industry connected film festival, an exclusive independent grassroots film festival taking place in an exquisite location in Downtown Bucharest, only hundreds of meters away from Dracula’s former court in the grand Old Town!

We won multiple cinema prizes including important awards at major film festivals, like Cannes, Locarno, Montreal, London, Milan, Miami and Atlanta. Also, our advertising work received accolades at Clio, Effie, In-Awe, Lion Awards, ANDY Awards and Ad’Or, while working for companies like Coca-Cola, UNICEF, McDonalds, Renault, Yahoo! and Nestlé-Purina.

But there’s nothing we love more than indulging ourselves with cinematic candies from all over the world, under the autumn night sky of Wallachia. We will be arguing for a long time about which ones we feel are the best, and about the most promising unproduced screenplays.

Welcome to Wallachia, the Legendary Land of Voivode Vlad III Dracula, universally known as Vlad the Impaler. Born in 1431, Vlad was an authoritarian Principe, he revolutionized the affairs of Wallachia and refused to pay tribute to the sultan Mehmed II, resulting in a bloody war with the Ottomans. Multiple works containing stories about Vlad's cruelty were published soon after his assassination in 1475. In 1897, Bram Stoker downgrades Prince Vlad to Count Dracula, a blood-sucking vampire inspired by Wallachian ancient folklore. Loosely based on the book, Dracula (1931) casts immortal Bela Lugosi as the doomed romantic Count.

Just think cinétopia! Feel hundreds of years of mythic Wallachian history under the night sky! It’s a 100% natural film affair!

We watch all movies, we read all screenplays and we select exclusively based on artistic merits.

IFF ZOOM - ZBLIZENIA (Jelenia Góra) is one of the largest and most important independent cinema festivals in Poland. Its aim is to present the author's cinema, ambitious, high artistic value, moving independent and original subject matter, as well as promotion of independent film art.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
due to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, we would like to inform you that the Russian films which will be submitted to the 28. IFF ZOOM-ZBLIŻENIA 2025 will not be eligible for competitions.

In 1998, the Benalmádena Cinematographic Youth Association (ACIBE) recovered the spirit of the defunct SICAB (Benalmádena International Author's Film Week, 1969-1989) to undertake the project of creating a film festival for the city. The result, after seventeen years of management, is the Benalmádena International Short Film and Alternative Film Festival (FICCAB), a meeting forum for lovers of quality cinema. More than four hundred short films are presented each year at a festival for all ages that unites the glamor of the stars to the best auteur, independent, alternative and unknown cinematographies, paying special attention to European ones.

Born in 2009 in order to highlight and encourage artistic expression, film and cultural identity of the region. Promoting the permanence of cultures and strengthening the cultural policies of the city as a mechanism for citizen and community participation; thus supporting the development, exhibition and dissemination of film and the visual arts in the city of Guadalajara de Buga and Valle del Cauca; proposing dialogue between the various expressions of art today and their participation mechanisms mainly in the youth population. This festival seeks to create spaces for discussion, artistic and audiovisual creation in a participatory manner.

The festival became the first event of its kind in this area, for display, training, capacity building and collective on the subject of film and visual arts in Guadalajara de Buga and Valle del Cauca.

International Fantastic Film Festival of Castilla y León "Terroríficamente Cortos" born from enthusiasm and love for the cinema of palencian young and the need to boost the cultural and leisure in the city of Palencia on it involving institutional and business sector of the Spanish province.

SMR13 INTERNATIONAL INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL

The SMR13 International Independent Film Festival is an annual, IMDb-certified, four (4)-day event held in the second half of November, in Saint-Mitre-Les-Remparts, in the south of France, near Marseille.

First and foremost, it's a physical festival, taking place in "La Manare", a dedicated performance hall with a total surface area of 1000m² and a capacity of 250 spectators.

The 9th edition of the SMR13 international independent film festival will take place from November XX to XX, 2024.

The festival stands out for its highly developed network, passionate members and trusted partnerships. It is a unique showcase for independent cinema, attracting professionals from all over the world.

Since its inception, the festival has been supported by a patron, an emblematic figure in independent cinema. John Carpenter (2018), director, screenwriter and composer (Halloween, The Thing, New York 1997...). Andréa Ferréol (2019), actress (La Grande Bouffe, Le Dernier Métro, La Scoumoune...). Francis Ford Coppola (2019), director and screenwriter (Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Dracula...). Virginie Lemoine (2020), actress (Famille d'Accueil, Nos années parallèles, Oscar...). Sean S. Cunningham (2021), director and producer (Friday The 13th, Spring Break, DeepStar Six...). Patrice Leconte (2022 and 2023), director and producer (Les Bronzés, Les Spécialistes, Maigret...).

COVID-19 UPDATE: We will still hold our festival, though the format would be via online streaming due to COVID-19 restrictions. Same rules apply. For more info, visit www.miwaff.com.

MIWAFF AWARD WINNERS receive not only our prestigious awards but also recognition on IMDB and a one-year membership at iPitchTv.com! Film screenings will be available for streaming during our Festival period.

MIWAFF promotes all types of film, whether it is indie or studio based. Our mission is to unite filmmakers and artists in a competitive atmosphere by giving out prestigious Wreath Awards under a democratic process of popular vote. Our Festival recruits artists involved in film. This Jury of artists collectively votes on which film will be playing at our festival, and moreover, votes on which films get nominated and win.

The Barcelona Olympic Foundation, with the support of the Barcelona City Council, organizes the BCN Sports Film 2025 – 15th BARCELONA INTERNATIONAL FICTS FESTIVAL and forms part of the WORLD FICTS CHALLENGE 2025.

The BCN Sports Film 2025 will be held in Barcelona from 17th to 25th February 2025. This fifteenth edition of the Festival will have a competitive nature.

The fifteenth edition of the festival will have a hybrid format so, there will be face-to-face screenings and online screenings. The rights that the authors assign, therefore, are both for the face-to-face sessions that are held in the official venues of the contest, as well as for the sessions that will be held online through an online platform.

These Rules & Regulations have been approved by the BCN Sports Film 2025 Organising Committee. Your taking part in BCN Sports Film 2025 implies the total acceptance of these regulations.

From YouTube, Twitch, IGTV, TikTok, Spotify, Facebook and beyond, web content is king. And we want to celebrate you! ACTORS whether you are creating your own content or starring in other web series style show and video, this fest is for YOU!

IMDb qualifying!

After years of running Chicago Comedy Film Festival, LA Comedy Film Fest and America's Funniest Viral Videos, we see the need to add another event to our programming. Web content often gets lost in the traditional festival circuit and we're out to change that. In the Spring of 2022 LA Web Series Fest will all take part during LACFF! It's hard to predict what the "new normal" will be for events, but we plan to have this portion of LACFF at a fun live venue in 2022.