2024 SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW CLOSED
The Edmonton Short Film Festival (ESFF) is dedicated to the elevation of Alberta Independent film. The ESFF gala event showcases Alberta filmmakers outside of the “normal” festival market and features diverse projects (newly created or “dusted off” favourites) including: trailers, music videos, web series, commercials, short films … as long as it’s less than 15 minutes, we’ll accept it!
IN ADDITION … we welcome submissions in the following categories:
1. 360/Virtual Reality films up to 15 minutes in length, any creation date, from Alberta and Internationally.
2. ESFF LONG SHORTS is for short films up to 60 minutes in length, any creation date, from anywhere in the world.
SCREENING FEES ARE PAID FOR ALL FILMS SCREENED AT ESFF EVENTS.
The Edmonton Short Film Festival welcomes a wide variety of short film projects including dramatic or comedic narratives, horror, music videos, web series, documentaries and animations – even commercials and trailers! (Note that we will disqualify films deemed to contain extreme violence, language, hatred, pornography or copyrighted material.) There are NO LIMITS to the creation date of your project, so if you have a film gathering dust in your archives and you would love to see it on the big screen, send it in! There is a cash prize of $250.00 for the People’s Choice Award and genre category awards.
Alberta films that are 15 minutes or less may be submitted to the genre categories to be screened at the Red Carpet Gala. Films that are over 15 minutes or created outside of Alberta are eligible for screening at ESFF LONG SHORTS (maximum length 60 minutes).. There will be cash prizes awarded to to top Canadian and the top International films.
If your film is selected you will need to provide:
A. 1920 x 1080 version of your film in a .mov Apple Pro Res 4:2:2 (HQ) or .mp4 H.264 format
B. Stereo audio is preferable but 5.1 is also accepted
C. 3 High Resolution stills
D. Social Media Handles
E. Director’s Bio (max 350 characters)
You are invited to submit more than one project for consideration; however, due to the limited screening time available, we are only able to select one of your projects to screen at the Gala.
BONUS!! The Local Heroes Film Festival was created for Alberta filmmakers! Submit a short film (up to 30 minutes) for consideration to the FilmFreeway portal. These short films will be available for curation for programming at numerous Community Screening events for a period of five years. Submitted films may be selected for more than one community screening. Find more information here.