Finding your way

As a filmmaker, two things are very important: making films, obtaining funding and showing the film to the rest of the world! Around the globe there are so many great festivals and events that it is easy to lose track of what is happening. It can be difficult to realistically assess which festival is the right one for your film.

That's why CineSud Magazine started publishing monthly articles with the most interesting and promising international film festivals that you can submit to the following months. Next to that, we give an overview of interesting funding options in the heart of the Netherlands, Belgium as well as Germany.

Film Festivals

The Palm Springs International ShortFest

Submission deadline: February 1 (late deadline)
Festival dates: June 20-26, 2023

The Palm Springs International ShortFest is one of the largest showcases of short-form cinema in North America. The seven-day competitive festival is Academy Award, BAFTA and Goya-qualifying, annually screening hundreds of shorts from approximately 60 countries. ShortFest accepts submissions up to 40 minutes in duration, in the form of both fiction and non-fiction shorts. Categories include Animation, Documentary, and Live-Action. [Read more]

NorthwestFest International Documentary Festival

Submission deadline: February 5 (late deadline)
Festival dates: May 4-14, 2023

We are planning to hold an IN PERSON event for 2023, with ALL films available exclusively in cinema. There will be no online component for 2023. At NorthwestFest International Documentary Festival, our motto is: "Nothing but the Truth". Held each May, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada NorthwestFest is looking for the best new independent documentaries & docudramas. [Read more]

The Vancouver Queer Film Festival

Submission deadline: February 10 (regular deadline)
Festival dates: August 10 – 20, 2023

The Vancouver Queer Film Festival is one of the largest queer arts events in Western Canada. We illuminate, celebrate, and advance queer lives through film, education, and dialogue. Each August, we showcase 11 days of outstanding cinema, live performances, community-building events, and great parties, all in the environment of beautiful mountain and ocean views. [Read more]

Montreal International Black Film Festival

Submission deadline: February 28 (early bird deadline)
Festival dates: September 27 - October 6, 2023

The goal of the Montreal International Black Film Festival (MIBFF) is to bring audiences the most beautiful and the most amazing new Black films, while creating a space to debate major cultural, social and socio-economic issues. The MIBFF wants to promote a different kind of cinema, cinema that hails from here and from abroad and that does not necessarily have the opportunity to grace the big screen, groundbreaking cinema that moves us, that raises awareness and that takes us all by surprise. The MIBFF wants to deal with issues and present works that raise questions, that provoke, that make us smile, that leave us perplexed, that shock us. [Read more]

Funding

Dutch Deadlines

Nederlands Film Fonds:

For all deadlines, visit Filmfonds.

Belgian Deadlines

Flemish Audiovisual Fund:

For all deadlines, visit VAF.

German Deadlines

For updates, visit the official NRW-website.

Are you up-to-date?

You don't want to miss any deadlines or activities from the region? Then check our program.