⁣⁣The Chicago film industry was a central hub for motion picture production and exhibition before Hollywood became the undisputed capital of filmmaking. In the early 1900s, Chicago boasted the most significant number of production companies and filmmakers. This situation was partially preserved until 1920, when the Chicago film industry met decline for a combination of reasons, including the impact of the Great Depression. Not until the 1980s and early 21st century has Chicago experienced a film production revival. Movie production again entered Chicago in the 1980s, with the state of Illinois becoming a leader in money spent on film production. Blockbusters, such as Blues Brothers, Sixteen Candles, and The Dark Knight, have rejuvenated the Chicago film scene.
Inspired by this tradition, the mission of the Chicago Filmmaker Awards, aka Cifawards, is to recognize and reward independent filmmakers that are currently missing in mainstream Hollywood. Whether your talent is in front of the camera or behind it, we have a category for you. We are waiting to watch your films.
We are interested in professionally made independent works. Submissions are open for shorts, feature narratives, documentaries and animation, and even experimental films and music videos.
This will be a seasonal Awards event with yearly live screening. Each season, we will select the best-known movies and promote the winners through social media and the official website. Few of the winners of each season will be selected for our online event.

⁣Santa Barbara Shorts is a short, online film competition festival. Its aim is to provide quality films to our festival audience with particular attention to the craft of performance, cinematography, sound and score, and editing.
We are seeking shorts in documentary, animation, live action and narrative films up to 50 mins there are no restrictions on when or where the film was made as long as the film itself can be classified into a general audience rating.
If you have an interesting live action or animated short film, we warmly welcome you to submit to our film section of our festival.

⁣⁣⁣Berlin Short Awards is a bi-monthly IMDb qualified online short awards event. We are happy to welcome filmmakers from all genres, particularly low or no-budget ones, and all countries, especially from those traditionally underrepresented in the global film industry. Our main goal is to showcase their brilliant projects in Berlin's beautiful city for a diverse audience of cinephiles. Berlin, as a city dates to the 13th century. Reminders of the city's turbulent 20th-century history can be seen in the parts of city. The city's also known for its art scene and modern landmarks like the gold-coloured, swoop-roofed Berliner Philharmonic, built in 1963. We encourage you to submit your work to this online event.
The selected projects are privately judged by a random team of invited experts from academia and the film industry worldwide, against a high standard of merit. From the official selection pool, which has a very competitive acceptance rate, Berlin Shorts Award chose the nominees and award winners of the month. All the Winners will receive the Official Laurels and the winning-category certificate.

⁣⁣⁣Rome has had a special place in the art and beauty of the world from years ago. The Roman baths, the outstanding architecture created in this beautiful city throughout history, the sculptures, and the paintings all reflect the special place of Rome in the art of the world. Meanwhile, Rome has always been a unique city among Italian filmmakers. Directors like Pasolini, Fellini and Antonioni, and other contemporary filmmakers have always used the city of Rome and its beauties in their films and created unexpected cinematic moments for us.
We hope to use Roman history and grandeur in favour of creating a unique festival atmosphere. This festival will be held seasonally in Rome, to show outstanding short films in this beautiful city each season. Roma short is dedicated to celebrating the works of independent filmmakers from around the world, and we pay special attention to ultra low-budget films by first and second-time directors. The festival hopes to provide a place for cinema lovers, independent filmmakers to get acquainted with the latest works in cinema. We hope to create a social space around cinema and promote new discourses about the future of cinema.
The festival has a seasonal structure. First of all, our jury will review the nominated films. We award films in each season . Seasonal semi-finalist selections are screened privately for consideration. Among the winner movies, a limited number will be selected for online screening. Winners will receive laurels. Seasonal winners will be listed on our website and Instagram.

⁣⁣An IMDb qualified festvial , Rotterdam Independent Film Festival (Riff) is a brand new, up-and-coming online seasonal short film festival in Netherland, a country with great filmmakers like Johan van der Keuken and popular international film festivals. Riff is an exclusive online short film competition, and our main goal is to showcase the brilliant short projects for a diverse audience of cinephiles.
RIFF is more than just a Film event; it is a strong connection among all filmmakers worldwide. RIFF is a hub for international filmmakers to celebrate their premieres, thank their cast and crew, and meet their fans. Exposing young talented filmmakers to an environment of industry professionals with vast experience in their field is a priority for us. One of our top aims is to help first-time filmmakers promote their talent regardless of their age. The objective of RIFF is to provide support to indie filmmakers globally through reviewing, judging, marketing, and distribution networking. We aim to create networks that lead to further opportunities for filmmakers.
RIFF is an online award film festival. You have two steps in front to advance to the annual event. At first, each season, our jury selects the winners of each category through "private" screenings. Every submitted film has a chance to be a winner for each season. In the next step, we select few films from the winner projects for the annual event. If you get to the second stage, we will get in touch with you for the annual event (not getting a notification from us means that you are not a selected film for the second stage). If you advance to the yearly event, you need to send us materials for online screening.
Our judges consist of filmmakers and industry professionals from 5 different countries. We believe that having such a multicultural team behind our festival helps our festival thrive among Indie Festivals.

⁣⁣The Munich Short Film Awards is an online festival and competition dedicated to low-budget short indie film and script projects. Every edition, the festival selects and promotes the winners of each category through private screenings and evaluations by our team of dedicated professionals. The festival seeks all genres. The event selects international projects and is devoted to short filmmaking, independent cinema, arthouse projects and short cinema. The short film festival aims to find talented short filmmakers and help them promote their work. Short films will be reviewed by our screeners team and the highest scored ones will be selected as Official Selection receiving corresponding Laurels. Then, our international jury will choose the winners in each category and they will receive the Official Laurels and Certificates.

⁣Created to encourage content creators from unique backgrounds to share their stories, International Cosmopolitan Film Festival of Tokyo will promote the work of diverse (thought, race, gender, age, religion, physical ability and sexual orientation) filmmakers and recognize them for their achievements in film.
On the other hand, coronavirus and the challenges and devastating changes it has caused made it clear that the future of art might be in the hands of animations and computer generated services. In the past few months, many art projects have been either cancelled or halted and postponed but animation and digital companies were able to keep going despite the Coronavirus pandemic, and they have managed to survive through their use of CGI technologies instead of using traditional methods. The festival was founded with the goal of becoming a place to introduce the best of recent national and international animated art projects. The festival is framed by a range of different activities surrounding the art and industry of animation.

⁣The organizing and administrative team of the IMDb qualified Vancouver Independent Film Festival started their activities ten years ago, in the form of a successful collaboration between Vancouver-based Pacific United Production and 24 frames company in Canada. Since this cooperation's commencement, countless events, from screenings and stage performances to appreciation nights, galas and cruise trips on opening and closing ceremonies, have been successfully executed in Vancouver. Our focus at the beginning was middle Eastern cinema, especially the Iranian cinema. During the past years, we had a series of monthly film screenings between Vancouver Cinematheque and Pacific United on Iranian Cinema. We also organized several of our past events during the past years at the prestigious location of Kay Meek Centre.
Following the remarkable success in Vancouver's organizing events, the need and demand for a Festival in Vancouver became prominent. With specific attention to the diverse population in Vancouver, the decision was made to organize and execute a genuine international film festival to cover all the nationalities and communities in Vancouver and, to a greater extent, in Northern America.
The Vancouver Independent Film Festival was created with both a seasonal and yearly structure with online and physical screenings. At the end of each season, the jury selects the winners of each category through private screenings. The winners of each season "might" be then considered for yearly competition; if they get chosen by the programming committee, they will be shown and compete with other films-winners at the annual event. The location of the festival is Kay Meek Art Centre.

⁣⁣Are you fed up with the politicization of art in contemporary society? Do you believe that you are an excellent filmmaker because of the inner artistic quality of your work and not because of the political layers of your film?. Do you find it irritating that festivals constantly ask you about your identities, your political views and make you fill interrogative forms in which you have to justify that you are a "good" morally correct artist for society? If you think any of this, welcome to the Hollywood International Golden Age Festival for ALL! We believe that an artist should be free to create her work, and no institutions for any reason should impose on her how her art should look. For us, a just and democratic cinema is a cinema that treats everybody the same and equally without imposing any artistic criteria to follow. This is the first principle of democracy. Each artist's "dignity" and free opinion is more important than the "assumptions" of intellectuals who feel they know what justice is and want to teach it to everybody. Every artist is equal, and every artist should be treated equally and with the same degree of respect. We have created this radical festival which this specific line of thoughts. This is the festival in which the only criteria to judge your work is its "artistic" quality and not any political demand of the current society. We judge films based on their inner qualities, and we don't care to be a politically correct festival. We want to prioritize once more the "art" of filmmaking.
The organizing and administrative team of Hollywood Golden Age started their activities in New York 2 years ago. This is a monthly New York-based film festival with a yearly event. Every month, our Jury will award the best films through private screenings. Monthly Award Winners will be chosen to compete in the online Award.

⁣Inspired by cosmopolitan mentality, we encourage diversity and multi-cultural short films. We want to truly reflect the international filmmaking community and showcase fresh talent from all filmmakers - no matter the age or the subject matter. With this in mind, we encourage filmmakers from all backgrounds to submit their projects. Furthermore, we genuinely believe that good filmmaking is an actual result of a good story. We hope to find new voices and perspectives to celebrate the power of a good story.
Florida Shorts is a seasonal competition and an annual online festival dedicated to short films of all genres from the U.S. and international filmmakers. In the first step, our professional screeners will privately review your film each quarterly season, and the highest scored films will become the semi-finalist . The semi-finalist of the seasonal editions are screened privately to jury members of each edition in various categories. All the award winners are then considered for the annual online festival; if they get selected, they will compete with other films in our annual event.
Join us for Florida Short's events this year!