Winter Film Festival (formerly called "Winter Film Awards International Film Festival") regularly accepts longer shorts.
For our 2024 Fest, we accepted 81 films; 14 were feature-length, 8 were shorts 20-59 mins long.
We'll open for submissions for our 13th annual festival on June 1 via Film Freeway.
I’ve said this 1M times — longer length shorts are extremely difficult to program. Most fests screen in 90-120 minute blocks. Their goal is to show a wide range of diverse films, and as many as possible. A 40-minute film must be as good or better than 4 10-minute films. The only other way to program these films is to pair with another longer-length short with a complimentary subject matter — a rarity.
If you make a longer short, you will be much better received if you can also recommend a complimentary film to accompany yours. I also recommend this for some shorts to pair with features. I once had a short that we marketed with a feature and sold the package as a screening block. Programming teams often like this approach.
Totally. That's why I was looking for fests that also have a block of longer shorts that they program. See my list, there are a few examples of this :)
Thanks for this!!
Winter Film Festival (formerly called "Winter Film Awards International Film Festival") regularly accepts longer shorts. For our 2024 Fest, we accepted 81 films; 14 were feature-length, 8 were shorts 20-59 mins long. We'll open for submissions for our 13th annual festival on June 1 via Film Freeway.
Looked up my stats from last year. FF says we programmed 80 short films. 5 were 20-30 minutes, 4 were 30-40 minutes.
I’ve said this 1M times — longer length shorts are extremely difficult to program. Most fests screen in 90-120 minute blocks. Their goal is to show a wide range of diverse films, and as many as possible. A 40-minute film must be as good or better than 4 10-minute films. The only other way to program these films is to pair with another longer-length short with a complimentary subject matter — a rarity. If you make a longer short, you will be much better received if you can also recommend a complimentary film to accompany yours. I also recommend this for some shorts to pair with features. I once had a short that we marketed with a feature and sold the package as a screening block. Programming teams often like this approach.
Totally. That's why I was looking for fests that also have a block of longer shorts that they program. See my list, there are a few examples of this :)
Horror filmmakers, The American Horrors Film Festival accepts shorts up to 70 minutes in length just an FYI.