About the Festival
Hamilton Film Awards is an international competition with public screenings and an exclusive award ceremony, created to honor the finest talents of the independent film industry, selected from the most prestigious competitions around the world. This award is dedicated exclusively to short films, indie films, experimental films, and music-driven films.
The festival accepts films made after 2023.
Hamilton Film Awards is an international competition with public theatrical screenings and an exclusive award ceremony, designed to celebrate the best independent talents participating in prestigious competitions worldwide.
The Hamilton Film Awards (HFA) aims to discover and honor cinema to which the festival is ready to offer its “hand and heart.”
To identify and preserve those acts of cinematic creation where form becomes revelation and craftsmanship reaches the level of a spiritual feat. We believe that true cinema is not an imitation of life but its transformation into light—where every frame is a carved-in-time ode to the invincible power of beauty in the art of film.
We seek works in which the filmmaker’s reverence for the eternal becomes a visible miracle—film stock turned into revelation, whose final frame becomes pure feeling itself.
The “OVE” statuette is not just an award. It is a living symbol of what lies at the foundation of great cinema: love for creativity and for filmmaking. OVE, holding this gift, becomes the guardian of the eternal. She is not merely inspiration but a conduit between the creator’s world and immortality. In her hands rests the director’s diamond heart — a pledge of loyalty, a promise that even when the director is gone, their love remains, like diamonds that continue to shine in the darkness of eternity.
We believe that true art is the quintessence of eternal values, embodied in the fleeting moment of a single frame. Our goal is to present cinema that evokes emotion, sparks conflict, and is as deep and eternal as true feeling—unique as a proposal of lifelong devotion.
Submitting your work to us is not about winning, career advancement, or recognition in the usual sense. It is for you if you are ready for another kind of dialogue: for your love of cinema to be seen. Not the plot, not the budget, not the technical methods—but the feelings and emotions that make us experience, empathize, love, and live through what gave birth to the film itself. So that your work may be noticed, recognized as a kindred heart, and told: “We know how deeply you love cinema. We see it in every frame.”
If your work is a crystal, we will not shatter it with the hammer of market trends. We will place it in the treasury where cinema becomes legacy—not product. You have already given your heart to the screen. Now allow us to become the mirror in which it is reflected—pure, eternal, and invulnerable.
Your heart, given to art, is recognized and returned to you—cut and polished into a diamond.
OVE is inlaid with a 4-carat diamond heart of exceptional clarity and cut, and coated in 24-carat gold.
Symbolism:
The OVE award is not a prize but a knighthood of vision—a sign of belonging to the brotherhood of those who bring into the world not just a film, but visible proof of the soul’s immortality.
The Hamilton Film Awards strives to become one of the world’s most respected festivals, and its top prize—the OVE statuette—aims to become as coveted as the Oscar.
Hamilton Film Awards announces the launch of its first festival, which has already generated great anticipation thanks to its extraordinary prize.
O. V. E. = Opening — Vertex — End
Symbolizing the Triad of Creation and embodying the three acts—beginning, climax, and finale.
Why submit your work?
So that your “heart,” offered to art, may be recognized and returned to you—cut into a diamond.
Submit to us if you are ready for another kind of dialogue: for your love of cinema to be seen. Not the plot, not the budget, not the techniques—but the emotions, the feelings, the life force that gave birth to the film. So that your work may be recognized as a kindred soul: “We know how deeply you love cinema. We see it in every frame.”
If your film is a crystal, we will not break it with the hammer of convention. We will place it where cinema becomes heritage, not product. You have already given your heart to the screen—now let us become the mirror that reflects it: pure, eternal, invulnerable.
So that your heart, given to art, may be recognized and returned to you—cut into a diamond.
