Sustain Film Festival ()

Festival start: 27 August 2025      Festival end: 31 August 2025

Sustain is a film, animation, performing arts, and interactive media festival based in Guildford, Surrey—a cathedral town just a short train ride from London. The theme of the festival has environmental overtones, but we welcome submissions from artists, creators, producers and makers from across the creative and cultural landscapes, with an open invitation to interpret the theme as they see fit. We seek stories and artworks far and wide – local regional, national and global. We want to bring people together to promote the future wellbeing of the planet, as well as the current cultural wellbeing of its inhabitants. We want to deliver experiences that explore the very nature of our species, that probe into our psyches, ask big questions of who we are, and who we might become.

Confirmed venues:

Boileroom
Guildford Institute
Nodus Centre
Lakeside Cinema
Performing Arts Technology Studios

All selected submissions will be screened at venues in Guildford at our main festival, as well as build-up events prior.

All selected projects will receive an "OFFICIAL SELECTION" Sustain Film Festival laurel to use for promotion, for both main festival and build-up screenings.

All student films will are eligible for competition in our awards; there are no student specific categories.

GOLDEN LEAF Awards

All films will be judged as competing for the following categories where appropriate:

Best in Festival
Green Finger Award for Sustainable Film
Best in Short Films
Best in Features
Best in Documentary
Best in Animation

GENRES

Best Comedy
Best Experimental Film~
Best Drama
Best Interactive
Best Music & Dance Film

Advice for submissions:

GENRE - All project genres welcome!

ORIGIN - International submissions welcome!

LENGTH - We accept both short and feature submissions. Any length is welcome, though ideally no longer than 120 minutes.

THEME - Our 'Sustain' theme is open to interpretation - we are particularly interested in titles associated with our theme, in whatever creative ways you can interpret!

SUSTAINABILITY - Projects that adhere to sustainable production practices are encouraged

Terms:

By submitting your film, we reserve the right to use it at upcoming and unannounced events, should we deem it brilliant enough to be worth sharing a second time around! You will be welcome to use laurels for these events, though your submission will only be eligible for awards in your project's original submission.

We may use your trailer or short clips from your film (max. 90 seconds) to promote your film's screening at our festival on social media and other digital platforms

We may use screenshots from your films within marketing materials from the festival, both digital and physical - such as posters, programmes and flyers

SELECTION PROCESS

Films are reviewed by a majority of our team before the ultimate selection decision to screen is made. Our team is made up of filmmakers, creative producers, journalists and more!

Not all projects might suit our film festival, and we reserve the right not to screen project submissions we think would find a more suitable home at other festivals.