PVTV Fringe Flicks (5)

Festival start: 19 February 2027      Festival end: 19 February 2027

Fringe Flicks is PVTV’s underground short film night in Liverpool, built for filmmakers and audiences who like cinema with edges: strange, playful, unsettling, excessive, formally adventurous or impossible to categorise.

For Season 5, we’re looking for short films that don’t quite behave: surreal comedies, strange dramas, experimental videos, animated nightmares, political satire, odd little micro-shorts, polished provocations, awkward miracles and anything else that feels too weird, funny, furious or alive to sit comfortably in the mainstream.

Selected films will screen across three Fringe Flicks events in Liverpool in 2027, with each programme curated as a live, communal cinema night rather than a generic festival block. We care less about industry polish than whether the film has a distinctive voice, image, rhythm, atmosphere, idea or point of view.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

We welcome short films, experimental videos, animations, artist moving image, hybrid work and anything that sits awkwardly between categories.

We’re especially interested in:

- experimental cinema
- surreal, absurdist, anarchic, and dreamlike shorts
- political and social satire, especially work that punches up
- films with cult energy
- formally inventive filmmaking, whether polished, rough, digital, analogue, animated or live action
- films that challenge norms, twist expectations or refuse to behave properly
- distinctive micro-shorts with a strong idea, image, joke, rhythm or atmosphere

Your film does not need to look a particular way. It can be polished, rough, funny, angry, quiet, maximalist, tiny, beautiful, grotesque or completely wrong. We’re looking for work with something distinctive about it: a strange idea, a sharp joke, a memorable image, an unusual structure, a strong atmosphere, a specific voice, or just that hard-to-define quality that makes a film stick in your head.

WHY SUBMIT TO FRINGE FLICKS?

Fringe Flicks champions short films that don’t fit neatly into the mainstream festival mould. We screen to real, engaged audiences in Liverpool, in a social, low-pressure setting designed for people who actually want to encounter strange cinema together.

Each event is carefully curated rather than treated as a random block of shorts. We think about rhythm, tone, atmosphere and how films speak to each other across the night. The screenings are friendly, informal and audience-facing, with space for conversation, drinks, voting and creative exchange.

We’re interested in filmmakers working in their own way, whether that means polished production, DIY methods, experimental process, strange comedy, animation, video art, genre mutation or something harder to name. Fringe Flicks is a home for cinema that bites, glitches, mutates, provokes, confuses, amuses or delights.

WHO CAN SUBMIT?

We welcome submissions from filmmakers anywhere in the world, regardless of background, training, budget or career stage.

Most of all, we’re looking for imaginative work told in distinctive ways. Tell the stories you want to tell, in the way only you can.

For Season 5, we also offer free submission routes for:

- filmmakers based in Merseyside
- under-represented filmmakers based in North West England or North Wales

These free routes are intended to help reduce barriers for filmmakers who may not have easy access to festival submission budgets, industry networks or formal film opportunities. Our general fees are also kept deliberately low so the callout remains accessible to DIY, emerging, low-budget and self-funded filmmakers.

SCREENING DETAILS

Selected films will screen as part of Fringe Flicks: Season 5, across three live screening events in Liverpool in 2027.

Current planned season dates:

- 12 February 2027
- 21 May 2027
- 8 October 2027

Each event will include a curated short film programme, an interval, refreshments and a relaxed community atmosphere. Our screenings are pay-what-you-can, not-for-profit events, with audience voting and space for people to talk, meet and share thoughts after the films.

Screenings take place at DoES Liverpool.

HOW TO SUBMIT

Submissions are open exclusively through Festhome.

For questions, please email:
peopleversustv@gmail.com

You can also find more information about Fringe Flicks here:
https://www.peopleversus.tv/fringe-flicks

AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARD

At each Fringe Flicks event, audience members vote for the film that resonated with them most, whether it challenged, surprised, disturbed, moved or delighted them.

Thanks to our partners at The DCP Works, the Audience Choice Award includes a free DCP for a future project, valued up to £120. The free DCP, up to 4K, is for a future project up to 20 minutes long and must be used within 2 years.

https://www.thedcpworks.com/

At Fringe Flicks, we believe cinema is best experienced as a conversation. The Audience Choice Award is not about declaring one film objectively “best”. It is a way to encourage discussion, deepen engagement and celebrate the range of voices, styles and approaches that make independent cinema exciting.

- Winner: recognised at the event and featured in our Fringe Flicks archive.

- Honourable Mentions: if voting is close, we may also acknowledge standout films.

WHAT WE ACCEPT

We welcome submissions that are:

- weird, anarchic, fun, absurdist, surreal or experimental

- politically or socially engaged, especially satire that punches up

- strange, funny, unsettling, playful, provocative or hard to categorise

- formally inventive, whether polished, rough, digital, analogue, animated or live action

- created by filmmakers at any stage of their career.

LENGTH

We accept films in the following categories:

- up to 3 minutes
- 3 to 15 minutes
- 15 to 30 minutes


LOCATION, LANGUAGE & FREE SUBMISSION ROUTES

The callout is open to filmmakers worldwide.

For Season 5, we offer one free submission per filmmaker through the following routes:

- filmmakers based in Merseyside
- under-represented filmmakers based in North West England or North Wales

The under-represented regional category is intended for filmmakers who face barriers to film exhibition because of class, race, gender, disability, income, lack of industry access or other forms of under-representation. We will not ask applicants to provide evidence, but we ask filmmakers to use these categories in the spirit intended.

If you would like to submit more than one film, please use the appropriate paid category for any additional entries.

Our fees are kept intentionally low, and help cover the basic costs of running the events. PVTV is a small, volunteer-led Community Interest Company, and every bit goes back into supporting the screenings, promotion and artists.


PREVIOUS SCREENINGS

Your film can have screened before. We accept work that has been shown at other festivals, events or online.

However, it must not have screened at a PVTV event before.

If you have screened with us before, email us for a free submission code. We love repeat collaborators.


SUBTITLES

Non-English dialogue must be subtitled in English. Burned-in subtitles or an SRT file are both fine.


MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS

Multiple submissions are welcome, but please submit each film through the appropriate category.


FOR MORE INFORMATION

Website: https://www.peopleversus.tv/fringe-flicks
Email: peopleversustv@gmail.com