Bristol Independent Film Festival (5)

Festival start: 18 November 2023      Festival end: 25 November 2023

**Become a part of one of the most popular IMDb annual Festivals!**

Welcome to the Bristol Independent Film Festival. We are one of the UK’s fastest-growing independent film festivals!

Since we started in 2016 we have had submissions from over 120 countries. We pride ourselves on being an international film festival. We aspire to promote, recognize, and support independent filmmakers throughout the world by hosting a variety of awards to provide the best opportunities for filmmakers and help them receive their deserved recognition. We welcome submissions from a range of genres including short films, documentaries, features, animations, and screenplays.

Why BIFF?

•We aim to create a community of independent film-makers and an environment where we can celebrate independent films and our submitters’ creations.
•For each event, we provide networking booklets that include information about each winner and ways to contact them. We also provide trophies and winners packs.
•Each season we offer cash prizes to our favorite submissions to help fund their future projects.
•Finally, we aim to establish personal relationships with our submitters. We always enjoy finally meeting with our filmmakers/ scriptwriters and being able to celebrate their accomplishments in person.

Why Bristol?

Bristol was recently recognized by UNESCO as a “City of Film” alongside the likes of Sydney, Rome, and Galway. We pride ourselves on being the largest celebration of independent film in Bristol and we aim to create a hub for independent film-makers.

Judging Process?

Our submissions are judged by a jury of international industry professionals. They rate each submission on 10 different categories including cinematography, writing, pacing, and creativity. This helps them decide which submissions make it to the final stage where there will be jury group viewings to make sure we only pick the best quality submissions.

We look forward to viewing your creations and hope to meet you at our 5th annual celebration of independent film.

We only award the best independent filmmakers after a comprehensive evaluation process. Our judges evaluate the quality of filmmaking, creativity, and storytelling ability.
All selected nominees will be invited to our live screening at the Everyman Bristol Cinema for the opportunity to meet people from the same industry.

All winners will receive “winner” laurel with a hard copy certificate and special engraved “Bristol Independent Film Festival” trophy presented at our live screening on Event Date. Winners and selected nominees that cannot attend the event will be contacted by the BIFF team to send the awards to the provided address.

All selected and winning nominees will be contacted by the BIFF team a month prior to the notification date to for further information.

To submit a film, you must have created the project yourself, own the rights or have permission from the owner of the content to submit the film to us.

Rules and Terms:

Please read all the rules and requirements before submitting your project:

1. We do not accept any films made before 2016.

2. Any foreign films must include English subtitles.

3. All fees are non-refundable.

4. Student filmmakers are encouraged to apply but must present their valid Student ID in order to benefit from our student discount.

5. BIFF is not responsible for broken or non-functioning films.

6. Films do not have to be screened publicly to be eligible for our festival, prizes, or awards.

7. BIFF is a competitive event and unless notified otherwise, all films officially selected are eligible for competition. Not all submissions received are selected for BIFF.

8. All films are nominated and voted upon by a jury of film professionals, from an independent point of view.

9. All genres and formats are considered eligible for nomination into one or more competitive categories.

10. BIFF reserve the right to refuse to accept any submission deemed by the Festival to be inappropriate. Should you wish to question BIFF about their decision, you can contact us by email on Bristolfilmfest@hotmail.com.

11. A fee is required upon submission. For payment structures, visit the Festhome website.

12. One entry fee per category. The same film can be entered into one or more categories, but each category requires an entry fee.