Festival Cortos para Tiempos Largos (5)

Festival start: 19 November 2025      Festival end: 22 November 2025

The "Festival Cortos para Tiempos largos" is a proposal for the training, creation and circulation of audiovisual content carried out by young Colombians since 2020 with a clear purpose, to connect people and stories. The festival is not looking for winners, it is conceived as a space for the dissemination and visibility of audiovisual products, carried out for academic and non-profit purposes, where all those who wish to be part of a great story can participate.

This space is thought of as an opportunity for the dissemination and visibility of narrative content.

The festival has academic and non-profit purposes, for which recognition will be given to those selected but no prizes will be awarded.

Call for Entries - International Short Film Festival for Long Times – Fifth Edition (2025)

Narrating the Territory: Identity and Representation from the Local Level

In a world marked by geographic, cultural, and linguistic diversity, regional and local narratives not only express ways of inhabiting the territory, but also living memories, collective resistance, and futures yet to be imagined. In this fifth edition of the International Short Film Festival for Long Times, we open a space for voices emerging from the local level (in Colombia, Latin America, and the world) to be heard, observed, and recognized as an essential part of contemporary narrative.

Identity is not a fixed inheritance, but a dynamic construction that dialogues with the landscape, the past, the body, and the image. How is a territory represented from within? What do our streets, accents, and silences reveal to us? What power is there in telling one's own story, from the margins or from the center?

This year, the festival aims to highlight and celebrate audiovisual narratives born in the neighborhoods, islands, suburbs, towns, and margins, that is, from those places that make up the intimate core of each territory. Short films that name what is their own, reconstruct what is forgotten, and reinvent what is possible, regardless of the place in the world from which they are narrated.

The Festival aligns itself with key principles such as glocalization, geopoetics, and territorial narratives, recognizing the importance of connecting the local with the global from a critical, sensitive, and situated perspective. Furthermore, it draws inspiration from concepts such as territorial identity, territorial memory, social cartography, cultural landscape, and symbolic territory to enrich the approach of the proposals and engage in dialogue from the emotional, symbolic, and collective roots of the territories.

The International Short Film Festival for Long Times, in its fifth edition, invites national and international filmmakers to participate with their short films under the central theme "Narrating the Territory: Identity and Representation from the Local Level." This annual event promotes the creation, dissemination, and circulation of audiovisual productions in short film format. This year, it seeks to bridge the gap between territories, generations, and narrative styles, celebrating the possibility of narrating one's own story from the heart of one's territory while remaining in dialogue with what is happening beyond our borders.

Open Call

The Short Films for Long Times Festival invites national and international filmmakers to participate with their short films in the fifth official edition of the festival. Submissions will be open starting July 2025.

Who can participate?

Individuals or legal entities from any country who hold the copyright, intellectual rights, and all other rights to the short film they are submitting are eligible to participate.

Copyright

Festival participants declare that they are the owners of the rights to the short film, including videos, photographs, sound, motion graphics, images, soundtrack, voice, designs, and other elements. Otherwise, they must have the necessary permits for their use or ensure that the elements are free to circulate and use.

Image Rights

Participants declare that the persons appearing in their audiovisual products authorize their participation, having obtained all necessary permits, especially if the image of minors or people in vulnerable situations is used.

Legal or Other Actions

Participants release the Short Films for Long Times Festival from any legal action for third-party copyright claims or other types of actions that the legal representative of the audiovisual work may face for violation of copyright, image rights, or other rights arising from their short film.

Conditions of Participation

Below is the information regarding the festival's participation requirements:

Participation Categories
The festival invites participants to produce and submit short films in the following categories:

Fiction
Documentary
Animation
Stop Motion
Minute Film
Local Roots (Category exclusively for short films from the Colombian Coffee Region - Caldas, Risaralda, and Quindío)

Any of the categories may be declared void due to a lack of short films received or failure to meet minimum standards, which will be determined by the festival and is final.

Suggested Thematic Guidelines

The following thematic guidelines guide participation in the Fifth International Short Film Festival for Long Times. These are not rigid categories, but rather proposed axes to guide the creation, selection, and discussion of the short films included in this edition.

Each category seeks to highlight key aspects of the festival's approach: territory as a living experience, identity as a dynamic construction, and audiovisual narrative as a tool to make visible local memories, resistance, and realities with a global impact.
These guidelines are designed to recognize the diversity of forms, styles, and voices, and to strengthen the dialogue between the local and the global from situated, critical, and creative perspectives.

The selected short films don't necessarily have to adhere literally to a single line, but they must engage with one of these approaches:

Territories that Feel: affective and poetic cartographies of living. Maps drawn with emotions, connections, and shared memories.

Faces of Place: identities in motion. Stories born from the intimate, the everyday, and the plural. Portraits of communities, families, and cultures that challenge stereotypes and reclaim their own from their complexity.

Living Archives: memories that still breathe.

Narratives that emerge from oral tradition, from grandmothers' stories, from saved objects, and from open wounds. An exploration of the past as living matter that continues to speak in the present.

Fictions of the Root: imagining the possible from the local. Creations that emerge from the territory to project alternative futures. Invented stories that, nevertheless, tell profound truths about the context, resistance, and collective dreams.

Forms born from place: experimentation from the territorial perspective. Short films that explore unconventional formats—such as experimental film, animation, video art, or poetic documentary—without losing their connection to the territory, the community, and the emotion that gives rise to them.

Youth in the lens: new voices, new worlds. Stories told by young creators who redefine their surroundings, who discover in audiovisual media a tool to inhabit, denounce, dream, and transform their realities.

Some provocative questions:

Who narrates the territory and from what place of enunciation?

What does it mean to represent a local identity without falling into stereotypes?

How can audiovisual media strengthen memory and community roots?

What role do young creators play in redefining their environments?

How do short films contribute to transforming ways of seeing the world from within?

The festival aligns with key principles such as geopoetics and territorial narratives, and is inspired by concepts such as territorial identity, territorial memory, social cartography, cultural landscape, and symbolic territory.

Submission Requirements

Audiovisual works participating in the festival must meet the following conditions:

Short films with a minimum duration of one (1) minute and a maximum of ten (10) minutes (including credits) will be accepted.

Short films must be presented in their original language and with Spanish subtitles if they are not.

Each audiovisual work must have its respective credits, technical information, and official poster.

Minimum audio and video quality must be guaranteed to allow for the short film to be appreciated.

Audiovisual works presented and selected in previous versions of the festival will not be eligible to participate again.

The festival reserves the right to reject short films that explicitly depict injuries, mutilations, human trafficking, human rights violations, and any themes deemed inappropriate or degrading.

Registration Requirements

Registration for the festival will open in September 2025.

Audiovisual works wishing to participate in the festival will be received through the FestHome platform.

Any questions or concerns during the registration period will be addressed by email at Infofestival@cortosparatiemposlargos.com.

Those who experience problems when registering and/or who charge a fee for the platform can contact the festival via email to find another registration method.

Selection

Once the audiovisual works have been submitted, a designated group will begin the screening and selection phase for the short films that will make up the official selection.

Those responsible for the screening and selection process are chosen by the festival, and their verdict is final.

Short films that fail to meet any of the conditions for participation will be disqualified.

Each participant will receive notification of the results of the festival's official selection.

The results of this call will be published on the festival's website and social media in November 2025.

Festival

The "Short Films for Long Times Festival" will be held in November 2025, both online and in-person (Colombia). During these days, you can enjoy:

Screening of the short films in the official selection at
http://festivalcortosparatiemposlargos.com/.
Viewing talks and/or interviews with industry insiders.

Participation in videoconferences.

In-person screenings and talks (Colombia).

The "Short Films for Long Periods Festival" is a space for dissemination, awareness, and training, held for academic and non-profit purposes. It is not a competition.

Obligations and Other Provisions

The Festival seeks to provide transparency and clarity with the call for entries and its results:
Short films that have been included in the official selection cannot be withdrawn once their participation in the official program has been announced.

The selected short films will be screened virtually and in person during the festival.

The festival will have the right to award special mentions if required.

Submitting the final files for screening authorizes the festival to use them for promotional purposes for an indefinite period.

All property rights of the author, intellectual rights, and all other rights to the short film will remain with the participant.

The festival does not provide for payments for exhibition, distribution, or promotion. By submitting their work, the owner authorizes its cultural and/or educational exhibition on any festival platform, including for unspecified subsequent periods.
All audiovisual works selected in the different versions will remain within the festival's private archives and may be used with prior authorization from the authors.

The owner of the audiovisual work acknowledges that they have all the rights to the short film to authorize its dissemination and releases the Cortos para Tiempos Largos Festival, its representatives, and collaborators from any liability arising from third-party claims.

By submitting, the participant agrees to be bound by the terms set forth herein and must comply with them, accepting them fully, without reservation or exception.

These terms and conditions are mandatory and binding.

If they choose not to accept them, they will not be eligible to participate in this call for entries.

All participants agree to comply with all the rules established in this call for entries.
Any matter not specified in this notice will be addressed by email at Infofestival@cortosparatiemposlargos.com.