Festival start: 03 July 2026
Festival end: 05 July 2026
Presentation of the film festival
Ardea Film Festival is a cinematic cultural event held in the city of Ardea, an Italian municipality within the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital, in the Lazio region.
Now in its 2nd edition, Ardea Film Festival is a cultural event conceived and curated by the cultural association Atelier deUtopie, in collaboration with Pro Loco Ardea APS, promoted by the Ministry of Culture | Pantheon and Castel Sant’Angelo | Directorate of National Museums of the City of Rome, and supported by the Municipality of Ardea. The Festival promotes several calls aimed at engaging citizens, artists, professionals, and students, with the goal of igniting a passion for cinema as an experience of sharing, contemplation, listening, and discovery - an invitation to rediscover and experience cinema in the city of Ardea in its deepest and most authentic dimension.
Ardea Film Festival will take place in the splendid setting of the Giacomo Manzù Museum in Ardea, from July 03 to July 05, 2026, representing an opportunity to bring citizens closer to auteur cinema, new visual languages, experimental and independent forms of cinematographic and audiovisual production in general.
Ardea Film Festival aims, through screenings, meetings with directors, workshops, retrospectives and exhibitions, to educate about the image, stimulate a critical reading of film language and create moments of intergenerational comparison. The promotion of film culture will also be supported by an open and varied program, designed to engage a broad and varied audience, as well as by collaborations with schools, universities, and training institutions.
Ardea Film Festival aims to creatively enhance the local cultural heritage, a narrative territory par excellence: its thousand-year history, natural landscape, historical architecture and places of memory represent an immense unexpressed potential that the festival intends to highlight through the gaze of the camera, restoring a new visibility to the material and immaterial assets of the territory, promoting an emotional, dynamic and participatory knowledge of it.
The awards will consist of commemorative plaques for the event and will be divided into the following categories:
Category - Short Film (Il Cinema degli Autori)
- Best Short Film Award
- Best Director Award
- Best Cinematography Award
Category - Documentary (Il Cinema del Reale)
- Best Documentary Award
- Best Director Award
- Best Cinematography Award
Category - Student (Il Cinema degli Esordi)
- Best Short Film Award
Special Mentions will also be awarded to works of particular cultural relevance:
Special Mentions
- Territorial Promotion Award
- Social Issues Award
- Visual Arts Award
Ardea Film Festival | II edition 2026
03-04-05 Luglio 2026
Official regulation of the event
Art. 1
Festival Objectives
Ardea Film Festival was created with the aim of promoting film culture in the city of Ardea, offering visibility to authors, directors, and filmmakers from all over the world—both emerging and established, independent and non-independent—by highlighting original works distinguished by artistic quality, creativity, and meaningful content, with particular attention to innovation in audiovisual language and refinement in cinematic form.
The Festival is founded on the following principles: Respect, Responsibility, Integrity, Professionalism, Equity, Trust and Transparency. The organizing committee reserves the right to exclude, even in the phase following the selection, works that are in conflict with these ethical principles. *Appendix A: lists the criteria that define the violation of the aforementioned principles.
Art. 2
Requirements for participation
Participation is open to everyone, without political or ideological restrictions, according to the terms defined in this regulation and the submission conditions of the Festhome platform.
https://festhome.com/festival/aff2025
Anyone may participate by submitting an audiovisual work with a minimum duration of 5 minutes and a maximum duration of 20 minutes (including opening and closing credits), within the following deadlines:
Open Call
March 09, 2026 – May 03, 2026
Early Deadline Registration
March 29, 2026
Regular Deadline Registration
April 19, 2026
Late Deadline Registration
May 10, 2026
Official Selection Notification
May 18, 2026
Ardea Film Festival | Event Dates
July 03–04–05, 2026
Submission timelines are defined on the Festhome platform.
Any submission received after the deadline will not be considered.
If selected, a downloadable version of the work and additional promotional materials will be requested. There is no limit to the number of works that an individual or group may submit. The presence of the director and/or producer of the selected work during the festival days (July 03–04–05, 2026) is welcome.
By submitting a film, the participant declares:
- to hold the rights to the work or to have obtained authorization to submit it;
- to provide, if requested, releases and authorizations for music, images, and logos;
- to provide, if requested, releases and authorizations for recognizable individuals appearing in the film;
- to indemnify the organization from any civil or criminal liability related to the content of the work;
- to grant Ardea Film Festival (atelier deUtopie APS) the non-exclusive right to screen the work during the Festival and excerpts of it on communication channels for promotional and informational purposes.
Art. 3
Categories
The thematic sections of the Festival are:
- Short Fiction films (max 20 minutes);
- Documentaries (max 20 minutes);
- Students (max 10 minutes).
The theme is open. Special mentions will be awarded to works addressing the relationship between place, identity and memory (not only relating to the city of Ardea, but also to other territories, distant or neighboring).
Note: Film not in Italian must necessarily include Italian or English subtitles, otherwise they will be excluded from the official selection.
Art. 4
Selection of the Works
The selection takes place in two phases:
- Evaluation of the organizing committee for the "official selection";
- Official Selection Notification → May 18, 2026
- Evaluation by the official jury to assign awards and special mentions during the competition phase
- Winners Notification → July 05, 2026
Evaluation criteria:
- Originality of the subject;
- Quality of the narration;
- Experimentation with new audiovisual languages;
- Innovation of representation techniques;
- Relationship with the territory;
- Emotional impact.
The decision of the organizing committee and the jury are final and unquestionable. Members of the jury and the organization may not submit their own works or works by family members and must abstain in the case of a conflict of interest. The Festival reserves the right to exclude at any stage works that violate rights or ethical principles.
Art. 5
Projections
Selected films will be screened during the Festival in Ardea at the Giacomo Manzù Museum, with free access for authors and/or producers of works in competition.The Festival reserves the right to screen selected works in satellite events related to the Festival. Any external use other than those mentioned above will be agreed upon individually with the author.
Art. 6
Prizes
Selected works will receive commemorative plaques, awarded during the final ceremony. No monetary prizes are provided. If the recipient is absent, delayed collection or shipment (at the recipient’s expense) will be possible.
The award-winning categories are the following:
Category - Short Fiction (Il Cinema d’Autore)
- Best Short Film
- Best Director
- Best Photography
Category - Documentaries (Il Cinema del Reale)
- Best Documentary
- Best Director
- Best Photography
Category - Students (Il Cinema degli Esordi)
- Best Student Short Film
Special Mentions
- Territorial Enhancement Award
- Social Issues Award
- Visual Arts Award
Participation in the Festival does not entitle participants to compensation, reimbursements, or appearance fees. Festival gadgets and access badges will be provided to authors and/or producers of selected works present during the Festival days.
Art. 7
Distribution and Copyright
Selected authors authorize the non-exclusive use of:
- Excerpts from the work (max 90 seconds);
- Frames and promotional materials.
Promotional use extends to the current edition and future editions of the Festival, as well as the permanent archive of Ardea Film Festival (atelier deUtopie APS). Non-selected works will not be used, unless written consent is provided by the author.
Art. 8
Disclaimer
By submitting a work, the author accepts all the terms outlined in these regulations. The organization is not responsible for illegal content, technical errors, digital loss, or malfunctions. The organization reserves the right to exclude works with problematic content or non-compliance with the present regulations, even after selection. All legal responsibility remain with the author of the submitted work. Participants are advised to retain backup copies and documentation.
Art. 9
Privacy
Personal data will be processed in accordance with EU Regulation 2016/679 (GDPR) and used solely for purposes related to participation in the Festival. Participants may request modification or deletion of their data by writing to info@ardeafilmfestival.it.
Art. 10
Contacts and Communications
For questions or clarifications: info@ardeafilmfestival.it (subject: “query_call Ardea Film Festival”). All updates will be published on the official social media and communication channels of Ardea Film Festival.
* Appendix A | Ethical Principles and Exclusion Criteria
Works will be excluded if they:
- Promote hatred, racism, sexism, or discrimination;
- Contain violent, pornographic, or defamatory content;
- Violate copyright or privacy laws;
- Are incompatible with the core values of respect, inclusion, and civic responsibility.
Festhome holds accountable fees festivals by holding the payment of the fees of most newer festivals until they have viewed the submissions, held their festivals and other methods.
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Festhome holds accountable fees festivals by holding the payment of the fees of most newer festivals until they have viewed the submissions, held their festivals and other methods. 