20 Feb 2025
Call for entries
03 Mar 2025
Festival closed
27 Jun 2025
Notification date
27 Jun 2025
28 Jun 2025
Festival start: 27 June 2025 Festival end: 28 June 2025
First ever MACA Film Festival, themed "Shorts in Shorts," encapsulates the idea of microcosms of society. Selected stories will depict narratives set in a single environment featuring a train, record store or a local wine bar - visually constricted spaces as a breeding ground of ideas and cultural discourse. It explores our collective journey through time, where memories and aspirations converge in the present, offering us a chance to find new meanings in old debates and imagine alternate paths forward.
Best festival Short:
Following a similar selection process as in the previous category, the absolute winner of the festival will be determined following the counting of all votes combined. The winners will receive a bonus package from the MACA team, an invitation to the upcoming screening event at MACA and a feature on our instagram.
1. Theme
The festival theme, "Shorts in Shorts", celebrates microcosms of society—narratives set in visually constrained spaces such as trains, record stores, or local wine bars.
Submissions must reflect one of the following categories in relation to the main theme:
- Dalí and Magical Realism: The films that reflect the passage of time, surrealism. A blend of poetic environmental visuals with personal narratives. Films that delve into the subconscious, dreams, or altered states of mind.
- The Good, The Bad, and the Artificial: The intersection of human lives and digital advancements.How technology disrupts or deepens relationships.
- Moments in Liminality: Narratives capturing transitional, threshold-like states of being.
- Beyond the Binds: Moments of cultural clash, celebration, or fusion that highlight human experience across diverse backgrounds.
- Experimental.
2. Eligibility
- Submissions are open to filmmakers worldwide, with no restrictions on age or nationality.
- Films must not exceed 20 minutes in length, including credits.
- Non-English films must include English subtitles.
- Multiple entries per filmmaker or production company are permitted.
- The festival is committed to fostering an inclusive and respectful environment. Films containing hate speech, explicit discrimination, or gratuitous violence will be disqualified.
3. Rights and Screening Policy
- By submitting, filmmakers agree to grant the MACA Film Festival the right to screen their films during the festival dates (June 26–27, 2025) without any screening fee.
MACA Film Festival does not claim ownership of submitted works. All rights remain with the filmmaker.
- The festival reserves the right to use clips, stills, and promotional materials from selected films for publicity purposes.
- Filmmakers must ensure all rights to music, images, and content within their films are cleared. MACA Film Festival is not responsible for copyright infringements.
4. Technical Requirements
- Films must be submitted in one of the following formats: MP4, MOV, or a DCP file if selected for screening.
No Fee
Submissions deadline
03 Mar 25
The intersection of human lives and digital advancements. How technology disrupts or deepens relationships.
No Fee
Submissions deadline
03 Mar 25
Picture a busy shopping mall from your childhood. You likely picture it during the day, sunlight pouring through the windows, families weaving through stores, and teenagers chatting about the latest movie in the cinema lounge. Now, picture sneaking into that same mall late at night, when it’s completely empty. The familiar space takes on an unsettling quality. Stripped of its usual purpose, it becomes something else entirely: an empty shell, an uncanny structure. Suddenly its usual purpose has been robbed and it's just a building with rooms, but not quite. Because now it also feels strangely alien and enigmatic to you, a purposeless, otherworldly architecture.
By morning, the mall returns to its default state, bustling with life and fulfilling its function.But that middle phase it was in when you saw it in the night, it's a liminal phase, a state of transition. The short films selected in this category will showcase spaces like that, unsettling, ambiguous, and hauntingly out of place—capturing the eerie atmosphere of the in-between.
No Fee
Submissions deadline
03 Mar 25
Within the theme of the festival “microcosmos of humanity” this subprogram will delve into how smaller communities reflect larger societal dynamics. Moments of cultural clash, celebration, or fusion will highlight human experience across diverse backgrounds. The filmmakers will take us on metaphorical journeys over their lived experiences that constitute the formation of their cultural heritage and folk tails - the things that hold us together as a community constituting which types of relationships are normal or “natural” in their own way. Through the trajectory of emotions we present ephemerality of queer love, homesickness and parental love - sparked by sparse moments of yearning for connection and needing for more. We confront the possibility of forgetting as we change familial backgrounds while also moving forward creating the room for self discovery and liberation as an individual.
No Fee
Submissions deadline
03 Mar 25
We conclude the evening of short film rediscovery with our selection of experimental short films swinging in between mediums and themes of self-confindment.
No Fee
Submissions deadline
03 Mar 25
The films that reflect the passage of time, surrealism. This category blends poetic environmental visuals with personal narratives encapsulating deeply personal stories reflected, analysed and anticipated within our communities. Films presented in this category will delve into the subconscious, dreams, or altered states of mind playing with reality versus perception through visual experimentation. Prepare for the cinematic experience that will leave it up to you to interpret the intricate narratives and unravel the mysteries within as we explore the human psyche limits, searching for that elusive fine line between clarity and chaos.
