Started in 2007, the Arizona Student Film Festival is a yearly film festival and competition that celebrates the next generation of Arizona Filmmakers. Grade school and high school students from all over the state of Arizona are invited to submit their best short films under 8 minutes.

Films are reviewed and selected by Phoenix Film Festival programmers. Films selected for the AZSFF are screened during the Phoenix Film Festival. Each student filmmaker receives 2 Phoenix Film Festival Filmmaker Passes!

Each film selected for the Festival receives 2 Filmmaker passes to the Phoenix Film Festival! In addition, recognition trophies or certificates are awarded to the First, Second, and Third Place films.

A $1000 award will be given to the First Place Winner. Funds will either be paid directly to the school of the student's choice or will be reimbursed to the filmmaker upon payment to the school.

1. The Arizona Student Film Festival (AZSFF) is open to students living in and attending school in Arizona.
2. Films entered into 2025 AZSFF must be made in the calendar year 2024. Film did not have to be made in conjunction with a class or teacher.
3. Films must be submitted into the category when they were finished. There are 2 categories: Grade School which is open to students from Kindergarten through 8th grade at time of film's completion and High School which is open to students between 9th and 12th grades at time of film's completion.
4. AZSFF accepts short films under 8 minutes in length. Films can be of any genre (ie. narrative, documentary, experimental) and must not contain any adult content or language.
5. Adult content including but not limited to violence, language, alcohol or drug use, or other adult themes may cause my film to be eliminated from consideration.
6. Films must be entered via FilmFreeway by the deadline. Failure to deliver finished film for screening may result in disqualification.
7. Film must not be subject to litigation nor is threatened by any litigation. Entrant accepts all licensing responsibility for any copyrighted material contained in my film.
8. Entrant must be authorized to submit this film to the Festival and its Competition and understand that the Festival holds the right to screen my film for Festival screening and promotional purposes and to extract clips from this film for promotional purposes. This includes streaming of films online on sites of Arizona Student Film Festival and/or its sponsors and affiliates.
9. Awards will be awarded to the top films as determined by a panel of judges selected by AZSFF. Monetary award will be paid directly to school of winning filmmaker's choice or will be reimbursed to the filmmaker upon proof of payment to the school. .
10. All decisions by judging panel and AZSFF are final.

Overall Rating
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  • Samantha Lim

    This was my first experience with a film festival and it was amazing. Thank you so much to everyone who made the festival possible! It was amazing to see my film on the big screen and everyone I encountered was easy to talk to which made the process simple for me as a film fest newbie.

    June 2022
  • Carsyn Shark

    Very educational and extremely inclusive

    September 2021