The Cameo Launch Short Film Festival (formerly the Surrey Short Film Festival) is a celebration of national and international short film held between 11th – 12th October 2024. This hybrid event will take place at the award-winning Nova Cinema in Woking, Surrey and will offer online access to global audiences with a selection of themed short film showcases, panel discussions, industry talks and masterclasses.

Born out of the Cameo Launch Short Film Cinema platform, this festival is the culmination of year-round activities that promote outstanding short film to online and theatrical audiences.

Our Mission:
To create a focal point for short film from around the world that reaches the highest levels of excellence, while also supporting emerging grassroots filmmakers and young people exploring their first steps into a career in cinema.

What We Will Show:
Our festival will bring together narrative shorts, documentary shorts and animated shorts in showcases that highlight female filmmakers, LGBTQ+ short film creators, UK film, stories from the African and Asian diaspora. We will be taking submissions in various genre categories, to present in the following cross-genre showcases:

- Take the Shot:
A showcase of student short films, submitted from colleges and universities in the county of Surrey. The audience also has the option of voting for their favourite short film, helping student filmmakers obtain their first cinematic accolade.

- Film Femme
This showcase highlights female filmmakers and female-led stories, using different mediums to reflect a plethora of experiences and perceptions.

- Walk With Pride
This showcase will feature short films by LGBTQ+ creators and celebrating the LGBTQ+ community. Utilising the full promise of the medium, this showcase will show the conflicts and liberation in tackling the issues confronting this community and society as a whole.

- Thine is the Kingdom
This is a showcase of the finest short films produced in the UK by UK short film creators. These films feature stories from communities across the country, diving into the unique challenges that confront the multitude of cultures and perspectives that make up the United Kingdom.

- Tales of the Diaspora
Descendants of immigrants from across the UK commonwealth share their stories of finding their place as citizens of a country that was once their coloniser. Experience stories showing how these descendants of imperial subjects find a sense of ownership, brother/sisterhood and belonging living in the remnants of empire.

- Stardust
Filmmakers pushing the boundaries of storytelling and imagination will have their work featured in this showcase of science fiction and fantasy short films. Projects embracing ambition, new technologies and challenging narratives will be form a cinematic experience like no other.

- Something Wicked
Our festival will celebrate the season of the supernatural on celluloid with a presentation of blood-curdling horror short films.

- Hilarity Ensues
Our showcase of comedy short films will highlight the best in creative narrative storytelling, by presenting films with a broad range of styles from filmmakers with unique visions.

- My Story to Tell
This collection of short film dramas will take us on journeys and help us to experience the struggles of people from all walks of life. This category will serve as a showcase of acting and narrative filmmaking excellence.

- Reels of Reality
A collection of impactful short documentaries put to the big screen to give their powerful stories the audience they deserve.

- One World
This showcase of international short film will bring the experiences of people and cultures all over the world to the screens of our festival. Crossing subjects and genres, we will showcase the talented and inventive voices of filmmakers from around the world.

Films entered into one of the categories may be selected to appear in another depending on the decisions of our programmers.

Industry Sessions:
Our industry sessions will connect film students and young filmmakers with organisations that will help them to develop a career path that utilises their filmmaking and creative skills. Filmmakers will also have access to organisations that teach them how to pitch for film funding and strategise for festival campaigns.

Awards & Prizes

The short films featured in the competitive official selection have the opportunity to compete for the following awards:

- Student Short Film Award
- UK Short Film Award
- International Short Film Award
- Performance Award
- Editing Award
- Cinematography Award
- Screenplay Award
- Director Award

Award winning entrants will have the opportunity to sell non-exclusive distribution rights to their films in order to include them in a Cameo Launch Short Film awards compilation.

Rules & Terms

Entrant Age:
Any individual submitting a short film for any category must be 16 years old or older to enter.

Length:
Films can be up to 40 minutes long (although films of 15 minutes or less are preferred).

Film Age:
Submitted films must have been completed no more than 18 months prior to the opening date of this festival.

Country of Origin:
Submitted films may originate from any country in the world.

Language:
All submitted films must either be in the English language or contain English language subtitles.

Distribution Status:
Submitted films may have distribution in place, in which case submissions must be made by the distribution rights holder or with the distribution rights holder's consent. We reserve the right to ask for proof of such consent at any time.

Rights:
Any films submitted must have all rights cleared including the use of any licensed footage or music. By submitting your film, you are declaring that you possess such rights and that Cameo Launch will not bear responsibility for the violations of any copyright agreements, should these rights not be cleared prior to submission.

What We Are Looking For:
This is a platform for animated, narrative fiction and documentary filmmaking and includes all genres with the exception of promotional videos, music videos, experimental films that do not contain a clear narrative and trailers for films not appearing in our line-up.

We absolutely exclude any racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, religiously or culturally prejudicial, pornographic or obscene content.

Premiere Status:
Cameo Launch has no requirement that your film have premiere status, however we aim to work with filmmakers/distributors who seek to premiere their films at our festival, so please inform us if you intend to submit your film on this basis.

Refund Policy:
The fees charged for submissions are for your film to be considered. This does not guarantee that your film will be accepted or presented during our festival. As such, we do not operate a refund policy internally, so please be 100% certain you wish to submit your film before doing so. As submissions are made via FilmFreeway, their refund policies in relation to payments made through their platform constitute the ultimate rule on this matter.

Exhibition:
The Cameo Launch Short Film Festival is a hybrid festival and all accepted submissions will be presented theatrically and online. As such, we will require all accepted films to be provided in a properly formatted DCP file in a resolution of 2K or higher. A copy of the film in .mov or.mp4 formats will also be required in 1920x1080 or higher in order to present the film in the festival’s online platform.

While the in-person exhibition will last for the duration of the weekend of the festival, the online screenings will continue until 11:59pm Sunday 3rd November 2024.

If your film is accepted, SSFF will require the video files containing the film and trailer to be sent via download link (Dropbox, Google Drive, WeTransfer, etc.). Relevant agreements with specified details will be provided ahead of time for filmmaker/rights holder perusal before agreeing to have their film shown at our festival and hosted on the Cameo Launch website.

Cameo Launch will require an EPK and accompanying materials such as a poster in jpeg or png format (portrait and landscape - recommended image size 1994 x 2880 px), cast & crew list, synopsis, any available promotion and production stills.

Cameo Launch, may include excerpts of the selected films or associated imagery in its promotions, including promotional videos, online newsletters and social media.

For further information please contact us directly on hello@cameolaunch.com.

3 Reviews
Overall Rating
Quality
Value
Communication
Hospitality
Networking
  • Tina Zucco

    We were honoured to receive the Outstanding Drama Short Film Award. It's been a fantastic boost for our film, I'm Not Finished. It was a lovely event and our team were very impressed that it was only the first one for the Surrey Short Film Festival. The organisers had great communication with us before and after the event. We'll certainly be submitting to it again with future projects. Thank you!

    November 2023
    Helpful
  • Saman Khan

    This festival is new but one to look out for as it has a fantastic team behind it. Very well organised , had great talk events and brilliant line up of guest speakers . I think this festival will get bigger and even better very quickly . Thank you for selecting our film Uncaged and awarding us with the best editor award .

    October 2023
    Helpful
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    Response from festival:

    Thanks Saman, for your lovely review and greater thanks still for sharing your powerful film with our festival. It was an honour to put 'Uncaged' on the big screen for audiences. We are also grateful that you and your team were able to make the trip for the event. Wishing you all the very best for the rest of your festival run and we hope to see you at the next one!

  • Lee Dilley

    Very helpful staff. Amazing cinema. Great quality.

    October 2023
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    Response from festival:

    Thanks so much for you great review, Lee! It was a pleasure to screen 'Blondi's War' at our festival and we wish you and your team continued success on your festival journey. Thanks also for making the trip to attend the festival and we're glad you had a good experience. Hope to see you in 2024!