Climate Film Festival (CFF)

The Climate Film Festival (CFF) is New York City’s first city-wide film festival dedicated to climate in all its forms. From narrative and documentary features to experimental shorts and music videos, CFF harnesses the transformative power of motion pictures, showcasing new and established voices, classic climate films, and energizing human stories. Our second annual festival took place from September 19-22, 2025 during the opening weekend of Climate Week NYC, with over 50 films, 3000 attendees, 10 industry panels and workshops, 50+ partners and sponsors, a new Narrative Change Summit, and a presenting media partnership with the Guardian. Screenings and events were hosted across New York City at DGA Theater, Regal Essex Crossing, DCTV, SVA Theatre, and Essex Market.

Now in its third year, the Climate Film Festival NYC is a cultural organization with an annual festival, year-round pop-up programming, and educational resources. It was founded in 2023 by a group of passionate climate professionals, artists, and curators from sectors including art, filmmaking, decarbonization, museum curation, policy, media, marketing, engineering, and climate change AI. CFF soft-launched in 2023 with a sold-out “First Look” screening and panel event during Climate Week NYC, and it has continued to organize screenings and events in partnership with local universities, nonprofits, community organizations, and museums, as well as regular meetups and student engagement opportunities.

Join CFF in September 2026 for our third multi-day festival, including screenings, panels, Q&As, filmmaker parties, climate + culture sector mixers, workshops, networking opportunities, nonprofit tabling, industry showcases, and more.

CFF promotes climate storytelling across genres and from a broad range of perspectives. We welcome features, shorts, and TV & Internet episodes across formats, including:

Narrative
Documentary
Experimental
Animation
Episodic (TV/Web Series)
Music Video
Children’s Programs

We recognize that climate change is a pervasive, human-driven global crisis that demands swift action across disciplines and themes. For this reason, we welcome films that forefront diverse, intersectional topics in relation to human interaction with the environment, in addition to work that explicitly engages with climate change. A non-exhaustive list might include themes as varied as regenerative agriculture, indigeneity, urbanism and ecology, creature features, ecofeminism, and climate comedy.

CFF is fiscally sponsored by Ecologistics, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Submission fees play a deeply critical role in the festival’s operations and help us provide a robust and in-depth review process and festival event. We sincerely appreciate your participation!

Vision:
Mass media is essential in creating the new habits, policies, and futures that we need to flourish in a changing climate. Imaginative, innovative, and diverse films have the power to reframe engagement with our environment, constructing a shared vision of collective action. The Climate Film Festival (CFF) believes that this visionary, just, and sustainable future is within our grasp. The time to strive for it is now.

Learn more about the Climate Film Festival at www.climatefilmfest.com.

Submission Categories:
CFF welcomes a broad range of filmmaking formats and genres, including work in narrative, documentary, experimental, animation, and music videos. If you have questions, please contact us at programming@climatefilmfest.com.

Short Films:
This category includes films with a run time of less than 40 minutes, including credits.

Feature Films:
This category includes films with a run time of 40 minutes or more, including credits.

Episodic (TV & Internet episodes):
This category includes episodic work (i.e. multi-part or series) with a runtime under 45 minutes per episode, including credits. Episodes do not need to be pilots to qualify.

Young Filmmakers:
This category includes films directed by young filmmakers under the age of 25 at the time of the September 2026 festival, including students and early career professionals.

Accessibility: No Flash Photography
No flash photography is allowed within official CFF venues during screenings, networking events, or parties. Proper lighting will be used at all step and repeat locations to ensure that each image is appropriately lit. While random flashes can cause those who are in the epilepsy community to have adverse reactions to the light, growing numbers of the neurodivergent community also have sensory issues that are exacerbated by such constant flashing photography. At CFF, we want to ensure that everyone has a fantastic experience and feels comfortable getting a photo taken after their film screens or they come out of a screening on the red carpet. As a tribute to how this method works, please look at photos from our past two festival years taken by our team and photographers.

Photo credits: Joe Kurle, Emma Stolarski, Julie Thompson, and Alec Turnbull