The Close:Up San Francisco Short Film Festival is an online film festival dedicated to empowering short-form independent filmmaking.

Using the power of online platforms to bring a real cinematic experience to the comfort of cinephiles’ homes, Close:Up San Francisco Short Film Festival features shorts of upcoming filmmakers. Our goal is to offer a platform that will showcase the genre of short films and empower emerging and established filmmakers.

Independent cinema has always been giving voice to people of all backgrounds and has allowed artistic freedom. Our vision is to do our bit and contribute to this through our social.

Our screening program features different film genres including documentary, fiction, animated, music videos and experimental.

Send us your creations and share your story with us.

HFP

The Close:Up San Francisco Short Film Festival is organised by HFP, a pioneer organisation that runs Film Festivals and other events showcasing and championing ideas of diversity. Through our global series of film Festivals that spread over 13 countries, we open the path to voices with a compelling story to share. Our main mission is to honour independent cinema and establish a network of artists eager to join forces and spread their work across all nations. HFP runs 25 film Festivals worldwide.

The festival programmers will carefully select the films to be nominated for the following awards, and will then create a selection of nominated films to be screened in front of a live audience. The winners will be announced at the event, on our website and on social media.

There are two stages to the process:

△ Official Selection – Films selected for screening will be notified if they have been considered to be part of Close:Up San Francisco Short Film Festival’s Official Selection on the notification date. Screening materials will be requested and more information about the event will be provided.

△ Winners – Award winners will be selected from the Nominations & Official Selection and announced at our festival, after the screenings, and online the following day.

Awards will include Certificates and will be given in the following categories:

Best Short
Best Comedy
Best Drama
Best Experimental
Best Animation
Best Documentary
Best Music Video
Best Bay Area Production (discounted entry for films made by filmmakers based in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, or Sonoma)

△ In addition to the above-listed categories, we also offer the option of a Film Critique (as an add-on). Criticism may not always be agreeable but it is always necessary. Filmmakers require constructive feedback at every stage of their development, whether they're just starting out or they've been making films for decades. We offer you the opportunity to get your film project critiqued by one of the qualified film critics we collaborate with on our festivals. Regardless of whether your film is selected for screening, through this add-on, you receive an in-depth review (1-3 pages). The critique can be more or less general, or focus on particular elements - you choose.

✓ All films must be submitted in English or with English subtitles (if in a different language).

✓ All films must have been made in or after 2023.

✓ Short films must not exceed 45 minutes.

✓ Filmmakers are responsible for sorting out the copyright on their own materials.

✓ By submitting to us, you give us consent and right to screen your film in front of a live audience, and, under special circumstances, online screening.

✓ Nominations: These are all the films that have been nominated for an award in a category. Not all nominated films will be screened.

Official Selection: These are all the nominated films selected for screening, which will be notified via email. If you received a Nomination email, but no Official Selection email, it means your film will not be screened, but is still a contender for an award in its category.

Award Winners: Chosen from the Nominations (which includes the Official Selection).

✓ Film Critique: With this service, an experienced film professional will review your project and write a 1 to 2 pages critique (depending on the length of the film) of the submitted film. Both films and screenplays can be submitted into this category. Film critiques are sent to filmmakers within 1 to 3 months after the Film Festival event. This service cannot be combined with discount codes and is offered as an add-on option. In order to combine the Add-on Film Critique with a category, write down the Category of your choice on your Cover Letter or Director's Statement.

✓ We may promote clips from your film on social media, based on the press kits you provide us with.

✓ We retain the right to change the date and venue of the festival under special circumstances. All filmmakers will be informed about any changes through email and our online platforms.

✓ We place no restrictions on your work in terms of premiere status or whether your work has been made available online.

✓ We do not accept partial screeners, trailers, or screener links that require access other than password protected links.

✓ Any technical issues with the submitted films are 100% the responsibility of the filmmakers. If, at the time of judging, your video file doesn’t work or doesn’t have English subtitles (if in a language other than English), it will be automatically rejected, without a refund. Please contact the festival team ASAP if there are any issues with the submission process, and a solution will be found.

✓ We cannot provide refunds.

✓ If you have submitted your project in the previous year, please do not resubmit the same project to the current edition.

✓ By submitting to us you agree to our terms and conditions and to receiving marketing newsletters and discounts about film festivals in the form of emails. We will never sell your information to third parties.

✓ We reserve the right to update our terms and conditions.

Overall Rating
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  • Greetings from New York. It was a great honor for our short documentary, "13 Driver's Licenses" to be part of Close: Up San Francisco Short Film Festival. Thank you!

    April 2024
  • Madalina Zaharia

    Great selection of films! I felt very honoured to showcase our short film alongside so many amazing projects and it came as a great surprise for it to be awarded the prize for "The Best Experimental'. Thank you!

    April 2024
  • I usually submit to live, in-person festivals, but the reach is potentially wider with a online festival. Especially if it has the profile and programming of Close:Up San Francisco Short Film Festival. On a practical note, the communication was always good: timely information and swift and forthcoming replies. My film, "The Discoverer of the Discoverers", was awarded Best Documentary, so I couldn’t have had better value for my money. Regardless, I would’ve recommended this festival, and will submit any future short film to it.

    April 2024
  • It was a great honor to receive Best Cinematographer for Vietnamese Shortfilm "Faded" by the team at Close:Up San Francisco Short Film Festival! Thank you so very much!

    September 2022