The Colorado High School Film Festival provides a venue for young high school filmmakers to showcase their work, networking opportunities, inspire others, and awards. Hosted by the University of Colorado Denver College of Arts &Media, it is our way of bringing together the many excellent high school film programs in the area. The Colorado High School Film Festival strives to provide a larger audience, industry insiders and peer networking, devoted for young filmmakers.

Before submitting, please make sure to read our rules and terms. All films must be made by someone of high school age (generally 18 or under) and be a run time of 10 minutes or less.

If you are a Colorado based filmmaker, please write to us about a submission fee waiver code.

Awards & Prizes

Scholarships for the University of Colorado Denver Lynx National Arts and Media Camps.

This year, the winning film will be screened during CU Denver's end of year student film festival, Cinefest. In addition, we will give awards to the top three films at Cinefest.

Rules & Terms

Eligibility
To be eligible for the 2026 competition, entries must have been completed between January 1, 2025 and the deadline.

Projects from all over the world are eligible. The film must be made by high school age filmmakers.

Q: Can Middle School students submit to the Colorado High School Film Festival?
A: No, the films must be made by high school-aged students.

Q: Can I submit more than one film?
A: Yes! Filmmakers can submit multiple entries.

Q: Can films be submitted to more than one category?
A: Yes. If there are multiple categories your film should be considered for, feel free to enter in each category.

Q: Are group projects accepted?
A: Yes! Be sure to indicate all directors on the main project page.

Q: Does the Colorado HS FF accept submissions from outside the United States?
A: Yes! We encourage all young filmmakers to submit their films.

Q: Can I use copyrighted music, video and/or images in my film?
A: No. You must acquire the proper rights from the legal owner of the content.

Q: Are there any restrictions on content submitted to the festival?
A: We respect that every young filmmaker wants to share their own unique voice. However, we do not accept any submissions containing nudity or gratuitous violence or language.

Gratuitous - uncalled for; lacking good reason; unwarranted.
Synonyms: unjustified, uncalled for, unwarratned, unprovoked, undue

Categories
Select the category that most closely relates to your submission's type of program. You may enter the same production or program in multiple categories.

Each entry is, in effect, in competition with itself, and is measured by our international award-winning jury of experts using an industry-accepted standard of excellence. We reserve the right to expand and reduce the number of finalist in each category including, but not limited to, cancelling categories if there are no submissions that meet our standards of excellence.

We reserve the right to change or modify each category as the committee deems appropriate..

Fees for Screening Films
We do not pay screening fees on submitted films. By submitting you waive any screening fees during the run of the festival to a live theater audience.

Award Announcements & Promotion
Finalists will be announced by the notification date and the winners will be notified at the closing award ceremony.

Translation (Required if not in English)
Productions not produced in the English language must have either subtitles or overdubbing in English.

Disposition of Entry / Errors & Omissions
Promotional materials submitted may be displayed or shown, for educational and/or promotional purposes.

2 Reviews
Overall Rating
Quality
Value
Communication
Hospitality
Networking
  • Raelan Schmidgall

    Great film festival. Networking is limited as not many people came, but you get to meet some of the professors at CU Denver which is really great! Very friendly people, great communication. At the end, I got to meet other filmmakers my age who submitted films and we got to talk about our films to the audience!

    April 2025
    Helpful
  • Jude McKinnies

    The Colorado High School Film festival was a hoot! We got to watch 48 different films from local teams here in colorado and teams from other states and even countries. The overall quality of the films was amazing, and there was a huge variety of genres, from lego stopmotion to live-action horror and wholesome comedy. It was also a blast getting to talk to some of the local directors after each of the 3 segments in a short q&a segment. I also personally enjoyed getting to see my film, "Woodward" played on the big screen. The staff at the festival were also great, providing fairly cheap snacks and popcorn, letting us check out their green screen room, and even letting us try out their professional camera. The one minor drawback was that there weren't a lot of people at the festival, which in some ways made it more enjoyable but also less useful for networking.

    March 2024
    Helpful