DIGITAL ARTIFEX FILM FESTIVAL a film festival based in the city of Padua, in the North-East of Italy. Our mission is to bring the perspective of young filmmakers to the big screen, focusing on short films and documentary shorts by filmmakers under 35 who tackle timely and universal subjects with innovation and personality. We seek to showcase short films from around the world without any distinction for budget.

The Festival takes place at the San Gaetano Cultural Centre in the heart of the city of Padua. Films are screened to a live audience in a magnificent auditorium with 250 seats.


We accept all kinds of stories, favouring narratives that broadly focus on the following thematic areas: climate change and environmental sustainability, human rights and activism, wellbeing and mental health, design, urban planning, AI, space economy, new professions and brand marketing.

Any kind of narrative and documentary short film up to 20 minutes in length are accepted. Animation is more than welcome in both categories.

We select only short films made by filmmakers under the age of 35.

Awards & Prizes

500€ CASH PRIZE and AWARD PLATE for Best Short Film
500€ CASH PRIZE and AWARD PLATE for Best Documentary Short
The prizes are awarded by the the festival jury. The jury will be composed of five to seven film industry professionals and critics selected by the president; the jury will be announced by February 2024.

SPECIAL MENTIONS for any film found to be worthy of merit by the jury.
All awards are given in-person at the live event in Padova.

Selected films are granted:
- An official DIGITAL ARTIFEX AWARD CERTIFICATE and PERSONALIZED LAUREL.
- PROMOTION via social media and official website for the films selected and awarded during the Edition.
- A personal INVITE to the festival. We do not cover travel fees but we do grant all filmmakers a web call link to present the film to the audience on the event date.

Rules & Terms

By submitting your film you are authorizing us to screen it publicly and declaring there is no video, image, music or sound you don't own the rights to.
The film must be made by a director under the age of 35.
- Short films must have been produced since the 1st of January 2020.
Film must be realized by people over the AGE of 14 (excluding the actors involved).
If the film is not in the Italian language we request a HARDCODED SUBTILE FILE.
- To your FilmFreeway Project must be added a film POSTER (100:70, minimum 3000x2100px) and SUBTITLES (Italian or English) if the language is not Italian.
You can submit multiple films.
If your film is selected, we request to DOWNLOAD it from FilmFreeway directly or to be sent via email a download link.
- Submissions for the official selections are accepted exclusively via the FilmFreeway platform.
- We don’t pay travel/trips to live event locations; we don’t pay screening fees to show films.
- If you don’t receive the awards IN PERSON, we won’t sent you the award plate, but we’ll email the laurel.
- By agreeing with our term, you give us permission to PUBLISH stills, posters and trailers of your short film on our website and/or social media pages.
- We are not responsible for any COPYRIGHT infringement of your material. So, by submitting, the sender declares to own the rights of the works, that the contents don’t violate the in-force laws and that the same CONTENTS are not libellous. In every case, the authors relieve us from every possible loss, damage, responsibility, costs and obligations of any kind that can follow the projection of their movies.
- We reserve the right to make any necessary changes in regulations, award or event scheduling that will be published on our website and FilmFreeway page. So, by submitting your film, you are agreeing it to be streamed at an ONLINE live event only in case Covid or sanitary regulations don't permit public events and screenings for a period longer than six months.
- By entering the competition, the senders accepts these rules and give permission to show the film in our live screening events.