The FilmDayton High School Film Festival is the only kind in the region. The three major objectives are to encourage excellence in media arts education, recognizing creative achievement in film/video production and to foster an exchange of ideas between students with different backgrounds and points of view. The festival draws entries from schools all over southern Ohio and northern Kentucky.

What makes this festival unique is the educational opportunity provided to students and teachers through our open judging event. Student are invited to screen their films in front of a panel of professional filmmakers and receive real-time feedback from the panel and their peers. Based on panel’s decision, the winning films will be screened at our Festival on April 19th at the Dayton Art Institute.

Formerly the SunDog Film Festival which originated in 2003, previously participating schools include Centerville, Greenville, Kettering Fairmont, Hilliard Davidson, Kings, Miami Valley Career Technology Center, Stivers School for the Arts, The Miami Valley School, Upper Arlington, Wilmington, Yellow Springs, Ferguson MS, McKinney MS, and Franklin Jr. High.

The top 3 films in each category will be recognized as award winners with a plaque and small prize package (tbd). Those top three films will screen at the Festival.

Category winning films will receive $150

Best of Fest film will win $350

Films are accepted from high school student within a 75 radius of Dayton, Ohio.

Your submission’s total runtime (TRT) must NOT exceed the five minute time limit. Credits are included in your TRT and credit runtime must NOT exceed 30 seconds.

We strongly recommend that you triple check your audio levels and that your audio is NOT limited to one channel (ie: right or left).

Any film that includes main dialogue that is not english must be submitted with english subtitles.

All music and other copyrighted material (images, videos, etc.) used in the films must be properly licensed.

Filmmakers must be in high school (or the home school equivalent) at the time of submission.