“By any standard one of the UK’s most ambitious and creatively programmed festivals” – Sight and Sound
A BAFTA qualifying festival which takes over venues across Birmingham every May, Flatpack is not your average film festival. Substituting warehouses for red carpets, screenings pop up in all manner of unusual spaces, and the programme mixes film with music, performances, contraptions and surprises. Flatpack takes the traditional film festival and turns it on its head. The result? A “magnificently eclectic” (Time Out) and “joyously inventive” (the Guardian) celebration of film in all shapes and sizes.
Recurring themes include animation, music/sound, artists’ film, archive discoveries, offbeat shorts for kids, audiovisual performance, and live cinema. We’re excited by the fertile territory where film bumps up against other artforms, and love nothing more than bringing friends and strangers together to see something amazing they might not otherwise have seen - but are unlikely to forget!
“Britain’s most exciting and innovative film festival” (Lonely Planet) is now open for submissions, so if you have a brilliant short film, take a look at the rules and terms, and submit! We’ll be in touch by the end of March 2026 to let you know whether your work has been selected or not.
We are a BAFTA qualifying festival, meaning successful submissions could go on to win a BAFTA.
Our short film strand currently has 9 coveted awards up for grabs:
– the Short Film Award – recognises the most outstanding piece of work across all genres. Selected by the short film jury (£1,000 CASH PRIZE);
– the WTF Award – hails the film which is the most innovative and extraordinary. It recognises vision, boldness, and originality. Selected by the short film jury (£500 CASH PRIZE);
– the Audience Award – the crowds’ favourite;
– the Animation Award - new for 2025, this award has been a long time coming, which celebrates the best short animation (as you may have guessed) (£300 CASH PRIZE);
– the Optical Sound Short Film Award - the very best short selected from our music/sound/audio-inspired strand (£300 CASH PRIZE);
– the Screendance Award - the best short selected from our strand incorporating dance and movement (£300 CASH PRIZE);
– the Colour Box Award – celebrating the best short in our family programme awarded by the Colour Box jury (£300 CASH PRIZE);
– the Colour Box Audience Award – the kids’ favourite;
– the Reel Brum Award - the best short film from the West Midlands (either shot in the West Midlands or 50% of cast and crew are from the West Midlands) (£200 CASH PRIZE).
All successful submissions will be included in the programme at Flatpack no.20.
