“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 2024 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 8 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 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 (£500 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) (£500 CASH PRIZE sponsored by The Old Crown.

All successful submissions will be included in the programme at Flatpack no.18.

Submissions should be:

– under 20 minutes long for the short film and screendance submissions;
– completed since January 2022;
– fully cleared, including any music rights.

We screen all types and genres of film but you can see the winners from the last festival on our website: https://flatpackfestival.org.uk/news/flatpack-2023-award-winners/

The deadline for submissions is 11:59pm on Sunday 21 January 2024. The full programme will be announced in April 2024 and we’ll let you know whether you have been successful or not at the end of March.

Overall Rating
Quality
Value
Communication
Hospitality
Networking
  • Duncan Whitley

    Flatpack is a friendly festival showing a great programme of surprisingly experimental films, the venues are fun, and the crowd is always super engaged!

    October 2022
  • Rafał Sankiewicz

    Nie mam żadnych zastrzeżeń :)

    May 2022
  • Liam White

    Fantastic experience being a part of Flatpack 2021, and so chuffed our film DOUGHNUT was selected. Excellent communication from Lucile, and the line-up of films that DOUGHNUT was a part of was so strong, we were genuinely honoured to be in such company.
    Looking forward to submitting to the 2022 edition, and hoping all this blows over in time so we can enjoy a physical version.
    - Liam White

    June 2021
  • It was a great film festival and I was very honored to have my work at this festival. I will do my best to participate in this film festival again.

    June 2021
  • AVATÂRA AYUSO

    One of the best festivals we have ever interacted with. Great communication, lots of care en reviewing all films. We are extremely honored to be part of this year's festival with The Protocol. All the best to all films!

    May 2021