The Frankenstein Awards are the Sacred Rite of Passage for Young Creators of Monsters.

The Frankenstein Awards are not just a film festival. They are an initiation. An initiation into our World Horror Community, into the Timeless Arts, and into self-recognition of your ability to Create Life. This is a celebration of cinematic misfits, mad scientists, first experiments, reckless imagination, and lovingly stitched-together colossal dreams. If you’ve built something strange, brave, new, forbidden, or alive— this is where it belongs.

Our philosophy: The Frankenstein Awards exist to honor bold creation, not perfection. We recognize films not for isolated technical achievements, but for originality, vision, imagination, heart, gusto, and contribution to the greater monster-making community. These awards are about becoming, not polishing.

Our inaugural Frankenstein Awards ceremony will be filmed and released online November 2026. The "go to" show for the world to see…or fear. Selected filmmakers will become part of a growing mythos, archive, and community centered around bold creation.

If your film is strange, heartfelt, daring, or alive in ways you can’t fully explain— Submit it. Your monster deserves to walk. To march. To take over the world!

Awards & Prizes

The Frankenstein Awards will present four trophies for each category. Winners receive a custom Frankenstein Awards monster trophy—a physical symbol of creation, risk, and cinematic life. These are not certificates. They are artifacts.

As the Frankenstein Awards grow, additional prizes, support, and donor-provided awards may be added to selected categories. The laboratory is always expanding.

Rules & Terms

By submitting your film to the Frankenstein Awards you grant us permission to screen all or part of your footage (up to ten minutes) in our broadcast awards ceremony, which will also be archived on line.

Each category may receive up to four Frankenstein Award trophies, bestowed upon films that rise from the slab and walk on their own.

THE IGOR AWARD
Short Film (up to 10 minutes). For young filmmakers up through the end of 7th grade. The director must be in this range. This category honors the earliest experiments—the first sparks of madness, curiosity, and cinematic electricity. If you are young and already making monsters, the laboratory doors are wide open to you. Welcome aboard!

THE YOUNG MAD SCIENTIST AWARD
Short Film (up to 10 minutes). Filmmakers from 8th grade through the end of high school. The director must be in this range. You’ve graduated from assistant to architect. This category recognizes young creators who are beginning to command their visions, take risks, and push their craft into darker, weirder, braver territory. We look forward to see your new masterpieces.

THE FRANKENSTEIN AWARD – INDEPENDENT SHORT
Short Film (up to 10 minutes). Open to all filmmakers after high school and any age adult. You’re playing with the big boys now. This category honors independent short films that demonstrate strong vision, originality, and a sense of cinematic identity—films that feel fully alive, even in small bodies.

THE FRANKENSTEIN AWARD – INDEPENDENT FEATURE
Feature Film (50+ minutes). Open to all filmmakers after high school and any age adult. This category celebrates independent features that sustain their vision across a full runtime and dare to build something ambitious, personal, and strange. If you’ve stitched together a feature on passion, ingenuity, and obsession—this is your operating table. Summon that lightning!

THE FRANKENSTEIN AWARD – STUDIO FEATURE
Feature Film (50+ minutes). This category honors larger-scale productions that fully carry imagination, courage, and soul. We love this scale of monster and look forward to the lightning you grab from the skies. Knock us dead! Blow our coffin lids off! And thank you for your service.