The second season of GIFF is up and running out of Beav's Bar in Geelong! Our second year features six seasons instead of five and the Golden Caesar award will now be awarded only once, at the end of the year during our sixth season. Look for us on our new day, the last Sunday of every second month. The Festival will run on a Sunday evening to ensure smooth operation of all festival nights throughout the year. There is a new category for films entered, Best Score.

Submissions are now open for Round II of Year II of GIFF!

Festival dates are as follows for 2024:

RI - February 25th
RII - April 28th
RIII - June 30th
RIV - August 25th
RV - October 27th
RVI - December 29th

In Round VI, the Best Film Winners from the previous rounds will go up against five fresh contenders to battle it out for the Grand Prize, the Golden Caesar!

The Geelong Independent Film Festival (GIFF) is an ongoing film festival held 5 times a year in the centre of Victoria's second largest city, Geelong and accepts films of any genre up to 15 minutes max in length. This festival is proudly supported by the Geelong Waterfront Film group and Beav's Bar.

A city by the bay, Geelong is an excellent location for the arts and the local film making community. The Geelong Independent Film Festival is all about the promotion of film makers and their works to the local and broader Australian film making communities.

Film makers are encouraged to share their own websites/pages along with their films as each film makers website/page will be promoted alongside the screening of their work. The aim is to help you build your local audience with each screening.

Selected films will be judged by a select panel of local film makers. Judging will take place on the night of the festival and their decisions are final. There are five award categories at GIFF:

Best Short Film
Best Lead Actor
Best Lead Actress
Best Director
Best Cinematography
Best Score

All films entered at GIFF are automatically in the running for these categories at no extra cost. Successful entries must provide names of Lead Actor and/or Lead Actress. The festival will not make guesses as to whom is to be considered the Lead in your film.

Award winners will be notified and they will be awarded the Winner Laurel as well as a certificate celebrating their win.

Geelong Independent Film Festival only accepts short films up to 15 minutes in length and no longer.

Films must be in English or have English subtitles if in another language.

Films must have been made in or after 2021.

Film makers must have full copyright and/or copyright permissions over all materials in their project.

By submitting your film, you authorise us to screen your film before a live audience.

Films can be of any genre. However, offensive, abusive and/or racist material will not be considered and automatically disqualified at the Festival's discretion.

A maximum of 10 films will be accepted for any one night of the festival and this selection will be solely at the Festivals discretion.

Submission to the Geelong Independent Film Festival does not guarantee entry. Successful entries will be notified in good time via filmfreeway.com.

An independent judging panel will judge the films on the night of the festival. The decision of the judges is final and absolute.

Submissions must be electronic only via FilmFreeway submissions. No physical materials will be accepted. If your project is accepted, we will request permission to download the project file via FilmFreeway.com.

We require all film files to be HD. No 4K sized files please.

Submission fees are non-refundable.

We may promote the festival with clips you provide us within your press kit.

We reserve the right to alter the date of the festival should unavoidable circumstances dictate.

We do not require any special premiere status.

By submitting, you agree with our terms and conditions. Your personal information will never be sold to third parties.

We reserve the right to alter our terms and conditions.

Overall Rating
Quality
Value
Communication
Hospitality
Networking
  • Lisa Bishop

    A very beautiful trophy received with gratitude thanks! Excellent communication and good online presence. Cheers, Lisa and Tom.

    January 2024
  • Sacha Hulsebosch

    Great festival with awesome festival director ! Very grateful our short movie Simon Says won 2 awards, for Best Director and Best Actress. Terrific!!!

    January 2024