Congratulations on completing your film! Now it’s time to start entering festivals and getting well deserved exposure for your work. The Hackettstown Film Festival is a great place to start!

We host two festivals per year: In 2025 they are April 25 and October 31.
Our Spring Festival is comedy, action, drama and documentary themed.
Our Fall Festival is horror, supernatural themed.

Although small, this intimate and prestigious festival is in it's 5th successful year and is growing! Under the artistic direction of producer, director, writer and entertainment entrepreneur, Chris Lance, his credits include Hunt for the Jersey Devil Interactive Halloween Attraction, The NJ Family and Fantasy Medieval Festival, The Paladin Knight, Moon Magnets (play) and soon to be released "Buffalo Diamonds" (full length film) just to name a few.

Bringing quality, entertaining cinema to the masses is the mission of this competition. Hosted by the Hackettstown Center for the Arts, a non-profit 501(c)3 entity, all proceeds from the Hackettstown Film Festival (HFF) benefit the Arts Center.

Awards & Prizes

Hackettstown Film Festival offers over $1,000 in cash and in-kind sponsor prizes to filmmakers and screenwriters with winners selected by industry professionals - including studio representatives, producers writers and fellow filmmakers. As the we take on more sponsors, the awards will increase.
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2025 Fall HFF Winners
We are proud to announce this year’s Fall 2025 winners.

Best Film Under 30 Minutes
“SCRAG” Dir. Carlos J Benitez
Honorable Mention
“myself & i.” Dirs. M.K. Scanlon and Alisha Yi

Best Short Under 15 Minutes
“The Silver Cord” Dir. Travis Burgess

Best Ultra-Short
“Saturday Morning Coffee” Dir. Erick Freitas

2025 Spring HFF Winners
We are proud to announce this year’s Spring 2025 winners.

Best Feature
“Article 92” Dir. Joe Hawk
Honorable Mention
“The Golden Safe” Dir. Joseph Marchione

Best Foreign
“Perpetrator” Dir. Li-Jie (China)
Honorable Mention
“There she Goes” Dir. Rogerio Troiani (Brazil)

Best Action
“DYSTOPIA” Dir. Jonathan Taverne
Honorable Mention
“The Days of Knight: Chapter 1” Dir. John P. Martinez

Best Documentary
“Gardener of the Galaxy” Dir. Nick Natalicchio
Honorable Mention
“8 Minutes” Dir. Charles Irvin

Best Comedy
“The Truth Between Us” Dir. Larry Rosen
Honorable Mention
“Living with Grandma” Dir. Finise Avery

Best Student
“Popcorn” Dir. Fangjian Li
Honorable Mention
“The Duet” Dir. Gica Pucca
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2024 HFF Winners
We are proud to announce this year’s 2024 winners.

Best Film
“Lizzie” Dir. Jack Foley

Best Suspense Film
“Black Spine” Dir. Brooks Wieszczek

Honorable Mention (Concept)
“One Over Another” Dir. Brooks Wieszczek

Honorable Mention (Foreign Film)
“Visiting” Dir. Piero Cannata

Best Ultra-Short Film
“Frank” Dir. Kurt Fleischer
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2023 HFF Winners

"Short Route” Ultra-Short Winner

“The Stray” Honorable Mention

“Amphibia” Short Winner

“Fraudulent Conversion” Honorable Mention

“Afterwards” Festival Winner

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2022 Festival Winners

Best Feature Film
“Friday the 13th Vengeance 2: Bloodlines” Dir. Jason Brooks

Feature Film Honorable Mention
“The Things We Can Not Change” Dir. Joshua Nelson

Best Short Film
“When the Time Comes” Dirs. Jondaniel Cornett and Jonathan Frey

Short Film Honorable Mention
“The Old Man in the Rocking Chair” Dir. Eric Michael Yoder Jr

Best Ulta-Short Film
“Izzy” Dir. Andrew Huggins
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2021 FESTIVAL WINNERS

Best Horror Film
"Massacre Academy" Director Mark Cantu, United States of America

Best Comedy/Musical Horror
"Maneater!" Director Jack Rooney

Comedy Horror - Honorable Mention
"The Witch Hunters are Coming" Director James Atkins, United Kingdom

Best Short Under 10 minutes
"The Isolated" Director Seif Abdel Raouf, Egypt

Best Short Under 20 minutes
"Hide and Seek" Radheya Jegatheva, Australia

Short Under 20 Minutes - Honorable Mention
"...and Then the Darkness" Director Andrew Huggins, United State of America
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Rules & Terms

2025 HFF Film Guidelines

Feature Films
• Your film must be over 40 minutes in length.
• All entries submitted to the HFF must be original works by the applicant. If the film is an adaptation or based on source material to which the entrant doesn’t own the rights, permission to adapt the original work must be submitted.
• If your feature film has screened publicly in a theater in the U.S. at one or more non-festival screenings and/or has been acquired and released via any public online distribution platform (streaming, VOD, SVOD, etc.) outside of a limited-time virtual festival event before HFF, it is not eligible for HFF 2025.
• Your project must have been completed in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 or 2025.
• HFF does not accept trailers or rough assemblies. Please be aware HFF will not screen multiple updates/versions of your film for programming consideration.
• HFF only watches the first cut submitted.
• All feature-length films must be submitted via FilmFreeway.

Short Films
• Your film must be under 40 minutes in length.
• All entries submitted to the HFF must be original works by the applicant. If the film is an adaptation or based on source material to which the entrant doesn’t own the rights, permission to adapt the original work must be submitted.
• If your short film has screened publicly in a theater in the U.S. at one or more non-festival screenings and/or has been acquired and released via any public online distribution platform (streaming, VOD, SVOD, etc.) outside of a limited-time virtual festival event before HFF, it is not eligible for HFF 2025.
• Your project must have been completed in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 or 2025.
• HFF does not accept trailers or rough assemblies.
• HFF only watches the first cut submitted.
• All short films must be submitted via FilmFreeway.

We reserve the to add additional or remove categories based on the number of submissions.
7 Reviews
Overall Rating
Quality
Value
Communication
Hospitality
Networking
  • Jonathan Taverne

    Merci au festival du film de Hackettstown pour la première sélection de mon court-métrage "DYSTOPIA" à l'international. Merci à Chris Lance et son équipe pour leur bienveillance, c'était un réel plaisir d'échanger avec eux.

    September 2025
    Helpful
  • Nick Natalicchio

    This festival is run by people who are passionate about film and really care about filmmakers!

    June 2025
    Helpful
  • John Martinez

    I love everything the Hackettstown Film Festival is about and how they aim to support creative filmmakers. I submitted my short film for consideration and was excited to receive an "official selection". I was truly shocked and honored to have been awarded an "Honorable Mention" for “The Days of Knight: Chapter 1”.

    I'm truly grateful for the opportunity to have participated in this great festival.

    Thank you again to the amazing team and judges at Hackettstown Film Festival.

    I’ll see you all again soon!

    April 2025
    Helpful
  • Joe McGee

    Enjoyed the time attending in person at The Hackettstown NJ film festival, to all the organizers and judgers to put together an amazing event. The atmospheric and mood was energetic and they showcases the films well along with Q and A. Will return once again, highly recommended

    April 2025
    Helpful
  • Eric Louis Jimenez

    We were pleased to be invited and given honorable mention for our student film. They made accommodations for us because we were coming from out of town and running late. Thank you.

    November 2023
    Helpful