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!

This year's film theme is: Blood and Guts: The Macabre!

Although small, this intimate and prestigious festival is 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.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rules & Terms

2022 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 2022.
• Your project must have been completed in 2019, 2020, 2021 or 2022.
• 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 2022.
• Your project must have been completed in 2019, 2020, 2021 or 2022.
• HFF does not accept trailers or rough assemblies.
• HFF only watches the first cut submitted.
• All short films must be submitted via FilmFreeway.
1 Review
Overall Rating
Quality
Value
Communication
Hospitality
Networking
  • Joshua Nelson

    We were thrilled to be accepted into this year's festival! They are great people and I look forward to submitting again next year!

    November 2022
    Helpful