Hellifax Horror Fest

Hellifax completed it's 3rd year in 2022! Our main focus has been horror films, and we expanded to include sci-fi, action and thriller.

Hellifax Horror Fest is a third-year festival in the seaside city of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Therein lives a contingent of die-hard horror fans with a taste for blood (in film, that is). This festival has been created for those fans, and for the filmmakers who deliver innovative and compelling stories.

We're filmmakers ourselves, and we're doing this for the love of genre films. We aim to showcase the next generation of filmmakers and shine a light on their talents.

The festival has 3 components:

Feature film competition:
-Horror, sci-fi, action and thriller feature films 45 minutes or longer can be submitted.

Short film competition:
-Horror, sci-fi, action and thriller short films 25 minutes or less can be submitted.

Script competition:
We're ready for your horror,sci-fi, action and thriller genre scripts (maximum length - 25 pages).
-Each script will receive brief reader notes (if requested).
-The Hellifax jury will select the top 15 semi-finalists from the submissions, followed by the top 5 finalists. The top five and the grand prize winner will be announced at the awards ceremony and be available on the Hellifax website (although it's not mandatory - the writer can choose not to make their script available on the site). Laurels will be provided to the top 5 finalists.
-The grand prize winner will receive $100 (CDN) cash award.

In 2020 we screened 52 short films in five programs, selected from submissions received from over 30 countries. For 2021 we made the festival bigger and better by including horror features and adding small cash prizes for Best Feature, Best Short and Best Script and overall 24 awards were won! We screened four features and 48 shorts in front of live audiences during an October weekend.