The 9th Annual Indie Memphis Youth Film Fest is an all-day event dedicated to showcasing short films and videos from regional and national youth.

Saturday, August 24th, 2024. Location TBA

The fest will also feature presentations from accomplished filmmakers. Prior festivals have featured talks from Memphis-based Hollywood directors Craig Brewer (Empire, Hustle & Flow, Tarzan), Tom Shadyac (The Nutty Professor, Ace Ventura), and actress Caitlin McGee (NBC's Bluff City Law).

Workshops have included Writing & Directing, Acting on Camera, Cinematography & Lighting, Stunts, Makeup & Prosthetics, Pre-Production, Practical Audio Recording, Editing Techniques, and Making Music Videos.

The inaugural festival included a workshop with Chris Strompolos & Eric Zala, who as kids between the ages of 12 and 17 shot one of the most famous fan-films ever – a shot-for-shot no budget remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Jury Awards
$500 + Trophy -- Jury Award for Best Memphis Youth Film
$600 -- Jury Award for Best CrewUp Youth Mentorship Team Film

Audience Awards
$300 -- Audience Award for Best Memphis Youth Film
$300 -- Audience Award for Best CrewUp Youth Mentorship Team Film
$300 -- Audience Award for Best National Youth Film

Additional staff awards and surprises to come!

• All films submitted must be made by students in grades 7-12 or 2024 high school graduates.

• Film submissions under 10 minutes in total runtime is strongly recommended. If your film exceeds 10 minutes in length, it will be much harder to consider for programming.

• Films can be submitted for free by students living in the Memphis metro area (select "Memphis Youth Shorts" category). Any submissions made to this category by non-Memphis area residents will automatically be disqualified.

• Students living outside the metro area can submit films but must pay a fee for each film submitted (select "National Youth Shorts" category)

• Films can be shot with any type of equipment including cell phone, iPad, Go Pro cameras, and beyond.

• The director, writer, camera person, and editor must be between grades 7 - 12, including 2023 high school graduates. The actors may be of any age. Adults may assist the crew in advisory/educational roles only.

• Pay careful attention to your audio quality while filming and before submitting to the festival. Poor audio recording is the #1 issue for otherwise well-made youth films.

• Students can submit as many entries as they like but each must be submitted as a separate entry.

• The deadline to submit is 11:59pm Sunday, July 7th 2024.

Overall Rating
Quality
Value
Communication
Hospitality
Networking
  • Thank you very much for including "Adult" to your festival programm! Your empathy and support of Ukraine are so important for us. Congratulations to the winners!

    September 2023
  • Graham Whitworth

    Great fest! Highly recommend it!

    October 2021
  • Ava Bounds

    Very good festival. Communication was excellent. A very good youth festival. I would recommend it.

    September 2020
  • Ben Dreblow

    Well I was not able to attend I was very excited and honored to have HAVEN selected for screening at this festival. They were responsive and helpful in our email communications!

    January 2020
  • Tina Quarles

    The festival is a really good learning experience. I’ve attended the 2017 and 2018 festival, but I will say that the 2018 didn’t have as many awards as the 2017 one did. I wish there were awards specifically for animations, music videos, acting, lighting, editing, writing, etc. But it’s overall a good film fest.

    February 2019