Locals Only Short Film Festival

The Chabot Theater is excited to host its 5th annual ‘Locals Only Short Film Festival’!

We love connecting with Bay Area filmmakers (like yourself) and putting their work on the big screen. Our festival is small - growing, but small - and its mission is to highlight the filmmakers of The Bay, and connect them to each other and a local audience. Your film deserves to be seen, and our community deserves to see and celebrate art made within it.

Locals Only takes place over a weekend, and contains several blocks of shorts each with their own category. Friday night is dedicated to music videos, while Saturday and Sunday feature narrative and documentary shorts (including all the experimental and/or weird stuff.) Our 'Students Only' category is also returning for its second year, and is entirely dedicated to submissions from K-12 students.
Whichever category your film may fall into, you can submit through this page.

There will be a live Q&A following the last film of each block.

Here’s a little bit about The Chabot:

Since The Chabot opened in 1950, it has been a pillar of art, entertainment, and culture within Castro Valley and its surrounding areas; long-time residents and recent transplants alike have a story or memory of time spent in its auditorium. For some, a movie at The Chabot was the first date with their now longtime spouse. For other community members, The Chabot is where they began their everlasting love affair with cinema.
In recent news: The Chabot was named SF Gate's Best Movie Theater in the Bay Area in 2025.
Our goal is to tell stories and create experiences that connect us to ourselves, each other, and our world.