Mission
The mission of the Moving Body platform is dedicated to connecting artists, mediums, and audiences through art that shares a strong choreographic sensibility. How do we move? What makes us move? Towards what are we moving? How do we move from an individual towards a collective body shaping the future of history? How do we move in times of Catastrophe? These are the issues that underline our program selection.
Formats
Мoving Body Platform navigates its mission through the following formats:
- Moving Body Festival - an annual festival in Varna, Bulgaria whose program includes short film screenings, lectures, workshops, talks, and a performance program;
- Critical Moves Screenings - an international film competition program with screenings in the frame of the festival;
- Habitat - an audio podcast that reimagines utopia as a transformative possibility rooted in the present, exploring the intersections of inner freedom, colonial histories, post-activism, and the power of art;
- Our Movement - an educational program that includes workshops, ateliers and practices;
- Let’s move - a touring program within Bulgaria;
- The Way We Move Matters - an advocacy line that includes official meetings and public discussions.
MB#11 | Critical Moves | Screenings | Open call 2026
THE WAY WE MOVE MATTERS
Moving Body Festival invites submissions for Critical Moves Screenings, a curated screening program dedicated to exploring the intersections of movement, power, and transformation through the lens of film and video art.
About Critical Moves:
This program seeks works that interrogate, disrupt, and reimagine the role of the body in motion within cultural, social, and political contexts. We are looking for short films and video projects that embody bold perspectives, creative risk-taking, and a critical approach to movement as both a physical and symbolic act.
The edition unfolds in a rich program that hides entrances and exits to various contexts and topics that meet us with works-in-process, workshops, performances, screenings, discussions, and party situations.
Welcome to edition number ten!
We Are Seeking Works That:
- Are tapping into the Moving Body’s platform core questions;
- Explore movement as a form of resistance, liberation, or disruption;
- Examine how bodies navigate systems of power, identity, and belonging;
-Deconstruct traditional narratives of dance, performance, and embodiment;
-Embrace experimental, interdisciplinary, or hybrid approaches to storytelling and visual language;
-We welcome dance films, video art, experimental shorts, and other audiovisual formats that push the boundaries of how we think about bodies in motion.
-We are open to a wide range of genres, including experimental, narrative, social, and documentary.
All Submissions must be:
- between 1 - 15 min. in length;
- no older than 2 years;
-not previously submitted to Moving Body editions;
-max. 2 submissions per filmmaker
We are not interested in receiving:
- trailers;
- recordings of performances;
- commercials.
A film will be considered by the festival's selection committee once the online form has been filled out and the selection screener link has been sent, before the 1st of September 2026.
Professionals are competing for the ‘Jury Award - Best Film’, with a cash prize of 200 euros, and ‘Encouragement Awards’ with a digital diploma for:
- best collective body;
- best individual body;
- best use of location;
- best choreography;
- best low-budget;
- best student film;
- most daring;
- audience choice
All benefits to selected films:
- Eligible to receive a Jury Award or Encouragement Award;
- Featured on the 11th edition of the Moving Body Festival in October 2026;
- Awarded with “International Official Selection” Laurel, “Best Dance Film" Laurel for cash award winner, as well as “Encouragement Award”;
- One free pass to the Moving Body Festival 2026;
- Invitation for participation in Moving Body’s touring initiative and being promoted in additional cities.
