Cities are places of opportunities, but they come with many challenges.

In order to create a culture of best-practice sharing through filmmaking, we organize an international short documentary film festival open to anyone interested in showing the world what happens in cities through a range of diverse issues such as climate change, social inequalities, mobility, security, education, housing, urban planning, culture, and much more.

Our Key Objectives :

- To raise awareness on urban challenges and existing solutions
- To inspire citizens to reproduce successful initiatives and improve lives in cities.
- To identify new talented filmmakers, and support them in developing their careers

We want to film local solutions to widespread urban challenges, involving people from all over the world… Beyond the production of short films, we want citizens to recreate solutions from other cities and adapt them to their local environments.

Since 2014, over 3 000 filmmakers have joined us in our quest for more liveable cities, provoking and engaging people around with short documentaries.

Every year, the most inspiring shortdocs are screened at the Cannes Film Festival, and across the world in collaboration with local cinemas, French Institutes, UN-Habitat, OECD and the C40.

Awards & Prizes

The Megacities-Shortdocs Festival Awards

1. The Best ShortDoc, in partnership with Positive Cinema Week, under the auspices of the Cannes Film Festival
Rewards the best film of the edition
1000 € for the ShortDoc Maker
​​

2. The Best Student's ShortDoc
Rewards the best film shot by a student
1000 € for the ShortDoc Maker

​

Special Prizes from our partners

3. The Greater Paris Metropolis Prize, supported by Greater Paris Metropolis
Rewards a film that promotes an initiative with a social and/or environmental impact, carried out by a collective or an inhabitant of the Greater Paris Metropolis, and filmed on its territory
1000 € for the ShortDoc Maker

​​​

4. The Happy Proximity Prize, supported by Chaire ETI Paris la Sorbonne
Rewards a film which addresses urban challenges by encouraging debates on the need to rethink city design and living spaces
1000 € for the ShortDoc Maker​

​

One of the winners will also be invited to the Cannes Film Festival (transport and accommodation), and will climb the steps at the Cannes Film Festival, in addition to the prizes mentioned above. (Jury decision)

One of the winners will also receive a production grant and editorial support from the Festival team to turn their ShortDoc into a 10 to 15 minute documentary, through our Films4SustainableWorld programme.

Rules & Terms

(Complete T&C are available on our website : https://www.megacities-shortdocs.org)

Your ShortDoc film must :

- Show a challenge in your city and solutions or ideas of new initiatives that could tackle such issues.
For inspiration and subject ideas, take a look at the themes with social or environmental impact covered by one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals from the United Nations (such as education, climate change, feed, transportation, refugees, health, poverty, gender equality…).

- Be shot in a urban environment.

- Last no more than 4:00 minutes (including closing credits).

​- Integrate English subtitles (if your film is selected for the festival, you will also be asked, in a second phase, to submit a version without subtitles and a text file with English subtitles and time codes).

Criterias​ :

- ​Power of the solution in terms of inhabitants’ benefits and importance of the challenges associated with it.

- Replicability of the initiative and information enabling other people elsewhere in the world to draw inspiration from it.​​

- Originality of subject, ability to bring to the world's attention things that have not been seen before.

​​​​- Description of the initiative, explanation of how it works, evidence of its positive impact on the problem it addresses.

- Quality of the writing and storytelling, particularly in terms of the clarity of the message, but also the ability to create a sense of attachment to the characters and their story.

- Cinematographic quality of the documentary (in terms of image, editing, etc.).