Miami Film Festival is a world-class platform for International, American, and Ibero-American films. The 42nd edition of the Miami Film Festival occurs from April 4-13, 2025. The Festival showcases the work of the world’s best emerging and established filmmakers to the diverse cosmopolitan community of Miami.

In recent years, the Miami Film Festival has attracted approximately 45,000 people a year, as well as 300 filmmakers, producers, talent and industry professionals from around the world as it showcases more than 100 feature narratives, documentaries and short films of all genres, from 40 different countries. Highlights of recent festivals have included award presentations and exclusive in-depth conversations with film legends Pedro Almodovar, Penelope Cruz, Nicolas Cage, Tom Hiddleston, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Rita Moreno, Diego Luna, Riz Ahmed, Ramin Bahrani, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Aldis Hodge, Javier Camara, Andra Day, Ari Wegner, Cristobal Tapia de Veer, and Joshua James Richards; and numerous World and International Premieres.

The Festival also hosts dozens of world-class events every year, including annual conversations in partnership with VARIETY, as well as numerous workshops, masterclasses, legendary parties, and industry happy hours.

Historically, the Festival has had the privilege of hosting a noted group of filmmakers and talent, including Barry Jenkins, Heather Graham, Tony Goldwyn, Michael Showalter, Isabelle Huppert, Carlos Saura, Richard Gere, Rashida Jones, Sarah Jessica Parker, Lena Olin, Pablo Larrain, Edward James Olmos, Monica Bellucci, Rossy de Palma, Gloria and Emilio Estefan, Spike Lee, Andy Garcia, Patricia Clarkson, Stella Meghie, Joe Talbot, Jason Reitman, Lulu Wang and countless more. Simultaneously, it strives to be a beacon of support to local filmmaking talent and has elevated the work of numerous local filmmakers via exciting marquee screenings.

Major trade publications such as Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Screen and Indiewire attend for coverage and reviews of the films. Miami Film Festival has also made the prestigious “One of the 50 Film Festivals Worth The Entry Fee” list by Moviemaker Magazine in recent years.

Awards & Prizes

MARIMBAS Award
The MARIMBAS Award is a competition for the jury-selected U.S. or international narrative feature film (60 min or longer) that best exemplifies richness and resonance for cinema’s future.

Made in MIA Feature Film Award
Made in MIA Feature Film Award is a competition for the jury-selected feature film of any genre that features a qualitatively and quantitatively substantial portion of its content (story, setting and actual filming location) in South Florida (Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and/or Monroe counties) and that best utilizes its story and theme for universal resonance.

Made in MIA Short Film Award
Made in MIA Short Film Award is a competition for the jury-selected short film (30 minutes or less) of any genre that features a qualitatively and quantitatively substantial portion of its content (story, setting and actual filming location) in South Florida (Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and/or Monroe counties) and that best utilizes its story and theme for universal resonance.

Jordan Ressler First Feature Award
Is a competition for the jury-selected best film made by a filmmaker making their feature narrative (60 min or longer) film debut.

Documentary Achievement Award
Award given to the director of the jury-selected best feature-length (60 min or longer) documentary film.

Miami International Short Film Award
Miami International Short Film Award is given to a jury-selected narrative short film (30 min or less) of any genre from anywhere in the world.

Documentary Short Film Award
Documentary Short Film Award is a jury competition, with the award given to a jury-selected documentary short film (30 min or less) from anywhere in the world.

Narrative Feature Film Audience Award
Presented to the filmmaker of the Festival audience’s choice of best non-documentary feature (60 min or more) of the entire Official Selection.

Documentary Audience Award
Award given to one documentary film as voted upon by the Festival audience, awarded to the film’s lead producer (production company). All feature-length documentary (50 min or longer) playing in the Festival’s Official Selection are eligible for this Award.

Short Film Audience Award
Presented to the filmmaker(s) of the Festival audience’s choice of best eligible short of any genre (30 min or less) of the entire Official Selection.

CINEMASLAM (For Florida Film Students Only)
Cinemaslam is Miami Film Festival’s annual Florida film school competition. The purpose of Cinemaslam is to foster excellence in student filmmaking and expose students to the value of film festivals in connecting their work with public audiences and industry professionals. Please read the eligibility criteria carefully. Only eligible films will be considered and no refunds will be given for ineligible submissions.

NON-COMPETITION FEATURE CATEGORIES

Special Presentation
This out-of-competition category highlights significant shorts, features, or episodic content that exceed 30 min or more of any genre.

Rules & Terms

1. For all Competition categories, World premiere must have occurred no earlier than January 1, 2024. For Non-Competition categories (Special Presentation), there is no specific regulation regarding the date of a film’s World premiere.

2. For feature films in all competition categories, the Festival will give programming preference to films that offer a World, International, North American or US premiere status. PLEASE NOTE THAT WE REQUIRE ANY FESTIVAL SCREENING BE AT A MINIMUM A FLORIDA PREMIERE. Short films, and out-of-competition films, do not have a minimum premiere requirement, but as with in-competition features, strong preference will be given to Florida premieres and higher.

3. Films that are in commercial circulation (theatrical, broadcast, commercial VOD or domestic airline entertainment system) in the USA prior to April 14, 2025 will not be eligible for the Festival.

4. The Festival’s Competition categories have different eligibility rules - the length, genre (narrative or documentary) and origin regulations can all change from category to category. For example, some categories accept films of any running time, while other categories may require a minimum running time of 60 minutes or a maximum running time of 30 minutes. For other examples, some categories accept both narrative and documentary films, while other categories are restricted to one or the other; some categories accept films from any country in the world, while others only accept films from the United States or specific counties in Florida. Please read each category description carefully before submitting. If you mistakenly submit to a category for which your film is not eligible, the Festival will not disqualify your entry, but our programmers will instead consider your submission for a category where it will be eligible.

5. Our Festival’s audience-voted awards are determined by the audience of each screening being invited to rate the film on a numeric scale on a paper ballot. The average of the audience’s scoring will be multiplied by the fractional audience participation in the voting process (that is, the number of people who choose to vote out of the total attendance at each screening) in order to come up with a final score. At the conclusion of the Festival, the film with the highest over-all score in each audience-voted category will win that category’s award. Should two top final scores be separated by less than 1/10 of a percentage point, a tie will be declared. Ratings and final scores are confidential and not published or shared.

6. Films selected for the Festival will be required to provide a DCP format file for In-Theater Exhibition.

7. The Cinemaslam category is only open to undergraduate and graduate Florida film students whose films meet the specific criteria listed in that section. It has a later deadline and lower submission cost than other categories. Do not submit your film to this category if it does not meet the eligibility requirements. Ineligible films will not be selected and the submission fee will not be refunded.
23 Reviews
Overall Rating
Quality
Value
Communication
Hospitality
Networking
  • Patricia Juarez

    An amazing festival, with the best team, always kind, respectful, and willing to answer all the questions. I met so many talented people and knew what other filmmakers were doing actually. My first festival as a participant and I am charmed with the organization and the way they treated us.

    May 2024
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  • Brittany Alexia Young

    Didn't get to make it to this festival and suffered EXTREME fomo, the festival looked amazing and the communication was awesome!

    May 2024
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  • Maya Korn

    Great community and networking.!We loved our engaged responsive audiences, the quality of programming and our peers. Thank you!

    April 2024
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  • Christian Del Rio Solorzano

    Had such a wonderful experience with my short film! I've been raving to all my fellow Latino filmmakers about this festival since I got back. The screenings were very well organized, the curation of the shorts block by Chris Molina was fantastic, the events were super fun and great place to network. Had a really great experience all around and hope to be back here sometime in the future.

    April 2024
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  • Rebekah Louisa Smith

    This is a A Class festival which really cares about its filmmakers and knows how to put on a great event. 5 stars. Thank you for screening MANICURE

    April 2024
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