The International New West Film Fest in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada.
The 2025 New West Film Fest runs Friday, October 24 to Sunday, October 26 at the New West Landmark Cinema.
Open for submissions beginning April 1 until June 30 2025.

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New West Film Fest (formerly New West Doc Fest) was founded in 2011 by people with a passion for film, arts, and community. The festival’s mandate is to present new films, and build a local and international community for artists and film-goers.

We are an entirely volunteer run 3-day festival.

Our home is the New Westminster Landmark cinema, just steps from the New Westminster skytrain station. Our central location brings audiences from the Tri Cities, Surrey, Lower Mainland and Vancouver.

We strive to uplift underrepresented stories and films, and the New West Film Society’s commitment to Truth & Reconciliation includes uplifting Indigenous stories and filmmakers.

Rules & Terms

Rules & Terms
Deadline for entries – We accept films from April 1 through to June 31st, 2025.
Completion Date - No earlier than January 1st, 2024
Subtitles - All entries with dialogue not in the English language must have embedded English subtitles.
Genres - All genres welcome!
Run time - Features must be at least 60 minutes, and no longer than 120 minutes.
Shorts must be under 30 minutes. Remember that our festival runs for only 3 days, and short films will be screened with other shorts, and we only have so much room. .
Refund policy - There will be no refunds for submission fees issued by the New West Film Society.
Event delay policy - The festival may be postponed and selected films will be eligible for showing at the postponed festival.
Showing notification policy - By submitting your film to this festival you are agreeing that, if selected, the film will be shown. The festival organizers will do their best to reach you for the best version of the film to be shown and are able to show the film in the submitted version if you are not responsive. Please note that we do not pay screening fees, and filmmakers do not get portions of the box office.
Screening Q & As: We have Q & A sessions after screenings for those who can attend.
Film categories: Narrative feature; narrative short; documentary feature; documentary short; animated feature; animated short.
Feedback: We are entirely volunteer run, and do not have the capacity to give feedback on submitted films, other than notifying if the film was selected or not selected.
Submission Prices: Early bird prices for the month of April are $25 for features, and $15 for shorts. Submissions for the month of May prices are $30 for features and $20 for shorts. June last month submission fees are $40 for features and $30 for shorts.