The Northampton Film Festival is organized by a team of Pioneer Valley-based filmmakers, curators, and organizers who are passionate about building community through film. Originally a corporately-run festival, NFF was taken over in 2015 by members of Northampton Community Television, a community media arts organization, who had their own ideas for its future relevance.

Described by Boston-based news outlet MassLive as “returning with a full quiver of artistic arrows,” last years festival "offered up a broad palette of moving image offerings, from the local to the international, and guided attendees to experiences in art and technology largely unavailable elsewhere in the Valley.”

Although we are a small festival, the unique interests of each of our team members allow us to offer a wide variety of thoughtful programming, including over 48 films across 9 venues in downtown Northampton.

“This unique festival crosses lines of genre, geography, and medium. It involves the collaboration of a number of community partners like the City of Northampton, the Arts Council, Good Nights Sleep (an experimental film collective), Forbes Library, Historic Northampton, and many other partners.” - Festival Director Al Williams.

Last year’s tracks included feature-length narrative and documentary works, animation, films by local artists, children’s programming, virtual reality and augmented reality experiences, cult classic events, and filmmaking workshops. Some examples of our unique programming have included a screening curated by local filmmaker Sarah Bliss entitled Stretching the Frame: Death, Dying, and the Material Body, which showcased work by members of the Waltham-based analog film collective AgX; an installation of films from Iran which were each under 60 seconds; and a midnight showing of Nobuhiko Obayashi’s 1977 cult classic House.

The Northampton Film Festival has recently hosted the premier of “Crowd Sourced Cinema,” a public art project in which the scenes and soundtrack of a classic film such as The Princess Bride or Back to the Future are re-created by teams of community members and edited together by NCTV Media Wizard Jenn Ramsay. The Crowdsourced Cinema screening has traditionally closed the festival with an overflowing audience packed with people who created scenes, roaring with laughter.

Throughout this varied programming, our overall mission is to connect the Pioneer Valley to conversations happening around the world through visual media, and offer inroads to participation. This year we are thrilled to be adding a competitive program of non-fiction shorts. We are seeking films that provoke dialogue about such issues as the ethics of ethnographic practice, intersections between fiction and realism, and formal experimentation, on equal measure to their subject matter. We seek to bring the most thoughtful, stirring, and revealing films the world has to offer to our community in order to produce new ways of thinking and inform our own work in the world. Thank you for your interest in being part of our festival, and good luck!

Awards & Prizes

Best Non-Fiction Short: $200
Best Non-Fiction Short - Runner Up: $100

Rules & Terms

General Eligibility: 

Shorts are forty (40) minutes or shorter, including all credits.
• NFF will consider Shorts that have had an online presence, though our preference is to spotlight work that has not already reached a large audience.

SUBMISSIONS GUIDELINES: 

If your Vimeo link submission is password protected, make sure to send a password in the message box with your submission.

If you change your Vimeo link, or the password connected to it, make sure to email the updated information to nffsubmissions@northamptontv.org

Filmmakers may submit more than one work, but each film must be accompanied by its own Entry Form and Entry Fee.

The Entry Fee is non-refundable.
Please do not send one of a kind film prints, master tapes, or other originals.
• All entrants will be notified of their status on or around October 21, 2018 via e-mail. 
Please keep us informed of any changes regarding your contact information by emailing nffsubmissions@northamptontv.org. 

TERMS AND CONDITIONS: 
By submitting this film, I understand that I am agreeing to the following:
• I have the legal right to represent and to submit this film to Northampton Film Festival LLC, and to the best of my knowledge, all statements on this document are true;

• There is no action, suit, claim or proceeding pending, affecting or, to the best of my knowledge, threatened against this documentary film or its producers, cast, or crew in connection with this documentary film or otherwise;
• Music and any other third party material clearances and all copyright clearances are my sole responsibility. Northampton Film Festival will not be held responsible for any legal disputes regarding the exhibition of this film. Noncompliance may affect, delay, and/or disqualify my entry.
• If this documentary is selected for screening at NFF, I grant NFF the right to screen this documentary at the Festival;
• I understand and agree that my film entry, if selected for the NFF, may be used for promotional purposes for the festival and/or its partners; and I grant NFF and its partners the rights to use footage (not to exceed 5 minutes), stills and/or titles and information from the film for such promotional purposes;
• Should this documentary win any award, I am authorized and/or empowered by all parties legally representing this film entry to receive all cash prizes and awards and to distribute them appropriately;
• I fully indemnify and hold NFF, and each of it’s respective officers, directors, employees, agents, affiliates, sponsors, licensees and assigns harmless from and against any and all claims, damages, liabilities, costs and expenses in connection with my documentary film, including:
o reasonable attorneys’ fees and other expenses of defense arising from or in connection with any breach of any of the foregoing agreements, representations or warranties or from or in connection with any litigation or any claim or proceeding commenced by a third party alleging or arising from libel, slander, defamation, invasion of privacy, infringement, unauthorized use or any other right of such third party or wrongful conduct;
o damage to or loss of the film print or videotapes en route to or from NFF or during the course of NFF’s possession of the entry;
o and any claims which may arise in connection with my film.
IF SELECTED:
If your documentary is selected to screen in the Northampton Film Fest, you will need to provide the following:
o Projection print or video by required deadline. Filmmaker is responsible for the delivery costs of the print shipment to the festival, including any applicable customs fees. NFF will return the print to the supplier or to the next domestic destination as indicated by the supplier at the festival's conclusion. The festival does not provide extra insurance for originals or masters.
o Press kits, trailers, promotional materials and additional screeners for preview;
o Screener links or DVD copies for the NFF press liaison (optional)
Please do not send these materials until your film is selected for the program. The festival reserves the right to complete any information not supplied by the filmmaker from whatever source available and will not be responsible if incorrect information is entered.
Note: NFF has the right to change any information contained in this document (including Festival dates, venues, events, awards and eligibility requirements) without further notice.