The Portland EcoFilm Festival

Featured image (above): Still from the winner of our 2024 Black Merlin Visionary Film Award, OUR GRANDMOTHER THE INLET

PLEASE READ OUR RULES AND TERMS BEFORE YOU SUBMIT YOUR FILM, EVEN IF YOU WERE INVITED TO SUBMIT.

The Portland EcoFilm Festival is the premier festival of ecological, Indigenous, and place-based films in the USA Pacific Northwest. We are a signature program of The Hollywood Theatre, Portland, Oregon’s modern-historic nonprofit movie house.

We embrace the radical (root) definition of ecology, exploring what it means for humanity to attain, hold, honor, and transmit knowledge of the vast, interconnected home (eco) system that makes just and joyful lives possible for all generations.

Our annual Indigenous Voices series features official selections and award winners that center Indigenous wisdom, accomplishments, stories, and struggles.

We are currently accepting films completed on or after November 1, 2025 for 2027 consideration.

We screen official selections and award winners at three of Portland, Oregon’s best independent cinemas from March through May: TheHollywood Theatre, Cinema 21, and The Clinton Street Theater. Our "Best of the Fest" program tours several independent cinemas in Oregon and Washington state in June, expanding viewership to rural communities.

In 2026, we are launching a first-of-its kind podcast featuring nuanced conversations with filmmakers to nurture a more engaged audience and uplift the global community of filmmakers making ecological, Indigenous, and place-based cinema.

Our Multnomah Clemente Course is a completely free opportunity for people living on low incomes to explore ecological cinema in a supportive and dynamic learning community. For filmmakers whose films are selected for our Best of the Fest Series, this means they’re work is studied and discussed as it tours the great Pacific Northwest. Multnomah Clemente is a partnership between the Portland EcoFIlm Festival, Bard College, the Clemente Course in the Humanities, and various independent cinemas around the region.

Our Curation Community consists of filmmakers, artists, and other people around the world who are working and creating at vast intersections of imagination and ecology.

We invite organizations working on broad-based, multifaceted solutions to connect with our audiences, prioritizing those which represent and serve frontline communities. We also invite filmmakers and film participants to engage with our audience in dialogue about the films and issues depicted therein.

We support filmmakers by building support for their films as they are being released into public view. We connect our audiences to films that inspire environmental advocacy and ecological literacy—and to individuals, collectives, and organizations that are engaged in broad based, multifaceted solutions.

While we are a nonprofit festival, it is important to us that filmmakers are compensated for their work. For that reason we offer humble but heartfelt honoraria based on ticket sales for the season during which films are selected. Average payment to official selection filmmakers in 2025 was $50USD for short films and $75USD for feature films. We strive to increase honoraria amounts every year.

Hosted in one of the USA’s greenest cities, Portland, Oregon, our festival is supported by the kinds of people and organizations who are interested in your film! The festival is a signature program of the Hollywood Theatre, a restored 1926 film art-house movie palace featuring state-of-the-art projection and sound. The Hollywood Theatre regularly wins local awards as Portland's favorite film venue.

In 2021, the Portland EcoFilm Festival turned to a unique festival season model. This means that instead of a concentrated festival for several days every year, we screen films in person for several months every year. This helps to expose a wider audience to the important films we feature.

Our festival season includes many of the things you expect to find at a concentrated film festival, such as Q&A's, community conversations, workshops, performances, and celebrations. This allows for our festival to be more thoroughly integrated into the programming of the Hollywood Theatre (a renowned cultural institution) and our partner cinemas--and to invite viewers who might not feel compelled to attend a condensed film festival.

Waivers and discounts are granted based on scheduling needs, staff and selection committee capacity, and budgetary requirements.

Diversity, equity, inclusion, and representation matter. We encourage BIPOC and disabled filmmakers to request submission fee waivers and discounts, and we do our best to accommodate those requests.

BIPOC stands for Black, Indigenous, and people of color. Pronounced “bye-pock,” this is a term specific to the United States, intended to center the experiences of Black and Indigenous peoples and demonstrate solidarity between communities of color.

BIPOC aims to bring to center stage the specific violence, cultural erasure, and discrimination experienced by Black and Indigenous people. It reinforces the fact that not all people of color have the same experience, particularly when it comes to legislation and systemic oppression.

Our festival was created by filmmakers. We understand the importance of your film's festival release, and we want to help you get the biggest audience and impact possible.

1. Building support for your film: Where scheduling allows, we pair films with local community partners, conservation groups and advocates to help publicize your screenings and increase attendance and outreach.

2. Connecting to your audience: post-film conversations help you connect with audiences and promote your film's goals. Our post-film conversations regularly feature filmmakers, local conservation organizations, activists, and experts to further discuss your film and engage your audience. We provide tabling space in our theater lobby, so you can promote your film's campaign, sell copies/raise distribution funds for your film, and add interested people to your email list.

3. Supporting films featuring environmental advocacy campaigns: If an advocacy campaign is part of your film’s goals, we offer ways to help you reach your goals through our social media, during our screenings and by connecting you to groups and community members who can help your campaign gain traction before and after your screening date.

4. ALL films accepted into the festival are considered "in competition" and eligible for awards unless filmmakers decline consideration. (See "Awards & Prizes" section.)

5. Connecting your film to media coverage: We aim to bring media coverage not just to our festival, but also to a number of the films we feature in our prime festival screening slots. Films at our fest have received media coverage from numerous local publications and national publications including MovieMaker Magazine and Indiewire.

6. We support your film's distribution after your festival screening date with us has passed! We love using the reach of our social media to let the public know when your film is available for online viewing, or receives a nationwide theatrical run.

7. We offer honoraria to all films that are selected for our festival. Amounts depend on season ticket sales and length of film. Honoraria are generally paid after the end of each festival season unless other arrangements are made (generally for invited films). See above for average honoraria amounts during our previous season.