Saturn Returns Film Festival is a festival dedicated to elevating, amplifying and celebrating women’s voices, experiences and successes.
We honour the female voice and showcase fantastic female filmmaking.
Saturn Returns is a festival created and curated by an industry professionals currently working in the field. Our judges are actors, casting directors, DOPs, producers and writers who are as excited about seeing your work as sharing their own experiences so this festival is a little bit different.
We have the endorsement and input of many industry professionals, invested and passionate about providing support, feedback and expertise to all our contributors. We will have panels – covering everything from funding and scriptwriting to casting and editing - aimed at sharing the knowledge.

Awards & Prizes

We have a festival launch drinks on Friday 20th September 2024 and an Award ceremony on closing night - Saturday 21st September.

Films will be screened in blocks over two days.

Gala Closing night will be attended by sponsors, industry professionals and guest speakers.
A great chance to mingle, network and show off your work and your prizes.

Rules & Terms

Qualified films must be a quality, completed film AND have at least two women in a key creative behind the scenes role (e.g. Writer, Producer, Director, Cinematographer, Editor, Composer or other significant behind the scenes role).

Rules :

1. All films must be directed or written or produced by a woman or gender nonconforming filmmaker.
Films by anyone are accepted if at least two of the main roles (director, writer, producer) is led by a woman or gender nonconforming filmmaker.

2. All rights to the film must be owned by the filmmakers and cleared.
Music and archive footage is your responsibility.

3. If your film is not in the English language, English subtitles will be required.

4. As a new festival striving for equality and accessibility in the film industry, we ask that you kindly provide CC on all films to accommodate to disabled or D/deaf audience members and members of our team.
You can submit your film without CC, but we ask that if you are selected, they must be added before the screening.

5. Films must have been completed after January 2020.

7. Films that do not fall into the above criteria will not be watched or considered, so please do ensure you read and follow guidelines.

8. We do not refund submissions or offer waiver codes.

9. We are so sorry but are are unable to provide feedback on submissions as we are run by volunteers.

10. The most important rule: ENJOY yourselves and good luck!
4 Reviews
Overall Rating
Quality
Value
Communication
Hospitality
Networking
  • beryl van Praag

    What a special festival! How amazing that we were a part of it. And even more beautiful that we won the Director's Choice Award. We are very grateful to you and hope to come back to you with our future films. It was a great honor. Beryl

    October 2023
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    Response from festival:

    We loved your film Beryl. Such an important discussion to be having and so wonderful to see women with more life experience on the big screen. Congratulations on your latest success and we look forward to seeing more of your work!

  • Katy Kendrick

    Thank you so much to this wondeful film festival for selecting my film. Wendy was so welcoming, positive, enthusiastic and just brilliant person. The atmosphere was warm and welcoming and they did everything to make you feel right at home. Can't believe it was only the first year! A very professionally run festival with excellent networking opportunities. Thank you Wendy and Tori 🙌🏽🌟

    September 2023
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    Response from festival:

    Such a great take on a worrying dystopia from you Katy! We really enjoyed your film and it was so great to meet you all. Delighted to see how many festivals you guys have been selected for. It's amazing!
    We really can't wait to see what you do next.

  • Ruth Carnegie

    First time film maker enters first time festival and has a ball. Such a thrill to be surrounded by women wanting to raise women up. All kinds of female voices were given a chance to speak and in doing so encourage each other to grow as film makers. Important and powerful platform.

    September 2023
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    Response from festival:

    Ruth, your film had us all in stitches Ruth. So sweet, charming and heart-warming. So many oohs and ahs for the last film on the last day. It was a lovely way to end our festival and people are still talking about the alligators and the cow fighting over the biscuit. Congratulations.

  • Gillian Simpson

    This was such a wonderful festival to be part of. Great films, lovely filmmakers and the organisers made me feel so welcome. They put such a lot of effort into it and really care about uplifting women filmmakers. I hope it goes from strength to strength every year.

    September 2023
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    Response from festival:

    We have spoken so much about how chilling Charged is and I really do want to see a discussion about the moment it changes for all audience members. To have two of your films selected is incredible. Don't worry about the darkness - we love the darkness! Thanks so much for submitting, it was lovely to meet you!