Seahorse Film Festival is annual short film festival based in the stunning seaside town of Newcastle, Australia. We are looking for the best short films from around the world, as well as films from high-school students from our region. The festival offers generous cash prizes and celebrates the best in short filmmaking at a red-carpet weekend event in the heart of Newcastle.

Awards & Prizes

OPEN CATEGORY (International)
Films under 20 minutes from anywhere in the world - Top Prize A$5000; Runner Up A$2000

HIGH SCHOOL CATEGORY (Local)
Films under 5 minutes made by a student (or students) enrolled in a secondary school in the Hunter and Central Coast region (Year 7-12) - Top Prize A$2000; Runner Up A$1000 and 8x Emerging Filmmakers Awards A$500ea
NOTE: For Top Prize and Runner up, the student will receive 50% or prize money and the school will receive the other 50%.

Rules & Terms

- All submissions must have been completed after 1 January 2023.
- Films cannot have played to a public audience in Newcastle before the festival dates.
- Any films not in the English language is required to have subtitles.
- High School category submissions must under 5 minutes in length (including titles)
- Open category submissions must under 20 minutes in length (including titles).
- Shorter films are encouraged to enable us to screen more films for our audiences.
- The number of entries by one submitter/filmmaker is not limited.
- Only one final version of any one film can be submitted.
- No work in progress, or near-finished work will be accepted.
- In order to submit a film, the submitter/filmmaker must own the rights to the film and all production elements contained in the film (such as music recordings, performances, artwork).
4 Reviews
Overall Rating
Quality
Value
Communication
Hospitality
Networking
  • David Thompson

    Great Festival! Really well put together, with some great people which made for two amazing evenings. Looking forward to the next one!

    October 2024
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  • Kyle Campbell-Pope

    Seahorse Film Festival is a wonderful setting and environment for films and filmmakers - junior and experienced. With a great response time and communication from the event organisers, I was immediately keen on visiting the festival once I had news that my film had been admitted for their introductory year, and I had such a great time viewing their amazing line-up of short films and engaging with the festival team as well as loads of talented filmmakers that I will be sure to visit again, as a viewer and supporter as well as hopefully submitting something new again for their future iterations. Definitely a key place to be if you are a fan of cinema. Big ups to the entire Seahorse Film Festival team, thank you again!

    October 2024
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  • William McKegg

    This was a fantastic festival. Superbly run, wonderful communication and the format (two compact days) was perfect. Held in the beautiful Conservatorium of Music in Newcastle it had a wonderful ambience for the audience and film makers. Koa was fantastic in all her communications and their social media was superb. You would think it's been a festival running for years, highly recommend.

    October 2024
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  • Louis Dickins

    A fantastic film festival! Terrific communication, organisation and a great thrill to share our film with such a receptive audience. Highly recommend

    October 2024
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