Sidewalk Film Festival

ELIGIBILITY:
Entrants warrant that they have the legal right to submit the work to Sidewalk, that all statements made in this application are true and accurate, and that all necessary rights and clearances have been secured to screen the work at the festival. Due to potential copyright issues, Sidewalk will be unable to consider fan fiction/fan films without express written permission from the primary copyright holder. Sidewalk reserves the right to determine the final eligibility of any work submitted. Eligible works must have been completed after January 1, 2024. Films containing any other language than English must have English subtitles.

Exhibiting films publicly in the Greater Birmingham Metropolitan Area prior to or within one week after the 2026 festival dates will prevent your film from competing in the 2026 Sidewalk Film Festival and may prevent the film from being accepted to the Festival. This includes projects available on the web. Work accepted to screen at the Festival will be categorized in competitive and non-competitive categories at the sole discretion of Sidewalk. Programmers will assess and assign your films or script to the appropriate category if miscategorized by the submitter. If your submission will be available through a video on demand (VOD) or pay-per-view (PPV) service of any kind, on or before August 24, 2026, please indicate such when entering. The availability of your film prior to August 24, 2026, through such a service will make the film ineligible for competition and may or may not prevent the film from being programmed. Availability through such a service will be considered during the programming process and may impact programming decisions. However, decisions regarding programming films that have been screened elsewhere and/or are available through a video on demand service, pay-per-view service, and/or any other service, venue, channel, theater or otherwise are solely up to the Sidewalk Film Festival staff.

GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) POLICY:
While we acknowledge that AI is a tool that is available and will be continued to be used, we encourage filmmakers to rely upon their own creativity. To that end, we will consider films that contain generative AI content as long the filmmaker discloses its use. Failure to disclose Gen AI use may result in disqualification without refund. Sidewalk utilizes the IBM definition of generative AI as our guideline: “AI that can create original content such as text, images, video, audio, or software code in response to a user’s prompt or request.”

EXHIBITION AGREEMENT & PRINT TRAFFIC:
Submission to the Sidewalk Film Festival ("Sidewalk") constitutes an agreement with all festival terms and conditions, and permission to exhibit the work during the festival if selected. The Sidewalk Film Festival does not pay screening fees for submitted films. By submitting your project, you acknowledge that Sidewalk will not pay to present your work.

If a film is accepted, entrant agrees to provide exhibition materials to the festival at their own expense, to be delivered digitally by August 7th, 2026. Entry fees are non-refundable.

DISCOUNTS:
Any misuse of discount codes will automatically disqualify a submission without refund.

ALABAMA DISCOUNT
ALABAMA26: A 30% discount for Alabama-produced films or screenplays. Alabama Productions include films that have been fully or partially filmed and/or produced in the state of Alabama. Partial Alabama productions must include at least 1 scene filmed in Alabama and/or at least 20% of the total budget spent in the state of Alabama. Alternatively a film that has the participation of at least 1 above the line filmmaker (Director, Writer, Producer, Editor, Actor in a starring role) that currently lives in the state of Alabama and/or is an Alabama native can be considered an Alabama film. Alabama scripts include screenplays where a credited screenwriter that currently lives in the state of Alabama and/or is an Alabama native.

ALUMNI DISCOUNT
SDWALUM2026: A 40% discount is available to filmmakers who have screened a short or feature film at Sidewalk Film Festival in the past. Alumni filmmakers are defined as any above the line filmmaker (Director, Writer, Producer, Editor, Actor in a starring role).