The Southern California Drone Film Festival recognizes and honors the skill and creativity from amazing aerial visual storytellers.

Entries will be judged by a jury made up of producers, directors, photographers, drone operators, and creative directors.

Finalists, and all those who submitted entries, will be notified by May 9, 2025. All finalists will be on the SoCal Drone Film Festival website.

All finalists will be asked to provide exhibition broadcast quality files. Entries from all finalists will be shown throughout the day for festival attendees to view. During the awards ceremony, portions of all finalists files will be shown with the winning entry in each category being show in its entirety.

Category winners will be awarded prizes including a trophy, gear (including gift cards from Adorama, DJI Mini 4 Pro, DJI Osmo Action Camera, SanDisk Cards, and more) and cash prize for grand prize winner. Check here and our social media (Instagram, Facebook & Twitter - SoCalDroneFilmFestival) for continuous updates.

All filmmakers must be 16 years or older in order to enter.
All submissions must be no more than 5 minutes in length and include at least 50% drone footage.

News/Documentary entries can be up to 10 minutes in length.
Show reel entries should be no more than 5 minutes in length.

By entering, you authorize that your work is cleared for festival exhibition and accept full legal responsibility for the intellectual property therein. Entry into the festival constitutes permission to exhibit your work at the festival and on the festival’s website and social media. The Southern California Drone Film Festival reserves the right to use excerpts of any submitted film for promotional purposes only, including but not limited to broadcast on TV or the Internet.

The person submitting the entry acknowledges that he or she has obtained consent and from any and all owners, creators, writers, actors, producers and/or other authorized representatives of the film whose consent is required to submit the content to the festival.

It is the sole responsibility of the person submitting to secure authorization and permission from the copyright owner(s) of any and all copyrighted content or materials included within the submitted Film. It is the sole responsibility of the person submitting to secure authorization and permission from the owner(s) of any and all trademarked content and materials included within the submitted film.

All those who enter will receive an email from FilmFreeway notifying them of their judging status. Finalists will be posted on the festival website and shared on SoCal Drone Film Festival's social media. Finalists will need to provide exhibition format digital files and additional information.

Overall Rating
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Value
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Hospitality
Networking
  • Maryann Rose

    The organizer (Jay) and the volunteers really go above and beyond on making the festival a success, despite it being only its 4th year! I've enjoyed chatting with other filmmakers and viewing the work of all the finalists on the big screen... quite inspiring!

    June 2024
  • Patrick Thies

    Thank you for awarding me as finalist for my SoCal Spirit video. This was my first film festival submission and happy to begin it with a win. I wasn't able to attend the actual festival due to being out of town; but hope to visit next year for sure.

    June 2024
  • Jason Rivera

    Thank you for the opportunity to showcase my work, and for selecting me as the winner of the Cinematic FPV segment. I look forward to submitting again.

    July 2023
  • Joanna Steidle

    So honored to have been choose the winner in Still Photography! The event featured some of the most inspiring drone video works I have ever seen. I will be highly recommending this event to others.

    May 2022
  • Robert smith

    Great experience looking forward to 2023. Hope you enjoyed 22 weeks and the look inside the LAFD. The follow up coming soon.

    May 2022