Spring Shorts Film Festival was born in 2008 as a classroom project at Dallastown Area High School in York, PA. One year later, the Dallastown Video Production Club took over the event with the mission of recognizing student producers that were exemplifying excellence in their work. Spring Shorts has grown to be a Regional Festival that offers junior high and high school students from South Central Pennsylvania the chance to submit original films to be juried by a panel of industry experts.

Submission is open to all middle school and high school students from the South Central PA region. There is also an Alumni category open to submissions from former students that participated in Spring Shorts. Students must be the primary creative force behind the projects and there should be no adult or professional aid other than supervision. All genres are accepted and filmmakers can submit multiple entries.

JUDGING
A panel of judges, consisting of professionals knowledgeable about film, carefully select the final 10-15 films that will be nominated for one or more award and screened at the Spring Shorts Film Festival.
The judges will rate the films in the following categories:
• Cinematography
• Audio
• Continuity/Story
• Editing
• Creativity/Innovation

AWARDS
Trophies and other awards ($$$) are presented the night of the Festival
• Best Overall Student Short
• People's Choice (decided by audience the night of the main public showing)
• Best in the categories of documentary, animation, music video, and narrative films
• Best cinematography, editing, acting and original score will also be recognized
• Best Junior High entry (Open to all submissions from students in 9th grade and below)
• Best Alumni entry (Open to all submissions from former students that participated in Spring Shorts)

Submission Deadline: April 12, 2024 3:00 PM

Eligibility:
Spring Shorts is open to residents of South Central Pennsylvania (District 3) who are currently enrolled students in middle school or high school or its equivalent for the 2023-24 school year. Entrants must provide school contact information in their entry form to be eligible. Alumni entries will only be accepted from entrants that have participated in Spring Shorts while in high school.

Length of Film:
All films must be Five minutes (5:00) or less in length. Digital entries can either be submitted through FilmFreeway or Google Drive.

Selection and Notification of Winners:
Spring Shorts will make every effort to notify filmmakers of the status of their films by May 6, 2024. Notifications will be sent to the email provided on the entry form. A list of nominated films will also be posted at www.wildcat.tv.

Student-Appropriate Content Only:
No excessive strong language, blatant sexuality, pointless violence, pointless drug/alcohol/tobacco use (i.e. glorifying destructive behaviors), nudity, etc.

The use of copy-written material of any kind (Music, video, images, etc.) will result in your film being removed from the festival.

Submission does not guarantee a place in the festival. Various factors such as quality, time constraints, appropriateness will result in your film being dismissed from inclusion into the festival.

By entering the Contest you grant the Sponsors the right to contact you regarding your entry, publicize your entry, promote your entry for any other purpose related to the Contest and/or broadcast your entry.

Spring Shorts Film Festival reserves the right to remove any film from the festival due to time constraints or that they feel contradicts the rules of entry stated above.

Overall Rating
Quality
Value
Communication
Hospitality
Networking
  • Megan Sechrist

    We had such a fun time at Spring Shorts debuting my films Stained Red and Friend of Dorothy. The festival was very well organized and overall a very entertaining night!

    May 2023