Spanning a wide range of genres, Sydney Short Film Festival features a diverse screening programme. With independent cinema being the festival’s main core philosophy, our screening selection runs the gamut of various styles.

We bring creations from all around the world to the heart of Australia connecting an international audience with filmmakers and industry experts.

Send us your creations and share your story with us.

HFP

Sydney Short Film Festival is organised by HFP, a pioneer organisation that runs Film Festivals and other events showcasing and championing ideas of diversity. Through our global series of film Festivals that spread over 13 countries, we open the path to voices with a compelling story to share. Our main mission is to honour independent cinema and establish a network of artists eager to join forces and spread their work across all nations. HFP runs 25 film Festivals worldwide.

Our panel of judges will carefully select each nominated project and program the Official Selections. At the end of the festival, an awarding ceremony will be held to announce the winners of each category.

We accept films in the following categories:
Best Short Fiction Film
Best Short Drama
Best Short Comedy
Best Short Animation
Best Short Experimental
Best Short Documentary
Best Music Video
Best Student Film

✓ All films must be submitted in English or with English subtitles (if in a different language).

✓ All films must have been made in or after 2022.

✓ Short films must not exceed 45 minutes.

✓ Filmmakers are responsible for sorting out the copyright on their own materials.

✓ By submitting to us, you give us consent and right to screen your film in front of a live audience, and, under special circumstances, online screening.

✓ Nominations: These are all the films that have been nominated for an award in a category. Not all nominated films will be screened.

Official Selection: These are all the nominated films selected for screening, which will be notified via email. If you received a Nomination email, but no Official Selection email, it means your film will not be screened, but is still a contender for an award in its category.

Award Winners: Chosen from the Nominations (which includes the Official Selection).

✓ We may promote clips from your film on social media, based on the press kits you provide us with.

✓ We retain the right to change the date and venue of the festival under special circumstances. All filmmakers will be informed about any changes through email and our online platforms.

✓ We place no restrictions on your work in terms of premiere status or whether your work has been made available online.

✓ We do not accept partial screeners, trailers, or screener links that require access other than password protected links.

✓ Any technical issues with the submitted films are 100% the responsibility of the filmmakers. If, at the time of judging, your video file doesn’t work or doesn’t have English subtitles (if in a language other than English), it will be automatically rejected, without a refund. Please contact the festival team ASAP if there are any issues with the submission process, and a solution will be found.

✓ We cannot provide refunds.

✓ If you have submitted your project in the previous year, please do not resubmit the same project to the current edition.

✓ By submitting to us you agree to our terms and conditions and to receiving marketing newsletters and discounts about film festivals in the form of emails. We will never sell your information to third parties.

✓ We reserve the right to update our terms and conditions.

Overall Rating
Quality
Value
Communication
Hospitality
Networking
  • Jack Michel

    Terrible. Basically non-existent. No communication. No advertising. Terribly managed. I’m pretty sure it didn’t actually end up happening. Save your money.

    May 2023
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    Response from festival:

    Dear Jack,

    Thank you for your message. We would like to assure you that the Sydney Short Film Festival has been taking place since 2018 physically and with online editions during the covid-19 lockdown. We apologize for our poor communication prior and during the Sydney Short Film Festival 2023 but as we are a small team running the Festival, the work overload can sometimes be overwhelming. We always aim to prioritize our tasks and responsibilities and we take filmmakers' feedback seriously and it is very helpful for us to ameliorate our practices. This year's edition was a special occasion, as due to some unprecedented external factors, we had to reschedule the Sydney Short Film Festival ending up taking place at the Ritz Cinemas on the 3rd of March.

    If you have more questions, doubts or complaints about SSFF, please feel free to send us an email at sydneyshortfilm@gmail.com and we will be happy to get back to you.

  • I was very happy to screen my film here, and even win an award for best comedy short! I Since I'm from Finland and cuz covid I could only attend to online screening, but it was very good, very well curated Q&A:s and most importantly excellent films! I felt honored to be selected, nominated and even awarded among other great artists work. Visual look of the festival is also very nice, I'm especially happy that the laurels look so good! Love it. Thank you Sydney, would attend again and recommend for any artist out there! Stay safe and let's believe in our work during these testing times.

    March 2022
  • Alemberg Ang

    The team was very accommodating, friendly and helpful! I would highly recommend this to other filmmakers and will continue supporting the festival.

    February 2022
  • Dov Abramson

    We were so excited that our animated music video "Jerusalem" won the Music Video award!

    We were invited to attend - but unfortunately were not able to make it from abroad.

    Looks like a great festival! Thanks for making us part of it.

    February 2020
  • Adam Ciancio

    Was fortunate enough to screen at this festival. Expertly organised, great communication and we won an award too. Good festival to screen at if you're looking for your film to play in Sydney.

    February 2020