The Tampa Bay Transgender Film Festival is a space grounded in and centered around the transgender community, support those in film who support our community, and share these films with our community and allies. The festival was founded as a collaboration between the Tampa Bay International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (TIGLFF) and St. Pete Pride in 2020 and was tied to the Transgender Day of Remembrance.

In 2021, TIGLFF solely hosted the festival with the Transgender Day of Remembrance. For our 3rd Annual Edition TIGLFF decided to move the festival to March 2023 for the Transgender Day of Visibility.

The Tampa Bay Transgender Film Festival is brought to you in partnership with Tampa International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (TIGLFF) and St Pete Pride. These two organizations have been working together since 2018 to bring entertaining short films to TRANSTASTIC!, the opening night event for the historic Trans Pride March.

Nathan Bruemmer, founder of the St Pete Pride Trans Pride March, and former President of St Pete Pride has long aspired to do something bigger for the transgender community, while Kayden Rodriguez was brought onto the Board of Directors of TIGLFF to improve transgender inclusion. During the height of the George Floyd Movement, and with historic technological shifts (due to the 2020 COVID-19 Global Pandemic) in mind, Nathan and Kayden discussed bringing a large event, representative of the transgender community, to the Tampa Bay Area. Thus, this Festival was born.

The Tampa Bay Transgender Film Festival is to highlight and elevate Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR). To its Co-Founders, this Festival is an echo to the Netflix Documentary titled Disclosure. Have you seen it? The historic documentary is a deep dive into the misrepresentation of transgender individuals in media. This Festival is an intentional, direct answer to that misrepresentation. As we know, it is well beyond time to honor the transgender lives that have been lost to incessant, unnecessary violence, and to use media as an educational tool to bring that same violence to an end.

We hope for this festival to help celebrate transgender lives & experiences, further creating a safe world for our transgender family to live in.

Awards & Prizes

TBA

Rules & Terms

Film Submission Requirements

1. Films should include a theme of transgender and gender diversity. Any film selected MUST have english captioning to screen during the festival. We are seeking narrative, documentary, experimental and animated films and videos (both features and shorts) on DCP, digital download, hard drive, and BluRay or DVD if necessary.

2. Vimeo links are preferred for preview screeners.

3. We intend for our selected films to screen virtually throughout the USA Mar. 31 - Apr. 2.

4. Rough cuts and works-in-progress are eligible for submission if an exhibition copy will be available by Feb. 1, 2023. Please identify the screener as a “Rough Cut” and specify what is missing (i.e. temp sound, needs color correction, etc). Please be aware that an updated version of your rough cut MAY NOT be able to be re-screened for submission consideration.

5. By submitting your work to Tampa Bay Transgender Film Festival (TIGLFF), you grant to Friends of the Festival, Inc. a nonexclusive license to use an excerpt of your submission tape of up to two minutes in length, for promotional purposes only, including but not limited to internet and television broadcast.

6. Still photos of your work are requested with your submission and are required for all films selected for the festival. Good stills make a difference in film placement and press coverage, particularly for shorts. Even the shortest short can get press coverage or festival prominence with a captivating still image. If you email stills to us they must be in JPEG format and hi-resolution (at least 300 dpi).

7. You are also strongly encouraged to enclose a synopsis, production credits and press information regarding your film.