Welcome to the Tampa Film Festival in beautiful sunny Florida!
The Tampa Film Festival connects filmmakers with each other in celebration of the independent film scene from filmmakers all over the world to our own backyard of Florida.
The Tampa Film Festival premieres the most exciting and challenging works from brand new talent to established auteurs who have played and won awards from Toronto, Cannes, Tribeca, Sundance, Venice, Berlin, Tokyo, and more. They have worked for Netflix, WB, HBO, Disney, and Marvel to ad campaigns for the likes of Apple, Ford, and Playstation. They have combined decades of experience with Master degrees and have worked with the likes of David Lynch, David Fincher, and the Russo Brothers. They even have been honored by the BAFTAs, Emmys, Grammys, Webbys, NAACP, and more! While others have just started to pick up a camera! But all films are considered the prestige in independent cinema and a selection into the Tampa Film Festival is considered a top honor.
Founded by Jimmy Kustes, an actor/writer/producer who won Best Feature at both the 14th Annual Peachtree International Film Festival and the 10th Annual Louisville International Festival of Film, and Remi awards at the 53rd Worldfest-Houston for Body Swap which he made on a $50,000 budget. He's acted in projects from Steven Soderbergh to Greg Berlanti and talent in his films have gone on to star in their own HBO shows and movies to hosting Saturday Night Live. He founded the Tampa Film Festival to bring attention to challenging projects you can't see anywhere else.
The Tampa Film Festival Awards are given in the following categories
Film Exceptional - This award is given to one exceptional film (fiction or non-fiction, short or feature) shown at the Tampa Film Festival. The winner of this award gets distribution advice from the sponsors.
Writing Exceptional - This award is given to the fictional film that displays exceptional writing. Winner of this award gets free script notes on their next screenplay.
Awards are given for exceptional acting performances from fictional films, either short or feature shown at the festival.
Actor Exceptional
Actress Exceptional
Supporting Actor Exceptional
Supporting Actress Exceptional