Tokyo Documentary Film Festival

Tokyo Documentary Film Festival (TDFF) 2025 Call for Entries
Visual anthropology and Ethnographic film Competition
Organized by Documentary Magazine NEONEO Editorial Office

Tokyo Documentary Film Festival (TDFF) is a film festival specializing in documentary works including film, TV show, video for the Internet, artistic video, ethnographic film etc. Since 2018, it has been held for two weeks every year at K's Cinema in Shinjuku, Tokyo’s largest downtown area.

Every December, dozens of works selected from the entries from all over the country and abroad are screened at the theater. In each competition of Feature films, Short films and Visual Anthropology and Ethnographic films, the judges select the Grand Prix and the Runner-up Prize. The most distinctive feature of TDFF is the "Audience Award." It is chosen by avid documentary film fans and receives a lot of attention every year. At most of the screenings, the directors, cast and crew will appear on the stage to greet the audience, and there will be a Q&A session in the lobby after the showing.

The host is an organization that runs and publishes Documentary Magazine NEONEO and other books and online magazines. Through these interviews and reviews before and after the festival, the entries are presented to the Japanese mass media. In addition, many domestic film distributors and film industry officials will be in attendance. Besides, there will be various events such as pre-events, symposiums, parties for the directors and the festival officials, and so on. The organizer has run the festival with a grant from the incorporated administrative agency administered by Tokyo and the Japanese government.

For the first five years, we have focused mainly on discovering and promoting Japanese documentary works more broadly. As a result, many of the feature films were released in theaters after their premieres at the festival. Many of the short films were given a chance to be featured on movie distribution sites. And from 2023, we decided to call for foreign entries with English subtitles in the Visual Anthropology and Ethnographic Film Competition. Past two years, we screened a lot of films from all over the world with filmfreeway. And films got good notices. We are looking forward to seeing a variety of work from all over the world, including yours!