LIVE IN VIENNA ! Our festival is an IMDB Qualified Event.

Welcome to VIFF Vienna Independent Film Festival!

We invite filmmakers from all over the world to submit their films to our international film festival which will take place in Vienna. Our judges appreciate the auteur cinema - films made with a unique artistic vision.

The goal of our festival is to find new talented filmmakers who will be able to approach the heights of cinematography created by geniuses like Antonioni, Fellini, Tarkovsky, Bergman, Visconti, Godard.

Now, when the whole world has a tendency towards commercialization, we appreciate free spirit, new ideas an independent point of view and new approaches. Not the budget of the film but solely talent should be the criteria for the film's success.

We appreciate films made without the benefits of large budgets and unnecessary technological sophistication. The festival encourages individuality and experimentation. With the rapid development of film equipment, cinematography becomes more and more affordable for independent filmmakers. Now all we need are new ideas and exposure for these ideas. Our film festival will provide this exposure for new outstanding films.

The Vienna Independent Film Festival is an important event and it consists of the film screening, meeting with participants , social events and Awards Ceremony. Our program is unique and most of the films cannot be seen in the mainstream theaters.

Vienna is a perfect spot for an event like this. It is from this place that cinematographers such as Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, Josef von Sternberg, Fred Zinnemann, Otto Preminger and actors like Romy Schneider, Hedy Lamarr, Helmut Berger, Maximilian Schell, and Arnold Schwarzenegger came to conquer the world.

It is still an important center of cinematography. The great traditions of Austrian cinema have been continued by the Oscar and Palme d'Or winning director Michael Haneke.

Our aim is to present the most outstanding films produced in every part of the world to reach international success.

All the films should be in English or have English subtitles.

Grand Prix of the festival - The Golden Sphinx is a symbol of mystery and wisdom, as we believe that there is an element of mystery in any real piece of art. There will also be awards for the Best Film, Best Director, Best Short Film, Best Documentary and Best Music Video.

Certificates and prizes will be presented on the final night to producers attending the festival or sent by email or post.

We guarantee that your film will be viewed by our international community and will be judged by a jury of film professionals. The Festival will host numerous opportunities to connect with enthusiastic new audiences and fellow filmmakers, in the beautiful city of Vienna.

Awards & Prizes

Golden Statuettes and certificates

Rules & Terms

We encourage the submission of international film or video entries, but all entries must be in English or have English dubbing or subtitles.

All entries must be available for screening during the festival. We welcome Feature Films, Short Films, Documentaries and Music Videos.

You may submit as many entries as you like. Each entry requires its own entry fee. Fees are not refundable.

We prefer online submissions.

Please submit a film using FilmFreeway.

You can also send us a link to your film on Vimeo with a password.

Or you can also provide a download link to your 1080p, 24/25 fps .mp[e]g / .avi / .vob / .mov / .mp4 / .m4v submission.

In order to select the films for screenings we watch the online screeners. We select films for a number of reasons and we are not obliged to watch all films to the end, we can watch only the part of the film.

If your film is chosen to show at the Vienna Independent Film Festival, you must send a full quality DCP file/35mm print no later than 2 weeks prior to the festival screening.

All films should have been completed within these past three years.

All awards are based on the overall merit of the entry. Decisions by the judges are final.

Festival does not deal with any copyright issues. All copyright issues should be resolved by the film authors.

Filmmakers and screenwriters retain 100% all of the rights to their projects and materials that they submit to the Vienna Independent Film Festival.

Festival organizers have the right to use extracts of the film for promotional purposes.

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless us, our officers, affiliates, employees, and partners from any and all claims and liability arising out of entering or transmitting your film to the Vienna Independent Film Festival.

46 Reviews
Overall Rating
Quality
Value
Communication
Hospitality
Networking
  • Greg Babalas

    VIFF is a great festival, super-well organized and great communication. Thank you for awarding my film "The Violin and its Shadow" , and also big thanks for posting the statuette to my hometown, this really shows to me how serious festival VIFF Vienna Independent Film Festival is. Keep up the good job you do, giving a chance to independent filmmakers to be noticed. Great stuff, I highly recommend this festival.

    November 2022
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  • White Shark Films

    Dear festival team, it was a great honour to take part with our short 'Change of Course' at your amazing film festival. We are very grateful to win the award for 'Social Impact' in an environment of numerous films with a great quality. Congratulations to all selected films and award winners.

    It was a great pleasure for us to take part at the award ceremony in the CineCenter. We wish you all the best for your upcoming festivals, a lot of success and we would definitely submit upcoming projects.

    So we highly recommend it to all filmmakers and audiences to attend the VIFF Vienna Independent Film Festival.

    September 2022
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  • Katie Hardyman

    Would highly recommend The VIFF festival to everyone. The communication and support from the festival organisers was outstanding. Even though I couldn't attend the festival in person due to flights from Australia, the festival still kept me up to date with programming and events. As a bonus, I was lucky enough to win an award for Best Song, a certificate was issued straight away and awards were sent here to Australia. I loved being a part of this wonderful festival and hopefully will get to go to Vienna next year.

    September 2022
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  • Evelyne Werzowa

    Thank you for the clear communication and for increasing the venue size because we had such a large turnout for our short film. I look forward to seeing more venues added next year and meet-ups. Thank you for the award to make us filmmakers feel loved and seen.

    September 2022
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  • Lika Sidorova

    Thank you for organizing the festival - the communication was good!

    September 2022
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