You are cordially invited to be part of the upcoming 58th Annual WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival! The oldest Independent Film Festival in the whole wide world! Venice & Cannes are older but they show Major Studio Films! WorldFest gave first awards to giants of the film industry, including Spielberg, Lucas, Ang Lee, the Coen Brothers, Ridley Scott, John Lee Hancock, Brian de Palma, Randal Kleiser, Oliver Stone, David Lynch and literally hundreds more! We are happy to accept Online FilmFreeway Screeners! We have Big LG 110" Digital Screens for our juries! Not just Interns seeing/judging your entry on little laptops. Since we show our Remi Winners on big Cinemark Theater screens, it seems right that we look at your production on a big flat screen! We do also accept DVD, BLURAY or USB FLASH/PEN/JUMP DRIVE for judging and for Theater Screening. Region Zero, please! (If you win a Remi, you may be screened on big screens to real theater audience!! So we require: a BluRay, Jump Drive or DCP for the DCP screening! Large juries view your entry on a big digital screen, not a little laptop! {Screenplay entries must be bound, but we do accept Online entries!) We will personally confirm your entry's arrival. We will also personally let you know the jury results, and if you win a Remi Award, we will invite you to attend the 58th WorldFest, and you will receive a $1,000 VIP Platinum Pass with our compliments and special deep discounts on Platinum Passes for your associates!

We do prefer Premieres, as we do not want to be Number 11 on your festival list of screenings! We discovered Spielberg, Lucas, Ang Lee, The Coen Brothers, Randal Kleiser, Coppola and David Lynch, with their very first Premieres - those many new festivals did not! Therefore WorldFest requires a Premiere of some level, World, USA, Southwest! If your entry has been all over, we reserve those screening slots for true Premieres, but you could still win a Remi Award. If you have won lots of awards from small, new events, our Congratulations.... but we prefer Premieres! Not being #12 after the 1st Annual Bustleberg Film Festival! (yup, there is a Bustleburg in Virginia! We expect a film festival there any day! (;-)

WorldFest was founded over 60 years ago as Cinema Arts, an International Film Society in August, 1961. WorldFest became the third competitive international film festival in North America, following San Francisco and New York. WorldFest is the oldest Independent Film & Video Festival in the Whole Wide World. It evolved into a competitive International Film Festival in April, 1968.

WorldFest was founded by award-winning producer/director Hunter Todd to present a quality film festival for the Independent filmmakers. Hunter Todd has been honored with more than 115 international awards for creative excellence in film production, and he has been the producer, director, writer and/or cameraman on more than 300 motion picture and video productions. He has served as the member of the International Jury on more than 25 world-wide film festivals, from Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Croatia, Korea, Ireland and Bulgaria. He is the longest running Film Festival Director in the whole wide world! The mission/vision statement of WorldFest is ~ "To recognize and honor outstanding creative excellence in film & video, to validate brilliant abilities and to promote cultural tourism for Houston, to develop film production in the region and to add to the rich cultural fabric of the city of Houston." All members of the WorldFest staff are filmmakers.

WorldFest is one of the oldest and largest film &video competitions in the world, with more than 4,307 category entries received from 70 nations in 2024. Actually WorldFest is 10 Major film & video competitions in one event, unlike Cannes, Sundance and Toronto, which are just 2 competitions for shorts and features only.

You may enter Shorts, Features, Student Films, Experimental Films, Screenplays, Music Videos and New Media via the wonderful FilmFreeway platform. However, if you want to enter the specialized Television & Cable Categories (100 Series), the TV Commercial Categories (400 Series) and the Film & Video Categories (200 Series) (Many specialized TV, Documentary and Corporate/Business Categories, simply visit our main website at https://worldfest.org - click to Enter, then click on Enter Film Festival! You may also print out an Old School Paper entry form and send it in with your entries! Welcome to the 58th Annual WorldFest-Houston International Film & Video Festival!

WorldFest Artistic and Program Director Kathleen Haney stated, “We feel that it is impossible to properly emphasize individual films when the festival screening schedule is too large. We must consider both our festival audience and our independent filmmakers. A huge slate of 150-300 films cannot possibly do justice to each individual film. Further, it is impossible to see more than 25-50 films (with four shows a day) in a six-day festival, so it would be foolish to program more than that.” Haney continued, “We will concentrate on only the very best, selecting new American & Foreign Independent films that truly deserve a premiere at WorldFest. By doing so, we can concentrate on the films and their filmmakers and enable our faithful audience the opportunity to see each and every film!” All films/Digital entries are screened at the Cinemark Memorial City Theatres. WorldFest – the Indie Film Festival for the New Millennium!

In addition to honoring a different country each year, WorldFest will continue with its annual Short Film Showcase, a special review of 80+ new short and student films…from the festival that discovered Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Ang Lee, John Lee Hancock, Randall Kleiser, Ridley Scott, Robert Rodriguez, Robert Townsend, The Coen Brothers, Spike Lee, Oliver Stone and David Lynch with their very first awards. WorldFest has emerged as the oldest film festival management in the world, with the same continuous director for more than 57 consecutive years. A few other festivals are older, but they have had as many as ten different directors. WorldFest is uniquely the only film festival in North America that is staffed and managed totally by filmmakers. All staff members have active film and video production experience, which gives them a very unique point of reference in relation to the entering filmmakers and their work. WorldFest, founded in 1961, is the oldest Independent film festival in the world, and the 3rd oldest film festival in North America.

Among the remarkable number of WorldFest discoveries, we include just a few, listed in alphabetical order: John Alvidson, John Badham, Ralph Bakshi, Carroll Ballard, John Boorman, Marty Brest, Michael Cimino, The Coen Brothers, Bryan De Palma, Jonathan Demme, Michael Demme, Atom Egoyan, John Frankenheimer, Leslie Linka Glatter, Charles Guggenheim, John Lee Hancock, Hal Hartley, Randall Kleiser, Ang Lee, Spike Lee, George Lucas, David Lynch, Paul Mazursky, Steve Poster, Robert Rodriguez, John Sayles, Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, Oliver Stone, Robert Townsend, Will Vinton, Peter Weir, Hugh Wilson and hundreds more. The winners this year will be the Spielbergs of tomorrow and you can meet them before they are famous.
WorldFest-Houston…”Fiercely Independent”
WorldFest is one of the oldest film festivals in the world, founded in 1961 as a film society. We do accept productions from 2022, 2023 & 2024.

Awards & Prizes

Because of our 10 major competitions and the 200+ sub-categories, WorldFest does present a lot of awards, but they are both earned and deserved. Only about 15% of total category entries actually win a Remi Award. WorldFest is the only film festival in the world that actually Juries and Scores your entry. If you score high enough, you do win a Remi Award.
An A+ Score equals a Special Jury Award. An A score is a Platinum, and A- score is a Gold, a B+ Score is a Silver and a B Score is a Bronze. We do not make Remi Awards for scores lower than a B. No awards are given in any category unless the scores from the juries are high enough to place for honors. Overall only 15-20% of the total category entries actually win an award at WorldFest.
Those that do not win an award are informed by mail with personal letters prior to the festival. (For Shorts over 15 Minutes, please scroll down to LONG SHORTS to enter. We accept shorts to 69:59 Minutes, after that we consider them to be Featurettes).

Rules & Terms

WE ACCEPT FilmFreeway STREAMING ENTRIES, PLUS VIMEO & YOUTUBE, DVD/BR & JUMP DRIVES! BUT IF YOU WIN A REMI AWARD, WE DO REQUIRE A BLURAY, USB FLASH DRIVE, OR DCP FOR THEATER SCREENING OF YOUR ENTRY! WE JUDGE ON 110" LG HI-RES DIGITAL FLAT SCREENS AND WE SCREEN WINNERS ON BIG CINEMARK THEATER SCREENS, WITH BIG JURIES - (NOT JUDGED ON LITTLE LAPTOPS BY INTERNS!)

All filmmakers understand and accept that if their film is selected for presentation and screening at the film/video festival, they grant full and unrestricted permission for HIFF, Inc. to screen the film/video at times of the festivals choice and to charge an admission fee for the presentation of the digital video program. All the presented film/videos do win a Remi Award from the festival (HIFF). WorldFest only screens winners!

The Filmmaker understands and accepts that they do not participate in receiving any funds from the Box-office proceeds which are fully retained by the festival to help cover the overall cost of the festival presentation. It should be noted for the record that box-office proceeds never fully cover the actual cost of presentation of the Features and Short Film Programs. The Festival (HIFF) is a non-profit, 501-C-3 Educational/Cultural Organization with Federal, State, County & City Tax-Exemptions.

Required Legal Stuff: The filmmaker releases the festival (HIFF) from any and all liability for damages or destruction of the entered DVD/BluRay/Jump Drive/DCP. The Filmmaker understands that the entered DVD or BluRay will be retained in a secure facility by the festival, and every effort will be taken to protect and control the viewing of this production. The festival assumes no liability whatsoever for theft, copyright violations or piracy of the entry.

The Filmmaker accepts and understands that the festival, in conjunction with Cinemark Memorial City Theatre will do everything possible to present the video in the best possible manner but the festival (HIFF) is not responsible for any and all malfunctions during the presentation of the production at its festival screening. We use Professional Sony & Pioneer BluRay/DVD International playback systems, all formats, all regions, including Region 0. All entries are carefully pre-screened prior to the public showing to assure that the BluRay/DVD does perform to industry Standards. The Festival (HIFF) assumes no responsibility for any technical difficulties in the presentation of this video at the actual event.

The Film Festival (HIFF) reserves the complete right to make changes in the program dates and times and to possibly not screen the video, despite it being selected for screening.

The filmmaker will endeavor to present to The Festival (HIFF) a new and pre-checked BluRay/ DVD / Thumb Drive or DCP for the actual presentation of the video at the festival.

You may send just one DVD/BluRay for multiple category entries. You may combine multiple TV commercial entries on a DVD, with no color bars, no automatic looping feature to begin again and a 5 second break between spots. Make sure their titles and order/sequence are correct on the DVD. Screenplays may now be entered Online as digital entries! We do Not require printed/bound entries, and will be phasing out accepting physical scripts by 2025.
DVD Entries can be NTSC, PAL, or SECAM, – any and all regions. There is no extra charge for PAL or other formats. We accept all regions and all formats. We also accept Thumb Drive and Blu-Ray discs, any region.

A short paragraph, 50-100 word synopsis, is required for all scripts and all entries (except TV commercials, music videos), which is for the jury and if selected, for the program book. Shorts and features are to provide (when requested and selected into program) a color or B/W production digital still photo (resolution of 300 Dots per square inch DPI or higher, higher is much better) for the program book jpeg photo files are OK. (Photos not required for video, cable, TV commercials, website entries, or screenplay entries). If accepted, feature entries should also send several production still photos of a high resolution (300 DPI or better), a press kit, and short CV (resume) with photo of the director(s).

Special note for script entries: We now Accept only Digital Entries via FilmFreeway.com! A Synopsis needs to accompany the script. You may ID the script with title, your name & contact details, and your WorldFest entry ID. We do prefer scripts to be printed in Courier 12pt – 14pt if at all possible. We will not accept loose pages in a box. Unproduced scripts only, please!

379 Reviews
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  • Hélène Lénoir

    All my letters were ignored. No official diploma, no award...
    I got a question - is WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival really "Academy Qualified"?

    November 2024
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  • Jesus Kargue

    Screenings/ceremony were cancelled for the festival this year, however selections and winners were announced.

    July 2024
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  • Melissa Werner

    Thank you so much for accepting my film 26% on the fight for disability rights at our school. Winning a silver Remi award was the cherry on the sundae!

    July 2024
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  • Praveen Hingonia

    One of the Best and dynamic festivals, it became all the more favourite of ours as we won a Silver Remi for our movie STRINGS in the Features - Experimental / Dogma category. Hip Hip Hurray!!
    We extend our heartfelt thanks to the festival organizers for recognizing the value of our film and for creating an environment that champions artistic expression. We look forward to the opportunity to participate in future editions of this remarkable festival!

    June 2024
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  • Edgar Jimz

    This is a great film festival. The communication was amazing and they always answer your email. Thank you for accepting our short film ACERBITY. We are forever grateful.

    June 2024
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