The Wao Film Festival is an annual event held every year during the month of May in Wānaka, Aotearoa / New Zealand. The Festival's focus is on transforming communities through the medium of film. It's one of the levers we use to help inspire, educate and enable communities to shift towards a fully regenerative, just future.

Sessions within the festival cover climate action, biodiversity and nature, food resilience and security, biking culture, urban transport, collaboration and partnership, circular economy, plastic free. Films are welcome that focus on these key areas.

Rules & Terms

Regulations
1. The purpose of the Wao Film Festival is to inspire and educate communities through through film and to encourage and promote widespread discussion of our focus topics. These topics include climate action, biodiversity and the natural world, partnership & collaboration, food resilience, equity and social justice, democracy, indigenous peoples, our place (films from Aotearoa and the Pacific). It is held in person on an annual basis in the Southern Lakes of New Zealand as well as through our virtual screening platform.

2. Film selection and eligibility. The Wao Film Festival curates a selection of films for the festival. It invites anyone who has not screened their film before as well as film makers who have an important message they want to spread in any of the focus areas to send in their films. Films must screen in their original language with, where appropriate, English subtitles. Feature films, documentaries and shorts are all accepted.

3. Payments. Wao Film Festival is non-competitive and has always observed the principle that all participating films should receive a measure of financial reward. If you are selected, we will get in touch to discuss with you directly. As a purpose driven not-for-profit, if you are able to waive the fee to help us with our work, please let us know.

4. Entries. If you would like us to consider your work for our programme, we’d like to know about it. Please complete our entry form online, including appropriate supporting documentation and an online screener of your film.

5. Early submissions are encouraged. Please be aware of the different deadlines for international and New Zealand submissions. The deadline for submissions is 8 April 2024.

6. Preview screeners. Selectors are able to preview submissions online. We prefer entrants to submit their secure online links via Vimeo if possible.

7. Information and publicity. Wao Film Festival requires entrants to supply the submission material and information listed on the entry form. Entrants whose films are selected for participation will be asked subsequently to a high resolution images, posters, a trailer and scene clips.

8. Scheduling. The films will be shown in the order decided by the Wao Film Festival.

9. Wao Film Festival can be contacted at

Wao Aotearoa
Email: kiaora@wao.co.nz
Website: www.waoco.nz