Women X Edition 4:

The 4th edition of the Women X Film Festival will run from 8-10 September 2023 in Darlington while also providing content on our online digital platform. Back for our fourth year we will be delivering alongside our film programme an exciting variety of workshops, panels, networking events, evening entertainment and our wellbeing zones. Last year we saw sold out screenings, a packed awards ceremony and a hive of activity as filmmakers and film lovers came together for a weekend of inspiration in the beautiful North East.

A little more about us:

Women X is an exciting, fresh short film festival based in the North East of England, celebrating the achievements of emerging and established talent from women and gender nonconforming directors, writers, and producers. Our programme strives to include stories that open our eyes, break our hearts, make us laugh, and question our perceptions.

Our programme combines various genres and storytelling forms, allowing space for new creatives to be spotlighted with our awards celebrating the achievements of both student and first-time filmmakers. While also shining a light on the accomplishments of established filmmakers and hearing their inspiring career journies through engaging and reflective roundtable discussions. But the fun doesn’t stop there, Women X curates a series of panel discussions, workshops, live podcasts, and networking to complement the film screenings. Allowing film lovers and filmmakers to have the opportunity to enhance their skills, learn something new and meet future collaborators.

With our core team having years of experience of established festivals throughout the UK, we used that knowledge to create Women X, with the X standing for ‘miscellaneous’ as we wanted our event to be one of kind with room for experimentation.

By listening to both our audience and our filmmakers we have seen not only our submissions rise by over 80% but also our attendance figures increase and our global audience grow.

Awards & Prizes

Our awards show celebrates 15 categories, reviewing each year how we can further celebrate and support filmmakers by taking our testimonials and internal reviews seriously. Last year we also presented our winners with over £3000 worth of prizes.

Rules & Terms

Since opening our festival we have strived to charge less than the average rate of festivals in the UK and continue to do so while adapting to the change in costs for running events in the UK and the cost of living crisis.

Our rules are pretty simple, but if you need a little bit of guidance just pop us an email!

1. All films must be directed or written or produced by a woman or gender nonconforming filmmaker. Yes, Short films by anyone are accepted if at least one of the three main roles (director, writer, producer) is led by a woman or gender nonconforming filmmaker.

2. Films must be less than 20 minutes in length, including credits.

3. All rights to the film must be owned by the filmmakers and cleared (Please check your music! And your archive footage!)

4. If your film is not in the English language, English subtitles will be required.

5. As a festival striving for equality and accessibility in the film industry, we ask that you kindly provide CC on all films to accommodate to disabled or D/deaf audience members and members of our team. You can submit your film without CC, but we ask that if you are selected, they are added before the screening.

6. Films must have been completed after January 2019.

7. Films that do not fall into the above criteria will not be watched or considered, so please ensure that you adhere to the guidelines before submitting.

8. We do not refund submissions or offer waiver codes.

9. To keep our submission costs low, we are unable to provide feedback on submissions as we are a volunteer run organisation.

For any questions just get in touch!
26 Reviews
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  • Annette Westwood

    Fabulous festival championing women, non-binary & gender nonconforming filmmakers, passionate about tackling inequality in the film industry. Women X Film Festival 2022 was AMAZING!! Truly fantastic line up and programme of films & the Women X team were absolutley superb!

    October 2022
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  • Averi Israel

    Cannot say enough good things about this festival! From start to finish, it was an amazing experience. The panels, each program, the talkbacks, the social networking events, accommodations made at the venue... all of it! Caris and team are creating an incredible community and it was a true gift to participate in it this year. Can't wait for the next one!

    September 2022
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  • Barb Briggs

    Even though my film didn't receive a full screening, it did receive an honorable mention. The team at Women X were very supportive and had great communication!

    September 2022
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  • Celia Willis

    An absolutely fantastic festival. So well run, with such fantastic programming, events, hospitality and marketing. An incredible atmosphere and a real sense of community over the weekend. Wonderful venues, brilliant team, incredible support and communication - I genuinely can't recommend it enough! An exceptional festival!

    September 2022
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  • Jane Glennie

    Lovely communication. Really appreciated the gesture of being selected for an Honourable Mention. I understand the limits to how many films can be screened, so the next best thing is to still feel appreciated for the work that went in to my film. And I love the specially designed laurels.

    September 2022
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