Women X Film Festival

Welcome to Women X, not just any film festival, but a vibrant exhibition of independent cinema nestled in the North of England. We're all about spotlighting the incredible talents of women and gender nonconforming filmmakers, bringing their diverse and groundbreaking stories to the big screen. Whether you're into tear-jerkers, laugh-out-loud comedies, or mind-bending narratives, we promise there's something captivating here for every film lover.

We're so excited to kick off our 6th year, and this time, we're opening up our submission doors wider than ever before! Our festival now welcomes shorts over 20 minutes, and as always our programming process is open to all genres and stories, ensuring a fair ensuring a fair shake for all filmmakers to submit their stories to be lovingly curated by our programming team (who have a varied mix of tastes!). There's no favouritism here, or back door secret selections —just pure excitement as we uncover and curate the best films for our screenings. Therefore we don’t grant submissions waivers or discounts, it’s equal for all filmmakers, while maintaining the cost it unfortunately requires to host a festival in this challenging time for volunteer led events.

We have built a fair and rigorous programming process, and curate our screenings into themes combining a rich tapestry of stories and genres. You can view our full history of festival selections on our websites, some of our audiences favourites from the past have included bizarre comedies, thrilling horrors, motherhood stories, tales of female friendships, celebrations of diversity and the essence of community.

All our films are screened in our theatre space, with all filmmakers invited along to the weekend to join us for networking, creative craft sessions, writers labs, industry talks, evening entertainment and our filmmaker roundtables, which give you more to enjoy than just your standard quick Q&A.

Hosted at the stunning Darlington Hippodrome and The Hullaballoo Theatre, Women X transforms Darlington into a cinematic haven where film lovers and filmmakers unite for an unforgettable weekend. With a host of exciting restaurants, cafes and bars in walking distance from our festival hub, you can enjoy a whole weekend away while celebrating your film.

Our Script Competition celebrates the promising potential of yet to be produced short film stories, open to all genres with three prizes up for grabs.

This year we have created additional categories as we seek more stories from particular genres and themes, if you’re struggling to work out which to submit to, the best way is to go with the ‘all shorts’ option. With all mid length films required to go into the same category as the fee is slightly higher to accommodate the additional watching time. As mentioned submissions are fair and equal, which is why we do not grant waivers - so please don’t ask.

Oh and don't be fooled by the pink, there's no girlboss agenda here, our founder was told in 2013 by a producer to never wear pink to a meeting again if she wanted to be taken seriously and she's been rebelling through the festival ever since.