The Academy of Death Racers Festival is an international online film festival celebrating the best short films of the year and promoting widely available screenings for the public of awards-eligible content. Following on from two successful festivals, the third annual AoDR Festival will be held from the 5th - 21st January 2024, with an awards ceremony on January 19, 2024.

Whilst one of the aims of the Academy of Death Racers is to help as many people as possible watch every film nominated for an Academy Award in every category before the Oscars ceremony (aka The Death Race), we also want our community to have access to other interesting, thought provoking content which can sometimes be very difficult to access.

The 2024 AoDR Festival will have 4 competitive strands, the winner of each receiving a cash prize of $125 apiece for excellence in the following categories:

Animated short film
Documentary short film
Live action short film
Film with LGBTQ+ theme (short or feature)

In addition, a $100 prize for Audience choice will be awarded to the film given the highest rating by the attendees of the festival, with $50 awarded to the 2nd and 3rd place films.

Selected filmmakers will also be given the opportunity to partake in live Q&A or panel sessions as part of the festival, and winners will be announced in our live ceremony.

Please note that there is no real difference between the "Regular" and "Final" deadlines, however, we will announce a number of films' participation in the festival before the final deadline.

Rules & Terms

All genres of film are accepted, with a maximum runtime for shorts of 40 minutes including all credits. Films entered in the LGBTQ+ category can be of any length, and any genre.

Films should be submitted digitally (file, or link to streaming service) only through FilmFreeway.

A non-exclusive licence worldwide screening is expected for all films entered, however, we will consider and make reasonable accommodations for geolocking specific films in specific circumstances. As well as enabling us permission to securely stream the films, this licence would enable us to use short clips from selected films to create trailers for the festival, as well as extracts to display as part of the Awards ceremony.

All films should be submitted as a streaming optimized first (usually a .mov or .mp4 file), and have subtitles where English is not being spoken. As a festival with the aim of being as accessible as possible, we aim to offer closed captions for all selected films, so require either: an .srt (or similar) caption file, or the transcript of the film so we can generate captions.

Please also supply a digital version of the poster, selected stills from the film, details of the cast & crew, and a brief summary of the film, all of which may form part of the content on our website, and other promotional content we create. If you have one, please also include a link to a trailer for the film too.
3 Reviews
Overall Rating
Quality
Value
Communication
Hospitality
Networking
  • Alayna Y

    The AoDR was a wonderful festival with a very smooth process and ample networking and promotional opportunities. I loved the aesthetic of the film promotional graphics and the interviews they held were super insightful - it's easy to see the organizers have a passion for film. Thank you for having Macaroni Soup at AoDR!!

    February 2024
    Helpful
  • MJ Garcia

    I love this festival! It feels like it is ran by people who actually care about good films and the filmmakers. I love their content on social media. Communicating with them was always so easy and accessible. Thank you AoDR!

    January 2024
    Helpful
  • Discoverscape Projects

    Thank you for including Code Switch Short Film!

    October 2023
    Helpful