So you’ve made a film. What was once just an idea eventually became a script and is now finished and ready to be viewed by an audience. One of the best ways for filmmakers to showcase their work is to submit to a festival. But what makes a good submission, and how can your film stand out among the others? We talked to the team behind the Dumbo Film Festival, held annually in Brooklyn, New York, to find out what qualities festivals are looking for in a submission.
Narrative Urgency
Why this story? Why this character? Why now?
“The heart of everything is storytelling,” says Daniele Ragusa Monsoriu, the festival’s executive director. This year alone, the New York City–based festival received over 2,500 submissions. The 41 selected films all shared one thing in common: stories that continue to feel necessary and hold relevance to today’s world.
“We care about what has not yet been told—or what is told from an unexpected angle,” Monsoriu says. “Our invitation is not to follow current trends, but to focus on the truth of your perspective and on the necessity of telling that story.”
Among the selections is “Girls Move Mountains,” a short directed by Anna Huix about the challenges of an all-girls soccer team in a remote Pakistani village. The film, which won Best Short Documentary at the festival, invokes a conversation about shifting gender politics as young women are now pursuing their passions and hobbies outside of the home. It’s an age-old story of perseverance, but it’s especially relevant in today’s world.
Technique Isn’t Everything
For the Dumbo Film Festival, technique comes second to storytelling. A heartfelt story can sustain a film even with limited resources, but a technically flawless work cannot stand without a solid narrative identity. Techniques have meaning only when they amplify the story, not the other way around.
An example of this is “The Silver Cord,” a short narrative horror film directed by Travis Burgess, which also screened at the festival. The 12-minute film depicts a man facing his mortality and revealing a horrifying secret tucked away in his basement. The heart of the story is faith and fear of the unknown. The technique used—it was shot on 16 mm film—simply amplified an already riveting piece.
A Universal Story
Because festivals allow filmmakers the opportunity to reach audiences worldwide, films with a universal message tend to be favored by festivals that place a special emphasis on international connection and community. “There’s a specific lens around the eyes of people from other countries,” says Mahal Bastinado, the Dumbo Film Festival’s fundraising and sponsorship officer. “When you’re communicative and honest, something will come from that.”
The festival not only aims to expose American citizens to new forms of cinema, but also strives to continue an ongoing conversation about the global impact of film. This year’s Best Film of the Year and Grand Bridge Award Recipient, “Hakki,” is a Turkish film directed by Hikmet Kerem Özcan, about a man consumed by his desperation for wealth. The desire for success is universal, which is, in part, why the film received critical acclaim.
As long as filmmakers are focused on telling their stories authentically, their film submissions have a very good chance of being noticed by a festival. It helps to narrow down what specific festival meets the overall theme of a film, and to look up the kind of films the festival has screened in the past to see if there are any similarities.
“We want to offer audiences a truly global cinematic experience—a place where distant cinematic traditions can meet and dialogue, where the gaze of a young filmmaker can interact with entirely different cultural perspectives,” Monsoriu says.
The Dumbo Film Festival is accepting submissions through Feb. 28, 2026. For more information, visit https://filmfreeway.com/DumboFilmFestival.
