We're back! Our 2021 festival is open for entries from February 22.
Last year, at our inaugural festival, the award for Best Film went to the Iranian filmmaker Seyed Gholamreza Nematpour.
His film Ava’s Silence also won the Narrative Drama category and received high praise from our judges in a strong field of entries from around the world. In addition to the awards in eleven different categories, we made a special Lockdown Award.
The People's Choice award went to Luca Pappalardo from Sicily, with his film 'I wait for the dawn'. Luca is a 19-year-old student at MetFilm School in London. Three thousand people made their choice from the sixty 'Official Selections' screened on our website.
https://www.ealingfilmfestival.com/selections/
Ealing Film Festival was established in 2020 - the most difficult of years - to showcase the talents of a diverse range of up-and-coming filmmakers. We received 160 entries from twenty countries on five continents. Our judges are all industry professionals, whose honours include awards from BAFTA, the Royal Television Society, the Emmy Awards, and the Academy Awards.
Ealing has a long association with the film and television industry. The famous Ealing Studios are the oldest in the world still in regular use. We want our festival to shine a spotlight on new talent. And we hope people of all ages - and every social and cultural background - will join our growing community of filmmakers.
We can't wait to launch our 2021 festival! If government restrictions are eased, we hope to hold a festival event in Ealing. But in the event of further lockdown restrictions, the festival will take place online, as it did in 2020. Watch this space.
We accept entries from all over the world, exclusively via FilmFreeway. You may submit more than one film, and each film can be entered in more than one category. Please read the rules below for further important details.
Laurels will be awarded for all Official Selections and for all category winners, including special commendations at the discretion of the judges. The category winners will be reviewed by our jury, and one film will be named the overall winner of the festival.
We hope to invite the makers of some of our selected films to take part in an online or in person Q&A, depending on the kind of festival we are able to run in December.
Details of prizes for the winning filmmakers will be announced later.
Here are the categories for our 2021 festival...
Narrative / Drama
Documentary
Comedy
Horror / Suspense
Sci-Fi / Fantasy
Animation
Environmental / Green
Experimental
Performance
Student Film
Smartphone
Homegrown (Films by people living in Ealing, or made within the borough of Ealing)
Lockdown Award (Films about the Covid-19 pandemic, or made during lockdown)
Phyllis Crocker Award (Recognising an outstanding achievement by a filmmaker identifying as a woman)
The winners of each category will be considered by the judges for the overall award of ‘Best Film’ in the festival.
In addition there will be a People's Choice Award, decided by audience votes.
Submissions open: February 22, 2021
Submissions close: October 4, 2021
Festival date: December 4, 2021 (tbc)