Remember, the earlier you enter, the lower the entry fees! THANKS!

OVERVIEW:

Avalonia Festival of Short Films etc. is an international competition with a variety of genres for every filmmaker. We are an IMDB Qualified Short Film Festival.

Our competitive categories have three -run time divisions for Shorts (25 minutes & under), Shorter Films (10 Minutes & under), and 1 minute movies.

The shorter your film and the earlier you enter, the lower your entry fee. You may enter your project into more than one category, and you may enter as many projects as you wish (each project must be entered separately.)

Avalonia Festival is known for our modest entry fees and a website that HONORS, CELEBRATES, and PROMOTES filmmakers, photographers, and actors.

Avalonia Festival XI Live Event

We return to Solune Coffee's screening room in Jacksonville, Florida. Date: Saturday, December 19, 2026 6 pm – 10pm.

Our live event is a screening of a selection of our Award-Winning "short films etc." for filmmakers, their friends & families, and film lovers. The event includes a Q and A with whichever filmmakers are able to attend in person. Solune Coffee's screening room is our "cozy cavern" of a venue. Seating includes a variety of comfortable chairs and couches.

RECENT HISTORY:

Avalonia Festival X was held on December 20, 2025 at Solune Coffee in Jacksonville, Florida. Photos and videos here: https://avaloniafestival.com/x/

Avalonia Festival IX was held at Atlantic Theatres in Atlantic Beach, Florida, USA, with the Avalonia After Party at Cantina Louie. Photos here:
https://avaloniafestival.com/9-2/

Avalonia Festival 8 and Live Event photos here:
https://avaloniafestival.com/8-2/
Our Live Event was Saturday, November 2, 2023, 1 pm – 5 pm at Atlantic Theatres with the Avalonia After-Party at Cantina Louie.

On November 5, 2022, we returned to Jacksonville's LionShare CoWork Auditorium for our Avalonia Festival VII Live Event. You can see the award winners here and photos and videos from the event here:
https://avaloniafestival.com/vii/

On November 6, 2021, LionShare CoWork Auditorium hosted Avalonia Festival VI. You can see photos and videos from the event here:
https://avaloniafestival.com/vi/

Pandemic didn't stop us! Photos & videos from Avalonia Festival V in Ormond Beach, Florida on November 7, 2020 are here:
https://avaloniafestival.com/film-fest-v/

For Avalonia Festival V, we were very pleased to go "on with the show" and have a safe and fun Live Event despite the worldwide circumstances that caused many events to be canceled worldwide!

MISSION:

We aim to help our Award Winners add resume-building Award credentials that are shared and celebrated through our website, social media outlets, and our annual Live Events. For those with projects accepted, we encourage you to share the word that you are part of the Avalonia Festival community.

We believe in Avalonia.

We believe in Excellence in Artistry.

We believe in YOU; the Independent Filmmaker and Artist.

AVALONIA FESTIVAL ORIGINS AND LEGACY:

Go to the home page on our website (hyperlinked on the left side-bar) or copy and paste the below URLs to experience Avalonia Festival I, II, III, IV & V to see how we HONOR, CELEBRATE & PROMOTE our Winning Avalonia Filmmakers Etc (and how we've since added separate festivals for Theater and Photography!)

Avalonia Festival IV, December 8, 2019, from All Beaches Experimental Theatre in Neptune Beach, Florida, USA
https://avaloniafestival.com/avalonia-festival-iv/

Avalonia Festival III, December 7, 2018, from Courthouse Center for the Arts in West Kingston, Rhode Island, USA (near the University of Rhode Island)
https://avaloniafestival.com/avalonia-festival-iii/

Avalonia Festival II April 20, 2018 from Rhodywood Studios, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
https://avaloniafestival.com/avalonia-festival-ii/

**We had two Avalonia Festivals in 2018 before landing on our annual format.

Avalonia Festival (our first event) December 7, 2017, from Rhodywood Studios, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
https://avaloniafestival.com/avalonia-festival/

Our Circle of Champions (a collection of graphics from some of our Award Winners)
https://avaloniafestival.com/avalonia-festival/avalonia-awards/

Our new "APC" - Avalonia Photography Competition
https://avaloniafestival.com/afp/

FURTHER INFO:

HONOR. CELEBRATE. PROMOTE. This is the mantra of Avalonia Festival.

Our web pages aim to promote our festival's winners,

We know that many filmmakers cannot travel to make all the festivals they are accepted into; so we make our jam-packed website an INTERACTIVE experience for the filmmaker and their fans! When every Avalonia Filmmaker sends their fans to our website, they expose EVERY OTHER WINNING FILMMAKER to new film fans and connections. Compare our website to any other festival and see that we earn your entry fees!

Many films (or their teasers or stills) are right on our website.

Our concentration is on short films 25 minutes and under, 10 minutes and under, and 1 minute and under. Feature length films are welcome to enter our Poster/Still, preview/trailer/teaser, and proof-of-concept categories.

"Etc." refers to our 1 Actor/Actress monologue category, our poster categories, preview/trailer/teaser, our music video categories, and our podcast categories.

When deemed appropriate, Special Recognition to entering artists have been awarded such as our Avalonia Christiana Carteaux Bannister Award for Civil Service in the Arts (which has been awarded in three seasons.)

We recently added WHOLESOME, PROOF OF CONCEPT, ACTION/ADVENTURE, the returning THOUGHTCRIME, and PODCAST categories.

Here's a local news video report on Avalonia Festival IV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP2BTeJqHmI

Here is an interview about Avalonia Festival, conducted shortly before Avalonia Festival II :
https://festivalreviews.org/2018/03/03/interview-with-festival-director-mike-messier-avalonia-film-festival/

How we got our name AVALONIA:

Avalonia Festival is named in honor of a continent lost is the mists of time, as if dissipated by magic; thus we are here to celebrate the unique Art of our own world of creation, led by our host Jean La Croix Distance. More from Jean:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oesMX5QrEJ4&t=11s

How did our Festival Creator come to the point in life where Avalonia was so important? Discover by watching the informative and fun video "Disregard the Vampire - A Mike Messier Documentary" about indie filmmaking here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8jsxKoQwTQ&t=1541s

To THANK YOU for reading all of our info, here are exclusive promo codes for our family of festivals. The following promo codes are good for a whopping 25 % off entry fees (and will work on top of Gold discounts for Gold subscribers)!

ALL COMEDY SHORT FILM FESTIVAL
https://filmfreeway.com/AllComedyShortFilmFestival
PROMO CODE: ALLCOMEDYSHORTS25

ALL HORROR SHORT FILM FESTIVAL
https://filmfreeway.com/AllHorrorShortFilmFestival
PROMO CODE: ALLHORRORSHORTS25

ALL DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM FESTIVAL
https://filmfreeway.com/AllDocumentaryShortFilmFestival
PROMO CODE: ALLDOCSHORTS25

AVALONIA PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION
https://filmfreeway.com/APC
PROMO CODE: APC25

Awards & Prizes

Only FILMS that actually win an Award are put on our website (with your permission) and promoted.

If your film is accepted into Avalonia Festival that means you are an OFFICIAL AVALONIA FESTIVAL WINNING FILMMAKER and/or PHOTOGRAPHER/ ARTIST or ACTOR.

At times, special recognition Awards are created for works that all outside our genres. Film is an evolving medium, and we seek to honor both tradition AND progress.

At Avalonia Festival I, V, and X we recognized a recipient of our Avalonia Christiana Carteaux Bannister Award for Civil Service in the Arts.

Check out our web pages and see that Avalonia Festival is a festival FOR filmmakers BY filmmakers; we are looking to support your work and GROW your audience.

Meet our Judge Kazuya Ashizawa, who went from being an Avalonia Award-winning filmmaker to a respected member of our team and judging committee: https://avaloniafestival.com/kazuya/

STUDENTS: Use promo code " AvaloniaStudent " for 20% off your entry fees.
Any student currently enrolled or recently graduated from high school, college, university, film school, or trade school qualifies as having “student status.” Please make a note about your status in your submission cover letter.

Rules & Terms

Filmmakers retain all rights to their films and may have their films/projects removed from our website at any time, either by emailing us or taking down the link yourself. We do not seek financial gain from YOUR project.

Films with dialogue spoken not in English are encouraged to have English subtitles. However, films that are more visually based and do not rely very much on dialogue may be submitted in their native language WITHOUT English subtitles.
In fact, our Avalonia Festival V Best One Actress Monologue or Movie came to us in its native language from Spain!

We do not have rules concerning online or streaming distribution of your film, festival premiere status, union status, or completion date.

We do NOT use DCP Film Packages for our screenings.

We do NOT charge ticket or admission fees for filmmakers, their friends, and family, or the public for our annual Live Event. The costs for our Live Events and website are covered by entry fees from entering filmmakers (like you, so THANKS!)

As our Live Events take place during the USA Holiday Season (November/December), we have a great time, and all are welcome to attend.

We do not pay “screening fees” for our Live Event.

We do NOT solicit filmmakers to enter our festival via personal or bulk emails, nor do we mislead them to think they have an “inside track” or "implied favoritism" for “pre-acceptance.”

We realize that most filmmakers do not have a ton of money to enter all the film festivals they would like to under ideal circumstances. In fact, Avalonia Festival was created, in part, to help cover our festival's creator's entry costs into OTHER film festivals for his own projects. (Projects that have won over eighty awards.)

That being said, we no longer offer full entry fee waivers for any reason. Discount codes for Avalonia Festival can be found on the entry pages of our other festivals (All Comedy Short Film Festival and All Horror Short Film Festival.)

*For our initial seasons, we offered a free entry category to filmmakers from countries with financial constraints such as Iran; unfortunately, after several seasons, this practice proved to be no longer sustainable.

98 Reviews
Overall Rating
Quality
Value
Communication
Hospitality
Networking
  • Dragan Jovićević

    Thank you so much Avalonia Festival for showing and awarding my film A Boy Opens the Door! it was truly pleasure and honor to be the part of this such an important film festival, especially because this kind of programs are very encouraging for independent filmmakers! Hope to meet you again in the future! Thank you and love you!

    December 2025
    Helpful
    Response from festival:

    Congratulations on your outstanding work, Dragan! - MIKE

  • Bobby Bedi

    Although I couldn’t attend the festival in person, participating online was a wonderful experience. The festival provided a great platform for short-form storytelling, and it was an honor to receive an award for Thoughtcrime, a one-minute film. The recognition and smooth online process made the festival truly meaningful and encouraging for filmmakers.
    Thank you

    December 2025
    Helpful
    Response from festival:

    Congratulations, Bobby; our exclusive ThoughtCrime category was made for challenging films such as yours - AF

  • Deverill Weekes

    Such an incredible festival. MIke is the best

    December 2025
    Helpful
    Response from festival:

    Thanks very much for your continued excellence and support, Dev! - MIKE

  • Jason Hough

    This is a fantastic film festival! We appreciate them very much for selecting our project The Devil's Dancers for their prestigious "ThoughtCrime" award this year. The in person event was very enjoyable! You need to submit your film for the 2026 event! The festival chairs really make you feel individually special with custom awards, that you can tell they take a lot of time on, if you attend the in person event! Will be submitting again!

    December 2025
    Helpful
    Response from festival:

    Thanks very much, Jason, it was a pleasure hosting you and your wonderful family at our Live Event in Jacksonville! - AF

  • Jack Bowman

    Thank you for your support for LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT - The Audio Movie. :)

    November 2024
    Helpful
    Response from festival:

    Congratulations to you and your awesome team, Jack! - AF