We accept all types of animated short films including: narrative shorts, non-narrative/experimental shorts, fiction shorts, documentary shorts, undergraduate shorts, postgraduate shorts, shorts made by young people, commissioned shorts, music videos, and micro shorts from all countries worldwide. We welcome all animation techniques.
Short films submitted must not exceed 20 minutes.
The International Short Animated Film category is open to animated shorts produced in any country worldwide.
The Student Short Animated Film category is open to animated shorts produced within a public or private educational institution in any country worldwide.
The Micro Short Animated Film category is open to animated shorts produced in any country worldwide with a running time up to 120 seconds.
Filmmakers may submit more than one film and in more than one category. A separate entry form and entry fee must be submitted for each.
If your film is selected you agree for your film to be screened both online and in-venue. Online screenings will be available during the festival on Eventive. They will still be judged by an industry jury as standard.
All of our screenings are captioned for accessibility. All films selected must have captions, either burnt in or as an srt sidecar file. If your film doesn't yet have captions, we can provide guidance on how to create them yourself, or we can create captions for you at a cost of £20 per film, and send them to you to add to your EPK.
All content screened at Cardiff Animation Festival Online is DRM protected on Eventive which will prevent users from downloading, redistributing, copying or converting content.
We don’t intend on using geo-blocking on our shorts programs online unless it is specifically requested as we want to ensure as many people have access to our programmes online as possible.
For cinema screenings we require DCP format and for online screenings we require .mov or .mp4 format.
Some films will be invited to be screened out-of-competition in our Cardiff Animation Nights screening to open the festival.
All films submitted must have been completed on or after 1st December 2024.
Films must comprise at least 50% animation to be considered.
Films that have used generative AI (genAI) in their creation aren't eligible for CAF27.
For us, the joy of animated films is in human connection. CAF celebrates the artistry, craft and storytelling of animation, and platforms the talented people who create it. We screen a limited number of films at each edition of CAF, and we want to prioritise sharing films made by humans.
Films featuring languages other than English must have English subtitles.
Short films already publicly viewable online are welcome and eligible for consideration.
Each applicant must be the rightful owner of submitted films and own all literary and musical rights.
If your film is selected, you allow us to use brief excerpts (stills & video clips) in promotional and marketing campaigns. We are happy to use any trailer you may have. We will not use any media from any films not selected.
The decision of the selection panel is final and we regret that we cannot enter into correspondence regarding films not selected.
Deadline for submissions is Tuesday 22nd September 2026.
