PREHEAT is an emerging dance film festival founded in Austin in 2022. Our festival prioritizes BIPOC and queer storytellers. PREHEAT celebrates screendance as a hybrid art form that merges choreography and cinematography. This lens of making and experiencing work is exciting to us because of its emergent, alive, trans-media, and continually evolving nature. We invite artists who do not identify as dance film makers to re-examine their works and discover if dance is already present in their films.

This year we're particularly interested in filmmakers taking intentional risks in their work and exploring the relationship between the moving camera, moving "body", and subliminal messaging.

Rules & Terms

- Films should be shorter than 10 mins (no longer than the time it takes to preheat an oven)
- Live recordings of performances not permitted
- Student films accepted
- If you need a waiver for the submission fee, please contact us by email
- The artist, if selected, agrees to provide festival organizers with marketing materials, information, and video files in the requested formats by given deadlines; the artist understands they are liable for any costs incurred and that failure to provide the necessary materials may result in their withdrawal from the programme
- If your film has dialogue, subtitles in English should be available in time for the preparation of the screening file
- Submission of an entry gives PREHEAT and its presenters permission to use excerpts of accepted work, including film trailers, in all promotional activities related to the festival.
- The artist takes full responsibility for the work and, in submitting it, asserts that it contains no copyright infringements and indemnifies PREHEAT and its representatives against any request or legal action from third parties related to or arising from the use of the film.