{"id":690290,"date":"2026-01-12T04:17:25","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T04:17:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/690290\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T04:17:25","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T04:17:25","slug":"submissions-open-for-edinburgh-international-film-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/690290\/","title":{"rendered":"Submissions open for Edinburgh\u00a0International\u00a0Film Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This week, submissions opened for the 79th\u00a0edition of the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Edinburgh_International_Film_Festival\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Edinburgh International Film\u00a0Festiva<\/a>l (EIFF).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The festival\u00a0showcases\u00a0filmmaking\u00a0from Scotland and around the\u00a0world and\u00a0features\u00a0both seasoned professionals and young filmmakers\u00a0attempting\u00a0to make their mark.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The festival runs\u00a0concurrently with the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Edinburgh_International_Festival\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Edinburgh International\u00a0Festival\u00a0(EIF)\u00a0<\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Edinburgh_International_Film_Festival\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fringe<\/a> in August.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>EIFF is one of the most prestigious in Scotland\u2019s autumn film festival circuit\u00a0and last year featured new work from filmmakers from 36 countries across the globe.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.deadlinenews.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/EIFF_SUBMISSIONS_DN01.jpg?ssl=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" data-dominant-color=\"7b5134\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #7b5134;\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"465\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/EIFF_SUBMISSIONS_DN01.jpg\" alt=\"The EIFF is offering tens of thousands in prize money to film hopefuls entering their festival (C) Edinburgh International Film Festival \/ X\" class=\"wp-image-1253433 not-transparent\"  \/><\/a>The EIFF is offering tens of thousands in prize money to film hopefuls entering their festival (C) Edinburgh International Film Festival \/ X<\/p>\n<p>The festival this year will run from 13 to 19 August.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Filmmakers are being asked to prepare submissions for a range of prizes\u00a0and for featuring at the festival by 17 April.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Two awards are up for grabs at the festival.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The first being the Sean Connery prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence, which was last year awarded to Abdolreza Kahani\u2019s\u00a0Mortician, a Canadian drama film concerning the Iranian expatriate experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Award is given to the most accomplished feature film\u00a0that had its world premiere\u00a0at the festival\u00a0and comes\u00a0with a cash prize of \u00a350,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Films must have their world premiere at the festival to be\u00a0considered\u00a0and\u00a0eligible\u00a0films are selected\u00a0at the discretion of the festival director.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The other prize is\u00a0The Thelma Schoonmaker Prize for Short Filmmaking Excellence, awarded to the finest short film\u00a0showcased\u00a0at the festival, awarded last year to Joanna\u00a0Vymeris\u2019s\u00a0Mother Goose.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The award carried a cash prize of \u00a315,000 and is open to any short film which has its world premiere at the festival.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Again,\u00a0eligible\u00a0films are selected at the discretion of the festival director.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>EIFF defines a short film as anything shorter that 30 minutes long and a feature film as anything longer than that.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Festival organisers outlined a series of criteria for films to be considered for featuring at the festival:\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFilms must have, at minimum and without exception, the UK Premiere available. EIFF is particularly interested in World Premieres.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFilms must not be older than 12 months by the start of EIFF 2026 i.e. cannot have been publicly screened anywhere, online or in person, prior to 13 August 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEIFF regards a short film as 30 minutes or under and a feature film as anything over 30 minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFilms that are available to purchase are not eligible. This includes Blu-ray\/DVD\/online digital download formats.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPromotional films are not eligible (e.g. films promoting tourism, charitable appeals, etc.).\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Films are to be\u00a0submitted\u00a0via\u00a0festival\u00a0submission platform\u00a0FilmFreeway, with fees varying based on when a film is\u00a0submitted.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>If filmmakers\u00a0submit\u00a0now, they can get early bird submission, which will cost them $55 (around \u00a340)\u00a0for a short and $80\u00a0(around \u00a359)\u00a0for a feature.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On 6 February, however, early bird submission\u00a0ends,\u00a0and it rolls onto regular submission, which will cost $75 (around \u00a355) for a short and $100 (around \u00a374) for a feature.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Regular submission ends on 13 March and late submission begins, which will cost $95\u00a0(around \u00a370)\u00a0for a short\u00a0and $125 (around \u00a393) for a feature.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Refunds are unavailable once films are\u00a0submitted, even if a film is not selected.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The final deadline for submission is 17 April.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This week, submissions opened for the 79th\u00a0edition of the Edinburgh International Film\u00a0Festival (EIFF).\u00a0 The festival\u00a0showcases\u00a0filmmaking\u00a0from Scotland and around&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1439,1102,195349,95633,3063,47345,208538,172756,93764,4884,712,195354,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-690290","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-cinema","10":"tag-edinburgh","11":"tag-edinburgh-film","12":"tag-eiff","13":"tag-film","14":"tag-film-festival","15":"tag-film-festival-submission","16":"tag-film-festivals","17":"tag-fringe","18":"tag-great-britain","19":"tag-scotland","20":"tag-screen-scotland","21":"tag-uk","22":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115880201048815708","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}