Atlanta Film Festival

April 24^th | May 4^th 2025

49^th Edition

Now approaching its 48th year, the Atlanta Film Festival (ATLFF) is the Southeast’s preeminent celebration of cinema and the flagship production of the Atlanta Film Society. One of the largest and longest-running festivals in the country, ATLFF showcases the work of both emerging and established artists and is one of less than twenty US film festivals that is Academy Award®-qualifying in all three shorts categories: Narrative Short, Documentary Short, and Animated Short. Recent festivals have seen audiences of over 28,000 film-lovers joining over 300 attending filmmakers in support of works that push the boundaries of independent cinema.

Every spring, our 11-day festival—recognized as the Best Film Festival by Creative Loafing, Sunday Paper, USAtoday 10 Best, and Atlanta Magazine, as well as the Best Spring Festival by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution—presents approximately 175 local and international works selected from over 9,400 submissions (consisting of 7,000+ films and 2,400+ screenplays) representing 50+ countries. ATLFF has been named a “Top 50 Festival Worth the Entry Fee” and one of the “25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World” by MovieMaker magazine. Historically, over 90% of ATLFF’s program is composed of submissions.

Awards & Prizes

Nearly $100,000 in combined cash and prizes for are given for awards in the following categories:

Best Narrative Feature ($1,500 prize)
Best Documentary Feature ($1,500 prize)
Best Narrative Short ($750 prize)
Best Documentary Short ($750 prize)
Best Animated Short ($750 prize)
Best Cinematography ($90,000 value in camera and post rental/services)

The winners of our Narrative Short, Documentary Short, and Animated Short prizes all qualify for the following year’s Academy Awards. ATLFF juries are composed of filmmakers, film critics and industry figures. Recent jurors have included Academy Award-nominated filmmakers and representatives from The Los Angeles Times, Indiewire, TIME, Adult Swim, VICE, Vimeo, NPR, Film Independent, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Seed and Spark, Music Box, NEON, Oscilloscope Laboratories, IFC Films, and MUBI. Films competing in juried categories are chosen solely at the discretion of the ATLFF programming team. Acceptance to the festival does not guarantee placement in competition. Films are not programmed in or out of competition, as competition status is determined once the full program has been locked. All officially selected features and short films will be eligible for our Audience Awards. In addition to the juried prizes listed above, ATLFF also awards prizes in a variety of non-juried categories. While they vary from year to year, recent non-juried prizes have included the Southern Documentary Fund Award, the Georgia Film Award, and the Filmmaker-to-Watch Award. All official selections that meet the guidelines of these non-juried competitions, in a year when they are being presented, will be eligible.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

Each submission must be accompanied by a submission fee paid in full and a working screener in order to be considered. Once we have all necessary materials, the submission will be marked “In Consideration”. It is the submitter’s responsibility to make sure that all submission requirements are met. If your submission is marked “Incomplete” and you’re unsure why, please email [email protected].

The submitter is responsible for ensuring that their screener link and password are active throughout the entire submissions cycle. In the event of a password or URL change after submitting, email us immediately. If we discover an error with the screener before our final deadline, we will attempt to email the submitter for an update. Failure to respond by the final submission deadline will result in disqualification without refund of submission fees. If we discover that a screener is incomplete after our final deadline, it may be directly disqualified without refund of submission fees.

All foreign-language films must be submitted with English subtitles. If we discover a foreign-language submission is missing subtitles, we will attempt to email the submitter for an update. If the submitter fails to provide working subtitles by the final submission deadline, the project will be considered incomplete and will be disqualified without refund of submission fees.

Submission to multiple categories is not encouraged. Please read category descriptions carefully to determine where your submission belongs. If the entrant wishes to submit to multiple categories, a separate submission fee must be paid for each category. ATLFF reserves the right to determine eligibility of a submission in each respective category. Refunds will not be offered for submission to an inappropriate category…