July 7, 2025 Earlybird Deadline
August 11, 2025 Regular Deadline
September 15, 2025 Late Deadline
October 13, 2025 Extended Deadline
December 17, 2025 Notification Date
February 19 25, 2026 Event Date
Filmmakers who first presented their work at the festival are now amongst the biggest names in the entertainment industry. Alumni include Sean Baker (Anora), Jon M. Chu (Wicked) Rian Johnson (Knives Out), Ari Aster (Midsommar), The Russo Brothers (Avengers: Endgame), Bong Joon Ho (Parasite), Lena Dunham (Girls), Steven Soderbergh (Traffic) and Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer). The Slamdance Film Festival is a showcase for raw and innovative filmmaking that lives and bleeds by its mantra: By Filmmakers, For Filmmakers. Thirty-two years strong, Slamdance has created a track record for showcasing breakthrough artists that is beyond dispute.
The Slamdance Film Festival accepts films in every genre, on any topic, from every country around the world. We spotlight low-budget Narrative and Documentary Features by first-time directors, Breakout Features from non-first time directors, Unstoppable (shorts & features) highlighting filmmakers/films with/about disability, short films across genres, and episodes. Additionally we accept a vast variety of projects through our Digital, Interactive and Gaming category (DIG). We do not disqualify any films based on premiere status or date of completion. It is an Academy Award, BAFTA and Canadian Screen Award qualifying competition.
The festival program is selected entirely from our submissions pool. 200+ Slamdance alumni filmmakers are responsible for the programming of the festival, with no individual filmmakers vote valued more than any other and every film being treated equally. We continue to embrace the DIY spirit and champion the bleeding-edge of contemporary filmmaking.
Rules & Terms
By entering the Slamdance Film Festival, you agree to follow its rules and guidelines.
ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS
We consider films in any language, from anywhere in the world. If your film is not in English, make sure it has English subtitles where necessary.
We consider work in progress. Please include a title card describing what is unfinished at the beginning of the submission screener.
We consider films regardless of their premiere status. Even if your film has already premiered at another festival, whether it screened at a physical venue or online, its still eligible for consideration.
We consider films regardless of their completion date. You can submit any film no matter when it was made.
Features previously or currently being released in the US by a third party distributor are not eligible for consideration.
Features previously self-distributed by the filmmakers online are not eligible for consideration in Feature categories.
Only directors' debut features with a budget under 1 million USD are accepted to the Narrative and Documentary First Feature competition. If your work is not your first feature film, submit it to our Breakouts competition.
There's no additional eligibility criteria for short film categories. All shorts are eligible!
Films made through/with AI are strongly encouraged to submit to our DIG category.
Films made by or about people with disabilities of any genre/format/runtime are eligible for the Slamdance Unstoppable Program.
UNSTOPPABLE
For Unstoppable submissions on FilmFreeway all prompts must be fully completed to avoid disqualification
Films made by or about people with disabilities of any genre/format/runtime are eligible for the Slamdance Unstoppable Program
Any disabled role(s) must be portrayed by disabled actors. Films that feature able-bodied actors portraying disabled people will NOT be eligible for Unstoppable.
Unstoppable submissions MUST have captioning.
Any questions or concerns regarding Unstoppable eligibility can be sent to: Anna@slamdance.com AND Unstoppable@slamdance.com
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
All screeners must be uploaded by the appropriate deadline.
Deadlines close at 11:59 PM PST.
We will contact entrants if there's anything wrong with the submission. If this occurs, you will need to fix the submission issue by the requested deadline, otherwise we can't guarantee that your film will be watched in time.
We don't provide refunds for festival entries.
Entrants can update their screener by uploading a new video file provided your original link url does not change. The link must stay the same after you have submitted your entry. If it is replaced programmers will lose access to your screener and it may not be watched in time for consideration.
We strongly recommend that ALL submitted films regardless of category include English subtitles (whether the film is in English or another language) so that they may be accessible to all of our Programmers. Films in a language other than English MUST have English subtitles.
HOW WE PROGRAM
Deliberating programmers determine a festival selection through discussion and voting.
Each participating programmer has an equal vote and no festival competition selections are made outside of this process.
Our programmers are not required to read submission cover letters and other supporting materials, but we encourage you to submit them in case they want to learn more about you and your work.
We don't share programming feedback with entrants.
The Slamdance programmers' decisions are final.
IF ACCEPTED
Accepted filmmakers will be notified via email, phone or text. Filmmakers must confirm their participation by the given deadline, otherwise they might lose their spot in the line-up.
Accepted filmmakers must be the authors of their submitted work and be ready to sign an agreement stating that they own all rights to their film and its components ahead of screening at Slamdance.
If accepted, entrants are responsible for delivering their festival exhibition copy, trailer, screener link, press stills and press-kit on time.
All accepted films must have Closed Captioning in English ready in time for their festival screening. We highly recommend you work on this while you wait for your festival acceptance since it will make your film more accessible to audiences wherever it may be shown.
If accepted, filmmakers are expected to attend the festival.
We don't cover filmmakers' travel expenses.
We don't provide screening fees.
Submission to the Slamdance Film Festival comes with a one year free subscription to the Slamdance Channel (slamdancechannel.com)!
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