Welcome

The Illinois Film Festival is for short films.  

 - Live Action Short

- Documentary Short

- Animated Short

- Run Time minimum 1 minute

- Run Time maximum 12 minutes

The Illinois Film Festival is open to young filmmakers, directors, writers and actors who are residents of the State of Illinois or students in the State of Illinois.  A majority of the cast and crew must be below the age of 25.

Films must have been produced within the previous 18 months of the submission date for the festival.

Deadline for submission is set by the Illinois Film Festival Board and subject to change without notice.  

Submission for consideration in .MP4 or .MOV format.

Submission for festival must be submitted as a Digital Cinema Package (DCP) which is the industry standard for cinemas.

All films are expected to include a Title page at the beginning of the film and a credit page at the end.  The credit page must list everyone who immediately contributed to the making of the film.

All submissions must include stills for promotional purposes.  Choose Stills which best represent your movie and vision.

Films are expected to be playable to a General Audience (see below).

We want YOUR ideas, and we want your ideas and work to be ORIGINAL.  This film festival is designed to showcase your talent, not that of artificial intelligence or a computer program.  Original writing, original drawing, real actors, actual sets.

Film makers MUST inform the festival if their movie contains or was created with the use of Ai, and how the Ai is utilized in the film.  Failure to do so will automatically result in a disqualification from the festival.

Submissions should be submitted to:

info@ilfilmfest.org

Advise the Illinois Film Festival if the submitted film has any of the following:

Violence

Swearing

Smoking

Nudity

Drinking of alcohol

Drug use

Note: no film will be shown which depicts illegal activities.