TRUE INDIE: How to Find Free and Low-Cost Film Festival Entry Fees

Rebecca Norris Resnick shares all of the low-budget for free film festival entry fees available to indie filmmakers, plus their deadlines to enter.

Inflation gotcha down? You may be finding—along with everyone else in the world—that your pocketbook doesn’t stretch nearly as far as it once did. As independent filmmakers, this is especially true for film festival submissions, which seem to get pricier with each passing year.

Filmmakers often find themselves spending many hundreds to thousands of dollars on film festival submissions without any guarantee that their films will be selected. Yet, as expensive as many festivals are, there are a surprising number that charge absolutely nothing—or only a tiny administrative fee—to enter.

To find them, look no further than my favorite two resources for film festival submissions: FilmFreeway and Short Film Depot.

As of this writing, there are nearly 400 festivals with free entry fees listed on FilmFreeway, and nearly 80 on Short Film Depot.

Please note, however, that many of these festivals are niche in nature, catering to a particular theme, subject matter, ethnicity, region of the world, etc. If you do your research, however, you’re likely to find free submissions that are a great fit for your project.

FilmFreeway

FilmFreeway is a one-stop shop for domestic (U.S.) and international film festival submissions for both feature-length and short films. You can also search for festivals for projects such as screenplays, TV pilots, web series, and music videos. 

To get started, create a profile for your project—including your video file, biographies, credits, stills, awards, etc. You can then submit directly to as many festivals as your budget allows.
You can also purchase a monthly or yearly Gold Membership that provides a discount off of each submission.

For our purposes, however, we’re looking for free entries! On the FilmFreeway site, simply slide the Entry Fees slider to $0, and then choose from a number of different options, including years the festival has been running, runtime for your film, and region of the world.

Voilà! Free submissions at your fingertips.

At this time, there appear to be no administrative fees associated with free submissions, so submit ’til your heart’s content.

Short Film Depot

Short Film Depot, as the name suggests, focuses solely on short film festivals, with the vast majority based in international markets. As with FilmFreeway, you create a “film card” for each project that hosts your video file and associated info, and then search and submit to festivals from there.

Short Film Depot is a gold mine of affordable, global festivals, and entry fees are generally far less expensive than U.S.-based festivals.

Short Film Depot does require an additional administrative fee, or “stamp” for each submission, which covers professional video hosting. However, each stamp is only 3 euro, so even with the stamp, submitting is still very affordable—particularly if your entry fee is free!

If you’re planning to submit to a lot of festivals, your best bet is to purchase a one-year “SuperStamp.” A SuperStamp provides unlimited stamps for 12 months, along with a 20% discount off of the already affordable entry fees. It’s a no-brainer if you’re planning to submit to multiple festivals throughout the year.

To find free entries on Short Film Depot, simply choose “Open” on the dropdown menu to search for festivals currently accepting entries. Then choose “Free Festivals” from the menu next to it. You can leave the country blank to bring up all of the options, or choose specific countries to narrow it down. Choose “Closed” on the first dropdown menu if you want to see which festivals offer free entry, but have already closed to submissions for the year.  

To give you an idea of what’s currently available, here’s a sampling of open festivals requiring little-to-no entry fees, with upcoming deadlines:

United States

Indie Film LA — California — ongoing monthly deadlines

MinnAnimate — Minnesota — Deadline: July 14, 2025

Chicago Film Symposium — Illinois — Deadline: July 27, 2025

CineVet NYC Veterans Film Festival — New York — Deadline: August 1, 2025

Austin Film Festival Young Filmmakers Competition — Texas — Deadline: August 28, 2025

Young Auteur Film Festival — New Jersey — Deadline: August 31, 2025

International

Wiesbaden International Animation Festival — Germany — Deadline: July 31, 2025

CineOpen Festival Pontarlier — France — Deadline: August 1, 2025

WATCH DOCS: Human Rights in Film International Film Festival — Poland — Deadline: August 1, 2025

Vancouver Black Independent Film Festival — Canada — Deadline: August 3, 2025

Taipei International Golden Short Film Awards — Taiwan — Deadline: August 4, 2025

San Sebastian Horror and Fantasy Film Festival — Spain — Deadline: August 19, 2025

Happy submitting!

Rebecca Norris Resnick is a screenwriter, filmmaker, instructor for Writer’s Digest University, and columnist for Script Magazine. Distributed features include Cloudy With a Chance of Sunshine (Indie Rights and House Lights Media) and short films On Becoming a Man (Shorts International) and Toasted, which won the Canadian Film Centre’s ShortsNonStop competition. Rebecca’s films have screened in festivals worldwide including Cannes, Dances With Films, Hollyshorts, Manhattan Film Festival, Breckenridge Film Festival, and the Julien Dubuque Film Festival, and have won and been nominated for numerous awards. Rebecca is also an alumna of the ABC/Disney Television Discovers program, where her script Misfortune Cookies was performed in both New York and Los Angeles. When not working on her newest project, Rebecca stays on her toes chasing both her adorable daughter and her tuxedo cat, Sox.

Learn more about Rebecca at rebeccanorrisresnick.com.