Lancaster International Short Film Festival

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL The Lancaster International Short Film Festival illuminates Lancaster County, Pennsylvania as a destination for filmmakers and film enthusiasts every year. Pennsylvania Dutch Country is rich with history and culture, which inspires artists, writers and dreamers. The festival is the longest, continuously running film festival in Central Pennsylvania and only a short distance from NYC, Philadelphia, and the Baltimore-Washington area. In the past, the film festival was presented at Penn Cinema (2008: Lititz, PA), the Stahr Performing Arts Center (2009, 2010, 2011: Lancaster, PA), Tellus360 (2011: Lancaster, PA), The Ware Center | Milllersville University Downtown Campus (2012, 2013, 2014, 2015), Franklin & Marshall College's The Green Room Theater (2014), Zoetropolis Film & Art (2014, 2015), the Candy Factory (2017 & 2018) and the Lancaster Elks Lodge #134 (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 & 2019). Due to the COVID pandemic, the 2020 Festival convened online and the 2021 event was cancelled. Each year an increasing number of actors, filmmakers and producers attend and are on hand for Q & A. And who can blame them? With special events, after parties, table space to sell DVD's and merch, and lots of food (& drinks!) provided to our attending filmmakers, this is a festival that KNOWS how to take care of our guests. THE CALL FOR ENTRIES This year, we seek short films from seven (8) broadly and more narrowly defined categories: Comedy, Drama, Animation, Female Director, BIPOC Experience, LGBTQ+, Social Justice, and For The Culture. Submissions should not exceed 40 minutes. See category description for more information. Filmmakers of all levels are encouraged to submit to the film festival. Previous award-winners have included students, hobbyists, and professionals. Our Selection Committee doesn't shy away from promoting lower-budget shorts for accolades; an engaging story and clever editing can best a high budget submission. All submissions will be reviewed by the Selection Committee. This panel will choose the Official Selections and the “Best Of” each category. Then, a second round will determine (from the eight category winners) the recipient of the Grand Prize. There will be three other special awards: The Best Actor Award, The Home Grown Award and The Best International Award. All of these will be announced and presented at the Awards Ceremony at the close of the film festival. THE FESTIVAL Th LISFF Official Selections will be screened with special events leading up to the festival. We will place various categories of short films into 90 to 120- minute blocks and spread them over eight to ten screenings over 3 days. Saturday night culminates with our awards show, with full screenings of the award-winning film in each category. Throughout the festival we expect to have space set aside for socialization and relaxation, a red carpet for photos, and a bar with free food and drinks (adult and all-ages) for all attending filmmakers with a film in the festival. TICKETS Early Bird Passes will go on sale about two months before the festival and will be available until we announce the Official Selections and schedule, about a month before the festival. General Admission tickets will be available for individual screenings, as well as both Day passes and Full Festival passes. MISSION & OBJECTIVE The Lancaster International Short Film Festival supports the independent digital film community by offering a competitive film festival in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, an annual destination for short film aficionados to experience the best of the contemporary art form. We are fans of film. We love the stories, we love the people, we love the festival. We aim to bring eclectic voices of the world to our corner of the planet in an intimate venue to share with you.