**** This is a short film festival, only for films 20 minutes or less in length!!****

Hope you are all healthy and staying safe! We hope all understand that the recent news and uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 situation has caused us to sadly cancel the physical festival. The USA government’s CDC has ordered no large event happen for the next eight weeks. New York City has closed all theaters, bars and restaurants until April 20. So our event March 22 is obviously not happening.

BUT……

We are going digital for this year. With that said after a lot of trial and error over the last few days we realized we can not do a digital festival in 6 hours live. What we are going to do is over the next few days we will interview and talk to the filmmakers and build a virtual festival we can stream online. A schedule will be here once we have it all together. The festival will probably last longer and include some great insight from the filmmakers on the what, why and hows of their films. We think this will be a more enjoyable virtual festival because if we held the physical festival the filmmakers and fans would be able to gather and talk after the sessions.

Everyone is free to watch the films and interviews. So please spread the word far and wide! The Link to our Twitch account will be here once we have everything in place.

Documentary film is a genre that is based in truth and told with style. Every second of every day, an infinite multitude of stories are playing out in every nook and cranny of the world – the goal of documentary film is take this sprawling mass of real life and weave it into cinematic art. The purposes of documentary are multifold – to educate, to entertain, to bring attention to important issues or to simply highlight the understated wonders of everyday life.

Join us for the 5th Annual NYC Short Documentary Film Festival and become part of a growing tradition!

Please be sure to review ALL submission guidelines before you submit the entry. We have limited time and resources to correct application mistakes. Please try and be as accurate as possible. We will contact you by e-mail if there are any problems, so please be sure to watch for e-mails from info@nycsdff.com.

We vastly prefer online submissions either via FilmFreeWay or a private/password protected Vimeo/YouTube link. If your film is selected we will provide full technical specifications but an .mov, mp4 or .mpg works great. All films will be played from a hard drive. Please note, if accepted, we MUST receive the exhibition media AT LEAST TWO (2) WEEKS before the festival.

If your submission is selected, you will be notified by e-mail in the beginning of February. Accepted filmmakers will be given two free admission pass to the festival. (We cannot help with any transportation, food or lodging costs.)

For further information please contact us at info@nycsdff.com