Festival

Festival presentation: 

IMDb qualifier Indie Short Fest (ISF-LA) is an LA-based international film competition with monthly live screenings in Burbank, CA.

ISF-LA is looking for independent projects from all genres, particularly low or no-budget ones, as well as from all countries, especially from those traditionally underrepresented in the global film industry.

Festival Logo: 

Theme: 

Adult

Adventure

African Films

American Films

Animation

Arabic Films

Art, Dance, Music

Art-house films

Asian Films

Awards

Black Culture Films

British Films

Children

Comedy

Crime

Digital

Documentary

Education

Environnement/Nature

European Films

Family

Fantasy/Science Fiction

Flash

French Films

German Films

Health/Medical

Historical

Homosexuality

Horror films

Human Rights

Independent

International

Italian Films

Japanese Films

Jewish Films

Latin American Films

Market

Multimedia

Music

National

Religious films

Romance

Science

Seminar

Senior

Silent films

Spanish Films

Sport

Student films

Television

Thriller

Underground

War

Western

Women

Youth/Teen

not specified

Category/Format: 

not specified

Animated Films

Digital / DVD

Documentaries

Experiment

Fiction Features

Independant

Industrial

Mixed

Music video

Short films

Student film

Video / TV

Work-In-Progress

Each month, the submitted projects are judged by a random team of invited experts from academia and film industry from Los Angeles area, against a high standard of merit. The monthly award-winning projects are automatically admitted to being screened and competing in the respective categories at the annual event. Some of them, selected by the programmers of ISF-LA, are publicly screened in Los Angeles at the end of each round.

Before submitting, please read carefully the following: 

Every submission can add numerous additional judging categories increasing the chance to become a multi-award-winning.

Notice that any entry is judged only according to the nature of the submitted category or categories. After the preliminary evaluation, ISF-LA can email the submitter with recommendations to other categories in which the entry can be more suitable to and have more chances to be a good competitor. Still, the decision to submit to other categories, and the payment of the associated fees, belong exclusively to the submitter and does not guarantee any award or the official selection.

Awards & Prizes

All entries with no exception are promoted through our social media and website with a dedicated page and highlights at the homepage. For this purpose, we recommend that projects must be fully entered on FilmFreeway, including synopsis, and downloadable poster and trailer.

All projects officially selected in each round are listed in the festival's website and receive the Indie Short Fest official laurel and the customized certificate of achievement according to their final status in the competition. As underlined above, some of them are publicly screened in Los Angeles.

All award winners in each round are invited for an interview or to provide the festival with a BTS or award acceptance video statement to be published in the ISF-LA website.

At least 3 different judges score the quality and creativity of each entry on a performance scale defined in 9 parameters (from originality to technical aspects as pace, structure, lighting and sound design). The highest rated entries are nominated for the awards of the respective categories and finally are choose the winners.

Besides the Major Award for each category, it can be given also Outstanding Achievement Awards (for the runner-ups) and Honorable Mentions.

Also, for each round, Indie Short Fest (ISF-LA) decides and award two overall winners (chosen from all categories) as Best Short (spoken in English) and Best Foreign-Language Short.

The awards by category: 
Best Indie Short 
Best Documentary Short 
Best Experimental Short 
Best Student Short 
Best Animation Short 
Best Drama Short 
Best Comedy Short 
Best Romantic Comedy Short 
Best Dark Comedy Short 
Best Thriller Short 
Best Film Noir Short 
Best Mystery Short 
Best Action Short 
Best Crime Short 
Best Fantasy Short 
Best Horror Short 
Best Sci-Fi Short 
Best Western Short 
Best Parody Short 
Best Children Short 
Best Women Short 
Best LGBT Short 
Best Web Series/TV Pilot 
Best Web and New Media 
Best Microfilm 
Best Music Video 
Best Mobile Short 
Best Drone Short 
Best Producer 
Best Director (Female) 
Best Director (Male) 
Best First Time Director (Female) 
Best First Time Director (Male) 
Best Student Director (Female) 
Best Student Director (Male) 
Best Young Filmmaker (Female) 
Best Young Filmmaker (Male) 
Best Actress 
Best Actor 
Best Supporting Actress 
Best Supporting Actor 
Best Child/Young Actress 
Best Child/Young Actor 
Best Acting Duo 
Best Acting Ensemble 
Best Cinematography 
Best Editing 
Best Sound Design 
Best Sound Mixing 
Best Sound Editing 
Best Original Score 
Best Original Song 
Best Original Story 
Best Adapted Screenplay 
Best Short Script 
Best Special FX 
Best Visual FX 
Best Costume Design 
Best Makeup and Hairstyling 
Best Special Makeup 
Best Production Design 
Best Trailer/Teaser

Rules & Terms

All genres are accepted with a maximum length of 55 minutes. 

For student fees, it is mandatory the student status evidence (e.g copy of student card included in the project).

The films must include English subtitles (unless the spoken language is English).

By submitting the film, the submitter agrees that: 
1. Indie Short Fest can use parts of the film (including trailer/teaser/film poster) for promotional purpose. 
2. Entry fees are non-refundable. 
3. The submitter owns all the rights to the film. 
4. The information about the entries can be disclosed to ISF-LA associated film festivals, namely the upcoming other cities-based ISF.

Indie Short Fest does not accept the following: 
1. Extremist or propaganda content from religious or political organizations. 
2. Films which are made before 2016. 
3. Films with a poor production standard (bad sound, lack of subtitles/captions for non-English films, or video resolution less than 720p HD).