FEATURE-LENGTH FILMS
The Festival welcomes submissions for feature films in narrative and documentary categories. All selected features will participate in the festival’s MAIN EVENT competition. We strongly believe that a film from any category could take the Festival’s 2014 Best Feature award, be it Darkest Before the Dawn, Cinema Mavericks, the Dockect or any category. Entering all films into the MAIN EVENT puts everyone on an even playing field in the completion and recognizes the best from across all different styles and genres in the independent film community.

In addition, however Mirage International Film Festival offers filmmakers several competitive sub-categories designed specifically to recognize excellence within various genres and help promote the various styles, methods and techniques that populate the ever expanding world of cinema.

• Main Event  -  main competition program for all eligible feature-length films
• Darkest Before the Dawn  -  dedicated to showcasing feature-length genre films
• Cinema Mavericks  -  feature-length films with budgets less than $1.5 million USD
• Newcomer  -  available exclusively for first-time, feature-length directors
• WorldCine  -  feature-length films which were financed and filmed outside of North America
• The Dockect  -  non-fiction feature-length documentary films

SHORT-LENGTH FILMS
The Festival offers a robust competition program for short films, divided into institutional and non-institutional categories.

• Institute Of Cinema   -  highlighting the very best in student produced short films
• School Of Hard Takes  -  giving independently produced short films a voice of their own

Mirage International Film Festival's New Media Marvels competitive program is designed to bring attention to the emerging world of new media. With the growing prevalence and wide reach of online streaming video sites, the internet is providing filmmakers with an easy and affordable avenue to present their alternative media to a global audience.

New Media Marvels is designed to recognize and reward exceptional work in the expanding new media landscape. With the increasing number of success stories of TV series, films and documentaries being developed and produced based on new media content, the Festival's New Media Marvels program provides a solid forum for these new age filmmakers to showcase their stories and network with distributors, producers and industry executives.

All epic projects start with a vision. And like the building of monolith skyscrapers that dot the city landscape, the first step in realizing that vision is putting your ideas on paper... as blueprints. This concept resonates strong in Mirage International Film Festival’s Original Screenwriting competition Film Blueprint.

We believe that all great films started as great scripts! Film Blueprint seeks to discover the next generation of great writers and provide a forum to highlight and recognize their scripts. This competitive category is judged by a distinguished panel comprised of top literary agents, screenwriters and development executives.