Indie Short Fest

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).