February 18-22 2026 | Emerging Filmmakers – All Genres – All Lengths
Documentary, Narrative, Horror, Music Video, Animation and Web Series
SUBMISSIONS NOW OPEN

INDIE FILMMAKERS … Do you have an awesome film, music video or web series? Celebrate Diversity in Film with New York City’s WINTER FILM FESTIVAL!

NYC international film festival Winter Film Festival showcases creative fresh voices from emerging filmmakers worldwide in all genres and lengths – feature length and shorts, narrative fiction, documentary, animation, horror, web series and music videos. Our mission is to promote diversity, bridge the opportunity divide and provide a platform for under-represented artists and a variety of genres, viewpoints and approaches. We believe that only by seeing others’ stories can we understand each other and only via an open door can the underrepresented artist enter the room. For more information about last year’s Festival, including Press Information, visit our 2025 Festival page.

Winter Film Awards is an IMDB-qualifying Festival. All selected films are screened at NYC’s LOOK Cinemas.
Early Bird Deadline … September 12, Regular Deadline … October 17, Late Deadline … November 14.

Have questions about who we are, what we are looking for and how we judge selections? Visit our FAQ

People are making films in the world’s biggest cities and tiniest villages. We believe that everyone deserves a fair shot to get their voice heard! We seek to show different genres, different viewpoints, different stories, different perspectives and different countries. We seek to show the work of men and women and non-binary, gay and straight and bi and other, and the work of black, white, Asian, Latino and everyone else in any combination. We seek to show the work of people from right here in New York and also from every corner of the world. We seek to show comedies and romances and dramas and horror and documentaries and experimental and the weird and the unusual and the universal and the controversial. We seek to show films made for virtually zero budget and films made with multi-million dollar budgets. We seek to show you something you haven’t seen before or didn’t realize exists. We want you to laugh, cry, dance, learn, hide in terror and/or have your mind blown.

Winter Film Festival is thrilled to be included in Film Festival Alliance’s Film Festival Directory, a comprehensive list of more than one hundred reputable film festivals committed to upholding the newly established best practices for professional film festivals. Explore the directory to read through our profile and learn more about our fellow member festivals, their programming philosophies, and more here: https://bit.ly/FFADirectory

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