Submissions are not guaranteed to be selected and featured on Film Shortage. See our F.A.Q.
The submission doesn’t seem to be sending through? Send us a message through our inquiry form.
What Are We Looking For?
Film Shortage’s main focus is of course Short Films. Through the submitted films, we carefully curate and hand pick the best crafted projects to feature in one of our two categories: Featured Shorts and Daily Short Picks. Featured Shorts are our highest standards with only two picks a week, these films are the benchmark from today’s indie filmmakers and include a larger homepage presence as well as a written article with the film + an addition to our Vimeo Channel. Daily Picks are the hot films that absolutely deserve to be seen. With fresh daily content most of our action lives here. Both Features and Daily’s can now also be selected on our YouTube Channel.
So what does your film need to be featured? Simply enough it needs to be good! We like well scripted stories, and we like them even better if they are well shot! Although we encourage narrative shorts, we will accept any type of short film if we think it is exceptional. We accept shorts of any budget category, but strongly encourage low-budget productions with strong values. We do prefer shorts to be under 20 minutes, but do accept up to 45 minutes – but keep in mind that the longer the film is, the better it needs to be. Submit Now
Being based in Montréal, we strongly encourage shorts that are made in Québec or by Québecois filmmakers (in any languange). With the rise in local talent, we are on the look out for the next Denis Villeneuve – who’s also made short films – see Next Floor. With shorts like Fauve and Marguerite already getting Oscar Nominations and so many others receiving so many high recognitions – we would love to push them even further.
Submit us your short and make sure to indicate it’s a “Film du Québec” in the additional notes. While all the films go through the same revision process, Québec film have the additional hope of making the ‘Films du Québec‘ section. These shorts are also eligible for to be selected as Main Features and Daily Picks. Submit Now
We still like to feature some short film trailers on FS, but we’ve changed the way to submit them – for free!
Simply tag us (@filmshortage) on a social media post with your trailer link and the hashtag #shortfilmtrailer included. The link must be one of a trailer – anything else will be ignored.
F.A.Q.
We accept films under 45 minutes, but generally we do prefer the shorts to be under 20 minutes. An online audience is already difficult to keep focus – so as a general rule, the longer the film is, the better it needs to be.
Film Shortage is a curated website, and part of our job is to carefully hand pick through the submissions the films that stand out the most. Unfortunately that means that not all submissions get selected.
The submission fee covers our reviewer’s time to watch and score your film, therefore the submissions are non-refundable.
We only accept films that are hosted on either Vimeo or YouTube. You can submit a film for revision via another format (Google Drive, Dropbox..), but if selected we may ask that the film be transferred to Vimeo or YouTube.
Submissions should get a response within 3 to 4 business days. Please check your junk mail as our responses sometimes end up there.
If over 4 business days have gone by since the submission, please check your junk mail for any mail from us. You should receive a confirmation email soon after the submission. If you do not find any confirmation nor response/review, you may have accidentally typed in the wrong email address. If this has happened please send an inquiry.
If selected, a film will always be available on the site as long as the original embed is still valid. The filmmakers can ask for the film to be removed at any time. Featured picks will be seen on the homepage main banner for 3-4 days, where as Daily Picks will get between 1/2 – 1 day featured spot, and then trickle down the homepage as the days go by and new features come in.
Yes we do accept films with nudity or violence. Generally speaking, if your film didn’t get banned off Vimeo or YouTube it should be ok for us – but of course it’s to our own discretion.