WorldFest Houston

             51^st WORLDFEST-HOUSTON “CALL FOR ENTRIES!”

“FORGET SUNDANCE! …WorldFest is one of the best conceived festival productions on the planet!” ~ Craig Outhier, film critic, Phoenix press; Tempe Times.

The 51^st Annual WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival continues its totally dedicated Independent Film screening format for the upcoming April 20-29, 2018…! WorldFest will screen just 80-90 feature film premieres, with a total and absolute emphasis on the American and International Independent feature films and a continuing annual spotlight on award-winning short films and documentary films.

Entry forms & complete entry information are on our website (www.worldfest.org) – Click on Enter Film Festival, check the FAQ, Categories, Entry Form… The Main Entry Deadline is Friday, Dec. 15^th 2017 – A Mail-By Ship-By Deadline! Entries do not have to arrive by this deadline.  Now you can also enter with Feature, Shorts, & Documentary submissions via our great online partner Film Freeway  https://filmfreeway.com/

WorldFest Artistic and Program Director, Kathleen Haney, stated, “We are fiercely dedicated to the Indie Feature and Short Film and look for a quality selection of individual films to maintain a smaller, yet effective program rather than an overly large and unwieldy slate of 150-300 films. Haney continued, “At WorldFest we use the mantra ‘A good story, well told’ as our time-tested approach to film selection”. (For complete winner info from the past WorldFests, go to – https://www.worldfest.org  – click on the Winners tab.)

Ridley Scott commented “WorldFest is in the business of validating excellence!” after he received the Grand Remi Award in 1985 for his famous 1984 Apple TV commercial. The mission of WorldFest is to recognize and validate creative excellence in film & video production in every facet and category of filmmaking. Many filmmakers report that a Remi Award from WorldFest helps them doors to advance their film careers.

WorldFest proudly presents two ongoing Panoramas each year; The 13^th Annual Panorama Italia co-sponsored by The Italian Cultural Institute and The Italian Consulate and also the Fourth Annual Panorama China, a major, comprehensive survey of modern Chinese cinema, both independent & major studio films from China. WorldFest will also continue the annual Short Film Showcase, a special review of more than 100 new and award winning short and student films...from the festival that gave first top honors to Spielberg, Lucas, The Coen Brothers, Ridley Scott, Robert Rodriguez, Spike Lee, Gavin Hood, John Lee Hancock, Michael Cimino, Steven Poster, Oliver Stone, Ang Lee, Atom Egoyan and David Lynch, among many others! Few other festivals have such a “discovery” track record. WorldFest has emerged as the oldest continuous film festival management in the world with the same executive director, J. Hunter Todd serving for 50 consecutive years. A few other festivals are older, but they have had as many as ten different directors. WorldFest is the oldest film festival in The South.

  WorldFest began in August 1961, as an International Film Society. It began screening Independent, foreign & art films. It became an officially competitive International Film Festival seven years later, in April 1968, and has been in continuous operation since. It is one of the original three film festivals in North America, with San Francisco and New York as the first two events. Following WorldFest was Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, and Seattle. Then Sundance and SXSW, Toronto and Tribeca. Now there are more than 3,000 USA film festivals of various types, levels and quality, most being simply non-competitive screening events! WorldFest is international, competitive and invites filmmakers worldwide. WorldFest has emerged as the oldest, longest running Independent Film Festival in the whole wide world!

The 51^st Annual WorldFest offers International Competition in; Features, Shorts, TV production, TV commercials, unproduced Screenplays & Teleplays, Experimental, Student, Documentary, Business & Industry, New Media, and Music Videos. WorldFest is the largest film & video competition in the world, in sheer number of actual category entries, with more than 4,300 category entries received in 2017. There are almost 200 sub-categories for competition, allowing each film to compete in its own individual genre.

WorldFest-Houston is sponsored by the State of Texas, the City of Houston, Lopez Negrete Communications, Eastman Kodak, the Texas Film Commission, Boxer Properties, Arcodoro Ristorante, Masterpiece International, The Universal Film & Festival Organization (UFFO) Cottonwood Financial, the Brown Foundation, InkTip and Avis/Budget and the Houston Arts Alliance (HAA).

If you plan to enter only one film festival, it should be WorldFest.

For more information on the 51^st Annual 2018 WorldFest-Houston, simply send your name and address to:

Entry Team WorldFest - 2018
51^st Annual WorldFest-Houston
9898 Bissonnet St. #650, Houston, Texas 77036 USA

or call toll free: 1-866-965-9955 (or 713-965-9955) or fax: 1-713-965-9960

Or simply email us at: entry@worldfest.org

The complete Entry Kit with Entry Forms - is on our secure website: https://www.worldfest.org

(The 51^st Annual WorldFest-Houston is April 20-29, 2018)