The RIGA IFF Short Film International Competition seeks to highlight new auteur films of various genres and techniques from all over the world. RIGA IFF is one of the 30 festivals that nominates one short film as a candidate for the European Film Awards.
The curator and the selection committee evaluate submissions, look for individual works at other film festivals, film and art schools, and reach out to independent short filmmakers. There are as many films as there are opinions, and as many creators as there are stories.
The only things the selected films have in common is a maximum running time of 30 minutes and a distinctive voice. Audience members are guaranteed to find reasons to laugh, quarrel, or even shed a tear or two – often together with the filmmakers themselves!
Whether they are animated, narrative, documentary, or experimental, the competition seeks out short films with a distinct voice. The festival’s curators will select up to 25 of the most interesting submissions from around the world to screen at the festival.
We welcome short films with a running time of up to 30 minutes and with a completion date of no earlier than 1 January 2024. We especially encourage Baltic filmmakers and artists to apply (both professionals and emerging artists) as we want to encourage filmmakers from the region, and promote their work internationally.
The selected short films are judged by an international jury consisting of industry experts, filmmakers, and representatives from the international film festival community. The film that generates the greatest passion and the liveliest discussions about the very essence of cinema will receive a specially designed award and a monetary prize of EUR 2,000. The Award Ceremony takes place on the second Saturday of the festival.
The jury selects a single candidate for the European Short Film – Prix Vimeo 2026 Award from the films screened in the RIGA IFF Short Film National and International Competitions. Eligible directors must be born in Europe or hold a passport from a European country (the European Film Academy defines Europe as both EU and non-EU countries and includes Israeli and Palestinian passport holders), the film must have been produced in 2025, and the running time cannot exceed 30 minutes.
The call for submissions opens on 25 March 2025 and closes on 31 May 2025. All submissions are free of charge until 1 April 2025. From 2 April to 18 May, the submission fee is EUR 10 per entry, but from 19 May – EUR 15. The results will be announced by 10 September 2025.
Léo Soesanto is a Paris-based film programmer and journalist who has written for publications such as Libération, Les Inrockuptibles, Vogue Paris, Premiere, and Grazia. He has extensive festival experience having been part of the feature film selection committee for the Critics’ Week sidebar at the Cannes Film Festival between 2009 and 2015. He also chaired the short film selection committee from 2017 to 2021. From 2016 to 2020, he was a film programmer at the Rotterdam Film Festival, which is a mecca for auteur cinema.
Chantal Lian has been working in the film industry for more than 14 years, as a programmer and curator at major French festivals such as the Les Arcs International Film Festival and the Champs-Élysées Film Festival for independent cinema where she also established the US in Progress Paris programme to promote cooperation between the European and North American film industries. Lian is an experienced film distributor with experience at respected companies such as Wild Bunch and Sophie Dulac Distribution, where she worked on commercially successful independent films such as Love & Friendship (2016) and Menashe (2017). She has also worked at Oxbelly, a training course for screenwriters and directors.
Nanako Tsukidate is a film critic and a journalist for Nobody Magazine in Japan. She is also an independent programmer and consultant of Venice Days (Giornate degli Autori). She worked as a selector of short films for La Semaine de la Critique (2019-2021) and as programmer for the Hiroshima International Film Festival, in particular for the European films section (2015-2018). Nanako has been a part of the RIGA IFF Short film selection committee since 2022.
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