Submit to Open City Documentary Festival
Open City Documentary Festival creates an open space to nurture and champion the art of creative documentary and non-fiction filmmakers. We provide a platform for emerging talent as well as established masters working within the documentary form.
Over 7500 people attended the tenth edition of the festival which took place online. The festival took place between 9th–15th September 2020 screening international contemporary non-fiction film, audio and cross media, as well as filmmaker Q&As, industry panels, special live events and industry networking opportunities.
Submissions for Open City Documentary Festival 2021 are now open. We’re looking for creative, innovative, challenging non-fiction filmmaking at short, mid-length and feature-length, as well as short audio documentaries, and cross platform projects.
We are working towards delivering our regular in-person edition in 2021, but in the context of the global pandemic, please be aware that our plans are currently subject to change. We will update all submitting filmmakers as and when definitive decisions are made concerning the shape of the festival and its programme.
Please submit your film project as either ‘Documentary Short’ or ‘Documentary Feature’, and your audio project as ‘Audio Documentary Short’. Please include a link to download or stream your audio project in the submission, as FilmFreeway cannot currently accept audio files. Please use the ‘Cross-Platform Projects’ category for mixed reality, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, installations, games, 360 video and interactive web docs.
Please note that projects submitted to the ‘Cross Media Projects’ category are considered for exhibition in our Expanded Realities Exhibition. If your project does not have an interactive or 360 element and is intended for cinema exhibition please submit it as a ‘Documentary Short’ or ‘Documentary Feature’ . We are currently unable to accept single or multi-screen installation works not suitable for the cinema space. If you have a project of this nature and would like to discuss with the festival’s programming team, please do get in touch. We plan to install our 2021 Expanded Realities Exhibition at our Central London Festival Hub but it will be adapted to an online format should this be required.