Skip to Content

Call For Entries: 2022 PBS Short Film Festival

Posted on Jan 18, 2022


Texas filmmakers! Send us your short films!

Films submitted may be nominated for inclusion in the eleventh annual PBS Short Film Festival, a showcase for powerful and engaging stories from filmmakers across the country. The festival is a popular annual online event, attracting millions of video views over the past eleven years, as well as nominations in the Webby Awards.

Since its launch in 2012, the PBS Online Film Festival has featured diverse movies from PBS member stations, Independent Lens and POV and other public television producers including the Center for Asian American Media, Latino Public Broadcasting, Black Public Media, Pacific Islanders in Communications (PIC), and Vision Maker Media have also been included.

__Submissions should be 3-15 minutes in length and can be fiction or non-fiction. There are no requirements about the short films having premiered elsewhere, though they should be no more than 3 years old. PBS also requires non-exclusive rights to stream the films on all PBS platforms, including social media platforms. __

Texas filmmakers, to have your short films considered, submit via this form by Thursday, February 17th.

Information you will need to provide:

  • Official Film Title (up to 60 characters including spaces)
  • Short description (up to 90 characters including spaces)
  • Long description (up to 400 characters including spaces)
  • Online screener link
  • Suggested keywords/topics/genres
  • Flags/Time-code for any suggestive language or scenes (we are PBS, remember!)
  • Summarized information about the filmmaker(s) (up to 1000 characters including spaces)
  • Contact information

If selected as an Austin PBS entry, you will also need to provide info about funders to comply with PBS commercialism rules, and may be asked to re-edit credits or bleep offensive language.

Filmmakers in other states should contact their local PBS affiliate.

The 2022 PBS Short Film Festival will take place in mid-July (dates TBD). The festival will be available for streaming via PBS and Austin PBS, KLRU-TV digital platforms, including PBS.org, YouTube and PBS social media channels. The films will also be available via the PBS app on iOS, Android and a wide range of OTT devices.