Submissions are now open for the 37th annual Out On Film, Atlanta’s Oscar® qualifying LGBTQIA+ film festival. The event will take place from September 26 to October 6 at locations to be determined and online.
In 2023 Out On Film presented both a spring festival with Georgia premieres of area-specific documentaries “Kokomo City” and “Little Richard: I Am Everything” and a highly successful fall hybrid festival with more than 150 films, more than 75 visiting filmmakers/producers and actors, and several world premieres.
New this season is a Filmmaker Fund that will allow filmmakers money to complete their projects. Out On Film is one of only a few U.S. based LGBTQIA+ film festivals that offer this kind of fund. This fund provides financial assistance to queer artists who often struggle to secure funding to finish their project. Grants up to $2,500 are available for the completion of films that tell the stories of LGBTQ+ life in all its humanity and complexity.
“We are very happy to make this available to our filmmakers,” Craig Hardesty, Out On Film’s board chair, said. “Finishing a project can be enormously difficult and we hope these funds can help filmmakers put the finishing touches on their work.”
More information on the Filmmaker Fund can be found at outonfilm.org/filmmaker-fund.
For the third consecutive year, Out On Film will also offer a screenplay competition. Winners for both short film and feature film screenplays will receive a cash prize and a reading at the 2024 festival. New this season is a Best Music Video competition.
In 2023, Out On Film was named as the #1 film festival in the country by the readers of USA Today’s 10Best Reader’s Choice competition.
As an Oscar® qualifying film festival, Out On Film’s winner for the Jury Award for Best Drama Short is eligible for consideration at the following year’s Academy Awards® in the category of Best Live Action Short.
Out On Film also offers Jury Awards for Best Feature, Best Documentary, Best International Film, Best Performance, Best Director, Best First Film, and Best Ensemble. Audience Awards are given for Best Narrative Feature, Best Documentary, Best Drama Short and International Film.
More information can be found at filmfreeway.com/OutOnFilm. The regular deadline for submissions is June 4 and the late deadline is June 26.
Additional programming leading up to the festival will be announced soon.