Submissions for the 2017 Durango Film independent film festival are being accepted through November 15, 2016.
The 12th Annual Durango Independent Film Festival (DIFF) is scheduled for March 1-5, 2017. Films will screen at multiple venues.
Durango Film brings a community together with independent filmmakers for the unique opportunity to experience and discuss global, innovative, and diverse films. Durango Film accepts entries for shorts, documentaries, and feature films on all subject matter. Durango Film categories include:
- Narrative Feature Film — Narrative, non-documentary features over 50 minutes.
- Documentary Feature Film — Non-fiction films over 50 minutes.
- Short Documentary Film — Non-fiction films under 50 minutes.
- Live Action Short Film — Live action (non-documentary) films under 50 minutes.
- Animated Short Film — Animated and experimental films under 50 minutes.
- Family Program Film — Durango Film encourages the creation and sharing of artistic family films suitable for a general audience.
- Adventure Program Film — Any fiction or non-fiction film relating to outdoor adventure/adrenaline/sports.
- REEL Learning School Program Film — Short films, 35 minutes or shorter, with specific appeal to school children ages 5 through 17.
- Native Cinema Film — At Durango Film, they celebrate Native Cinema. Submit any Native American film — fiction or non-fiction — that features Native American content.
- LGBT (Film) — We are accepting narrative features, shorts and documentaries with LGBT content.
To submit a film for consideration for the 2017 festival, there are two online sources for film submissions, allowing filmmakers to use either to submit films for the festival programmers to screen online:
- Film submissions through Withoutabox at www.withoutabox.com.
- Film through Film Freeway at www.filmfreeway.com.
More information for filmmakers is available at durangofilm.org/wp/submit-films.
Once films are submitted, genre-screening teams fill out film evaluation forms and vote on which films they feel make the best selections for the festival. The programming teams then make the final decisions, and determines when and where each film will screen. Each film is screened publically at least twice during the festival, and may be screened additional times by the jurors since this is a competitive film festival.
DIFF is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization that works hard to raise the funds each year in order to present an amazing selection of films by independent filmmakers. The number of films selected for each category varies drastically each year, with the total number of films screened in each festival ranging from 80 to 105. The 2016 festival included 108 films. More information on the festival, selected films, and tickets, will be posted at durangofilm.org as the festival dates approach.
Filmmakers, or those planning to attend the festival, may contact the Durango Film office at 970.375.7779 or via email.
Durango is located in southwest Colorado near the four corners region of the Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah borders. It is nestled in the Animas River Valley surrounded by the San Juan Mountains at an elevation of 6,523 feet or 1988 meters. It is a 3 ½ hour drive north of Albuquerque, New Mexico and a seven hour drive south of Denver, Colorado, and the closest airport is the La Plata County Airport. Durango is an outdoor activity paradise — Hiking, mountain biking, road biking, backpacking, rock climbing, hunting, off-roading, fly fishing, kayaking, rafting and golfing – to name just a few.