TUFF (The Underdog Film Festival) is an event centered around independent filmmakers whom are the true underdogs of the film and entertainment industry. Combining skill, talent and experience we are putting together an event for short-films and fan-films alike! The main goal of TUFF is to show your hard work and dedication on the big screen to not only your friends, family and/or other filmmakers,
but a real audience! TUFF will be a great opportunity for filmmakers of all calipers, venues and visions to come together make connections! TUFF 2023 will be a four-hour premiere with raffling taking place during intermission, prizes after the films premiere where all proceeds will go towards children with special needs. Genres will include but not limited to: Horror, Sci-Fi, Fan-Film, Action, Drama, Comedy, Web series, Animation, Documentary, Music Video, Movie Trailers and Show pilots. The end of each screening block will be followed by filmmakers Q&A with any attending filmmakers whose works were accepted and shown. Rules & Terms
Maximum Run Time Limit: 30 minutes
Deadlines/Fees:
Given that this is a short-film festival, longer films are more of a challenge to program in. If your film is withing the range of 5-15 minutes we strongly urge you to considering submitting. Longer films will still be considered, so please don’t feel discouraged! TUFF is a family friendly festival; you can submit any film that you would like however the content and quality of your work and how it’s perceived by the structuring of the festival will be the main factor in its judging of acceptance or denial into the program. Again, please don’t feel discouraged and submit your film work! We would love to see it and It’s FREE to submit to see if it qualifies for the festival! Your film doesn’t need to be a premiere, it can already exist online and still be considered for the festival! If your film is in a foreign language; being English is not the primary language, please submit proper subtitles/external subtitle file formats IF your films is accepted after submission/review/acceptance process. As previously stated, it is FREE OF CHARGE to submit your film product for review into the festival. However; submission does NOT guarantee that your film will be picked/screened at the festival. In the event that your film product is selected to be screened at the TUFF premiere, you will have to pay a one-time acceptance fee. Given that we have a genre bracket open for Fan-films, we ask that you please respect the original copyright owners by giving them the proper credit in the film establishing that you are not affiliated with the original franchise and that your film is for non-profit viewing purposes and the content in which you have created is your independent work. All other original content, please make sure that you hold all copyrights to your film and its elements. In the event that you have a film that has yet to be completed but would like to submit a teaser trailer/movie trailer or an advertisement of the same variety we will be offering entry slots for filmmakers to submit their work to play before the selected short-films at a small fee. If your film is selected to premiere at the Underdog Film Festival, please have promotional material ready to submit so it can be integrated into the TUFF marketing and advertising campaign of the event to the general public.
