Filmmakers
Submit your film
to EIFF 2027.
EIFF welcomes distinctive, original and accomplished screen stories from Nigeria, across Africa and around the world. The inaugural edition will present a globally curated programme across fiction, documentary, short-form cinema, animation and student filmmaking.
Submissions
Film submissions opening soon.
Submission dates, eligibility requirements, premiere considerations, fees and official regulations will be published ahead of the opening of EIFF 2027 submissions. EIFF will accept feature films, documentaries, short films, animation and student films.
Published here once approved
- Feature and documentary films: 60 minutes or longer, including credits
- Short, animation and student films: up to 22 minutes, including credits
- Entry fees, and which categories are free to enter
- Opening and closing deadlines
- Screener, subtitle and rights requirements
- How selection is decided, and when entrants hear back
EIFF publishes festival facts once they are approved, rather than announcing and revising. Follow Screen Stories for announcements as each part is confirmed.
How submission will work
Built around the filmmaker
The submission platform is already built. What it is waiting on is an approved set of rules to enforce.
One account
Submissions attach to your EIFF ID, so a filmmaker tracks every entry from one place rather than from an email thread.
Visible status
Each entry moves through received, eligibility, review and decision — and you can see which stage it is at.
Clear requirements
Categories, runtime limits, eligibility windows, subtitle requirements and screener terms are published together, before entries open.
A real decision
Every entry gets an outcome. A festival that cannot answer its entrants should not be collecting their work.
Open now
Screen Stories is open, even though submissions are not.
EIFF's year-round editorial platform publishes director notes, production diaries, project stories and approved stills from work in progress. It is not a route into the programme — selection is separate — but it is a way to have your work read while the festival is built.
EIFF Screen Stories- Director notes and production diaries
- Project stories from work in development
- Approved stills, posters and key art
- Essays on craft, locations and film culture