Submission Deadline Dates
And a throwback story from IMFF 2018
We are human, just like you.
So we understand deadline dates can get mixed up. Below is a simple list with dates for the competitions for #MFF2023SanDiego.
Because it’s #ThrowbackThursday today, we want to share a memorable festival story with you.
In the photo are filmmakers from Australia. Brian Hennings (center left) is from Perth, on one end of the country and Narelle Nash (center right) is from Sydney, on the opposite end of the country.
This was Brian’s second year visit to our film festival in San Diego, with a new short film submission. It was Narelle’s first attendance with her short film.
They didn’t know it yet, but each of them were to pick up the top awards, First and Third Place in our short film competition. Brian shot his film with an Android phone and Narelle shot hers with an iPhone. The story is memorable and worth mentioning because it gets interesting.
They had not met before in Australia. Even though they were both mobile filmmakers. This happens in our film festival, we love to connect the global mobile film community even from their own countries and cities, it’s happened.
The thing is that they had been teasing each other throughout the weekend festival. They were having an “Aussie battle of the phones” as they each claimed one brand was better than the other. You know what we’re talking about, right?
Brian won First Place with the short film, Focus shot with the Samsung Galaxy S7. Narelle won Third Place with the short film, The Actor shot with the iPhone 7.
We did not find out how the “battle of the phones” was a thing, until the Awards Ceremony, which takes place at the end of the festival on Sunday. We were recording a roundtable podcast and Narelle and Brian have a go at it. Lots of fun and teasing.
Listen to our Roundtable discussion during after the awards IMFF 2018.
Brian took was so pleased to have won with his second film after coming to San Diego twice, that he drove to the L.A. airport from San Diego making stops at places and posing with his trophy he nicknamed “The Susy” after festival founder and director Susy Botello.
We hope you enjoyed this little story. These stories are tough to share on Social Media. But feel free to share this since it’s a public post. Make it public and tag us, so we can interact with your post share.
Below are the dates you need to keep tabs with! Don’t miss them. We have extended deadlines but they cost more because of our workload and processing so close to the festival.
Our festival has been called “legendary” by founders of other mobile film festivals, and by filmmakers too. But we are too shy to call it out ourselves. We just prefer to mention we’ve been around since before the iPhone 4 launched…which is when this mobile filmmaking with phone cameras turned into an industry. But rest assured, we are all about you and this community of creatives is very important to us. We hope to meet you in person but if we cannot, let’s make a Big Bang online! Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, we love interacting with you.
Below are the dates you need to keep tabs with:
October 19, 2022 Mobile Features Deadline
November 19, 2022 Mobile Shorts Deadline
November 19, 2022 Rookie Award Deadline
November 20, 2022 Short Screenplay Deadline
November 21, 2022 Photo Deadline
December 22, 2022 Extended Photo Deadline
December 23, 2022 Extended Short Screenplay Deadline
December 24, 2022 Extended Features Deadline
January 13, 2023 Extended Shorts Deadline
January 13, 2023 Extended Rookie Award Deadline
April 28 – 30, 2023 Festival Event Dates in San Diego, California
Are you ready to submit to our film festival in San Diego?
We’ve expanded the opportunities to connect and grow the mobile filmmaking community with a smartphone photo contest that tells a story with one frame. A new short screenplay contest is also new this year, and we hope to inspire mobile filmmakers to make better films through better storytelling. These are separate competitions. Each competition has its own judging panel.
Submit your films, engage with our mobile filmmaking community, inspire a new generation of smartphone filmmakers and come out to play with us! We’re here for you because of you!