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30 Sept 2026

5 Oct 2026

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7 Dec 2026

Closed for this cycle

The 2026 competitions closed early: Austin states that submission volume reached capacity in all categories ahead of the published late deadline of 27 May, so the effective close fell somewhere between 1 and 27 May and no exact date was published. Winners are announced on 31 October 2026, with reader comments sent by mid-November. The 2027 competitions open in December 2026, which Austin has published. The annual shape is reliable across four evidenced cycles: entries open in the first half of December (7 December 2022, early December 2023, 9 December 2024 and 8 December 2025), early bird lands in late March, regular in mid-to-late April, and the late deadline in the last days of May. All deadlines close at 11:59pm Central. Winners are announced at the Awards Luncheon during the festival in late October or early November. Two changes make the late deadline less dependable than it looks. The capacity cap is new for 2026, pre-announced and then triggered for the first time, and the Extended tier that existed in 2023, 2024 and 2025 was abolished. Deadlines have also tightened year on year, from a late deadline extended to 31 May in both 2023 and 2024, to a firm 28 May in 2025 and 27 May in 2026. Enter early: the published date is now a ceiling rather than a promise.

Closed for this cycle

The call opened on 19 May 2026 and closed at 17:30 on 31 July 2026, extended from an original date of 21 July. IMPORTANT: this is a one-off anniversary award, not an annual competition. It was launched to mark ESB's centenary and the festival's 25th anniversary, there is no prior cycle of any kind, and an archive search returns no earlier captures of the page. Do not expect a next window: if it recurs at all, that will be new information. Two errors on their own pages are worth knowing: the website gives the premiere as February 2026 while the guidelines correctly say February 2027, and the award appears under three different official names across the page, the guidelines PDF and the required email subject line.

Closed for this cycle

IMPORTANT: the next edition is on hold. In July 2026 European Short Pitch announced that the call for its 2027 edition was suspended after Creative Europe MEDIA funding did not come through, saying it was facing a genuinely uncertain moment and exploring smaller, more focused activities for 2027 instead. The most recently completed cycle was the nineteenth edition: applications closed on 12 September 2025, extended to 19 September, with selection announced in mid-December, the development workshop in mid-January 2026 and the forum in early June 2026. Until 2027 the annual rhythm had been strikingly stable, with a September deadline, December selection, January workshop and June forum, which makes this pause a genuine break rather than drift.

Closed for this cycle

Submissions for 2026 closed with the late deadline on 15 August 2026 (earlybird 15 June at 20 pounds, regular 15 July at 25, late 35, or 30 for students and FilmFreeway Gold members). Finalists were notified on 4 September; the Awards Evening is at Komedia in Bath on 19 October 2026, during the festival (16 to 25 October). Submissions opened on 19 May this year, so expect the 2027 call around May 2027.

Closed for this cycle

The 2026 season closed on 30 June 2026 with accolades announced by 15 August, and no 2027 dates have been published. One caution if you go looking: filmmatic.com's own page currently shows a deadline ladder headed 2025 which is actually the 2023 season's dates, so use the FilmFreeway listing, which is the reliable source. We could only evidence two seasons, and every 2026 milestone fell exactly one month earlier than its 2023 counterpart, so treat the shape loosely rather than as a fixed calendar: entries open around March, the final deadline falls around the end of June, and results land in mid-August.

Closed for this cycle

The 2026 contest closed on 29 June 2026 and is in judging, with quarter-finalists announced on 28 August and grand prize winners on 18 December. No 2027 dates have been published, though the 2026 prize list includes a free 2027 entry, so a further cycle is expected. Across four evidenced cycles the final deadline has landed between 28 and 30 June every year, with the first tier in mid-to-late April, quarter-finalists in late August and grand prize winners in early-to-mid December. The opening date is only evidenced for two cycles, 10 March 2025 and 23 March 2026, so treat March as an observation rather than a rule. Note the tier names changed for 2026, from Early Bird, Regular, Extended and Last Chance to Early Bird, Regular, Final and Extended.

Closed for this cycle

Entries for the 2026 contest closed on 1 June (fees ran $40 to $75 by deadline). The last cycle opened in late August, so the 2027 window is likely to open around then.

Closed for this cycle

The 2026 round closed at 10pm on Sunday 8 February 2026 and applications are now shut. Do not try to plan around a pattern here: the deadline has moved across January, February, April, May and September in six documented cycles, and the gap between the 2025 close in September 2024 and the 2026 close in February 2026 was roughly seventeen months. The only durable features are a 10pm cut-off and a Sunday close in the most recent rounds. The page limit has also drifted, from 8 to 15 pages in the 2024 and 2025 calls to a maximum of 12 in 2026.

Closed for this cycle

Entries closed on 10 May 2026 and winners are announced live at the festival, running 24 to 30 September 2026. No 2027 dates have been published. The last three cycles have been consistent: entries open in the first week of December of the preceding year, early-bird falls in the second week of January, regular in mid-March, late in late April and the final deadline in the first half of May. The 2023 cycle opened on 2 January and ran roughly a month later throughout, so treat the December opening as a three-year pattern rather than four. Results run quarter-finals in late June or July, finalists in early August, and winners at the festival in September. One practical caution: the competition no longer has its own page and now sits on a year-stamped festival entries page, with the rules delegated to FilmFreeway, so the official link is likely to move again around December 2026.

Closed for this cycle

The 2026 challenge (the 23rd annual) finished with final round results on 29 July 2026, and no 2027 dates have been published. It has run every calendar year without a gap, always in three rounds, with entries closing in February and final results landing late July or August. The early-bird entry deadline falls in the first week or two of January, which is the moment to watch. One caution: the start date has moved earlier every single year (24 March 2023, 15 March 2024, 21 February 2025, 13 February 2026), so treat February as the shape rather than assuming a repeating date.

Closed for this cycle

The 2026 contest closed on 8 May 2026 and winners are announced on 15 October. PAGE publishes its opening date in advance and states that entries for the 2027 competition open on 1 December 2026. This is the most reliable calendar of any major contest we carry: it has opened on 1 December in every one of the last four cycles, run a ladder on the 15th of January, February, March and April, and announced quarter-finalists on 15 July, semi-finalists on 15 August, finalists on 15 September and winners on 15 October, unchanged year after year. The only moving part is the final tier, which has fallen between 8 and 20 May. Fees have risen once in four years. If you enter one contest on a diary reminder, this is the one to set it for.

Closed for this cycle

The 2026 competition closed on 3 August 2026 at 11:59pm Pacific, and winners are announced on 31 October. No 2027 dates have been published. Across four evidenced cycles the shape is very consistent: entries open between mid-February and mid-March, the final deadline lands in the last week of July or the first days of August, and winners are announced in the last week of October, preceded by a four-stage announcement cascade through late September. One drift worth noting: both the opening and the final deadline have moved a little later every year, from 14 February and 25 July in 2023 to 18 March and 3 August in 2026. Fees have been identical across 2024, 2025 and 2026.

Closed for this cycle

The 2026 cycle is complete and no 2027 round has been announced anywhere. That cycle opened on 7 September 2025 and ran through six tiers to an extended deadline of 8 April 2026, with fees from 30 pounds at the lightning tier to 45 at extended for the main fund, and 25 to 35 for the First Time Filmmaker fund. Note the rules and the dates panel disagree on the final date, giving 5 April and 8 April respectively, with the only published time, 23:59 GMT, attached to the 5 April date. Nominees were notified on 6 July and the winner announced at the pitch event on 2 October 2026. The fund has run three years, so a further round is plausible but entirely unconfirmed.

Closed for this cycle

The 2026 application window ran from 11:00am Eastern on 19 May 2026 to 11:59pm Eastern on 21 June 2026, with judging through to the end of August and notification in autumn 2026. Workshop dates for this cycle have not been published. This is the only entry in its group that publishes exact times and a timezone. The workshop shape is stable, at three days in New York in mid-to-late September with five finalists, but two things make the calendar unreliable: no cycle ran at all in 2023, and application windows for the 2024 and 2025 editions were never published, only their workshop dates.

Closed for this cycle

The 2026 cycle is complete and no dates have been published for the next round; the festival says to check back in autumn 2026. That cycle opened on 18 September 2025 and ran four tiers, early on 6 November at 45 dollars for a feature, regular on 15 January at 60, final on 19 February at 80 and extended on 5 March 2026 at 95, with notification on 22 May. Episodic and short categories run cheaper. The pattern across the two evidenced cycles is consistent: opening in mid-September, four tiers from November through early March, notification in May and the festival in the third week of June, with fees held flat between cycles. No deadline times or timezones are published anywhere.