Welcome to an uplifting new film festival!

This festival is dedicated to celebrating the creativity, talent, and hard work of filmmakers. By submitting to this festival, you will gain entry. The festival is hosted by local filmmakers who are acquainted with the challenges of independent filmmaking. To encourage you to submit your best efforts and resources, we have provided you with an eight month deadline to complete the film you envision (inspired by a sentence prompt).

This festival will showcase short films that are less than fifteen minutes in length. However, we will also include a script only category, allowing filmmakers who are unable to assemble a crew to submit their scripts. The majority of the films will be screened locally in August 2026, and the winning script will be presented for a live table read.

The awards for this festival will be presented in tiers, with bronze, silver, and golden balloons awarded. The golden balloons will be official titled awards. All tiers receive a laurel.

There is one final award above all others. There is the Platinum Balloon, the rarest of them all. Only one film will win this.

This year’s prompt: "It's 3 AM, and you're home alone having a terrible nightmare, when suddenly you are awoken by a knock at your door."