Festival Data:

• Established: 1959
• Genre: General
• Attendance: 1800
• Total Number of Films Submitted: 200
• Total Number of Films Screened: 35
• # of Shorts Screened: 35

• Competitive
• Catalog

Festival Website:

Festival Description:

The Rochester International Film Festival, the world's oldest continuously-held short film festival, has been presented each year since 1959 by Movies on a Shoestring, Inc. Each festival includes a wide variety of narrative films, documentaries, and animations submitted by independent filmmakers from all parts of the world.

All filmmakers are invited to submit entries for consideration. RIFF screens animations, comedies, documentaries and narratives and sends a critique letter to every filmmaker for entries submitted; evaluating filmmaking, acting, writing, cinematography and all technological aspectics and cinematic qualities.

RIFF has no cash prizes, but each film selected for the festival is awarded our distinctive Shoestring Trophy and, since films are made to be seen, the greatest reward of all: appreciative, movie-wise audiences viewing your work at the prestigious Dryden Theatre at George Eastman House, the world's premier museum of photography and film, in Rochester, NY.

If your entry is selected for showing at the festival, RIFF might also include it in the permanent traveling collection, The Best of the Fest, which includes the most popular films from previous festivals, based on audience surveys taken at each show. Free screenings of films and videos from the Best of the Fest can be arranged for non-commercial New York groups. RIFF also presents a Best of the Fest screening each winter at the Dryden Theatre.

Film Submissions:

• Accepts direct submissions
• Submission formats: VHS, Beta-SP, 16mm, 35mm, DVD
• Call for Entry: http:/ / www.rochesterfilmfest.org/ page3/ page3.html