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Submission Rules & Terms

All films must be written, directed, and/or produced by local Georgia Film Students and filmed in the state of Georgia. All students must be enrolled in High Schools, Colleges, and Universities located in the state of Georgia and/or must be within two years of graduation.

Non college matriculating filmmakers who are more than two years post high school graduation should submit to the college student category.

Middle School students are welcome to apply. Submit to the High School Category. Please specify in your submission that you are a middle school student.

Graduate students are welcome to submit to the college category, but to ensure fairness in selections, we request that graduate students specify that they are graduate students in their submissions. Grad Students will compete for Best Graduate Student Film. Graduate school grads may submit to the graduate category but only with films completed while in grad school.

All films need to have been completed while students were attending high school or college/university, or within three years of graduation. Exceptions can be made for films made within 4 years of high school graduation of the filmmaker has not gone on to attend a college or university.

To eliminate confusion, the “Thriller” category has been eliminated. Thriller Films should be submitted to the best and most appropriate category for their project (Ex: an Action Thriller should be submitted to Action; a Dramatic Thriller to Drama; a Horror Thriller to Horror”).

Shorts must be Under 20 minutes. Featurettes must be UNDER 60 minutes. Features must be UNDER 100 minutes in length.

No X rated or films with graphic sex scenes will be permitted. We are not accepting experimental films at this time.

For all awards, the student film maker or a representative from their film must be present to receive the award for the film. If no representative is available, the award may be presented to students in attendance. We are working to connect with local hotels to get discounted pricing for rooms for out of town guests. Please stay tuned.

New Rules & Updates for 2026

Please be sure to provide contact information and respond to communications from Georgia Student Film Showcase. We will primarily communicate through Film Freeway emails in the weeks leading up to the event. This includes getting RSVPs for attendees and their guests and providing our personal contact information in case any issues arise and a filmmaker needs to reach out to one of the organizers.

Our goal is to showcase as many films from young Georgia Filmmakers as possible. If there is is a large number of submissions that exceeds our current available theater slots, we may add additional dates to the showcase films. This is contingent on theater availability. If the theater is not available, some films may not be screened at this years showcase. Priority will be given to those who submit at early bird and regular deadlines and to those whose films are exceptionally high quality from the late deadline submissions.

All films must have accompanying posters in VERTICAL (Poster) orientation prior to festival announcement date. This can be done FOR FREE in CANVA. If anyone needs assistance creating one, they can feel free to reach out to us for a tutorial.

All films must have clear audio and video. It does not need to be perfect. We understand that everyone is a student and that wind disturbance and outside noises can occur in student productions, but our audience must be able to see and hear what is going on in the films. Movies with excessive audio or video disturbance may be rejected from the festival.

Please note: Davinci Resolve offers free editing software. We understand that not everyone has access to computers that can run editing software. Films edited in Capcut or other free platforms that leave watermarks on final versions of films will NOT be rejected. We just wanted to let everyone know that free editing software is available.

To Submit visit us on Film Freeway

Click the image above or go to: https://filmfreeway.com/GeorgiaStudentFilmShowcase

Submission Dates & Pricing:

Submissions Open: March 1, 2026
Early Bird (All): March 31st, 2026
Regular Deadline (All): August 1st, 2026
Late Deadline (All): October 1st, 2026

Middle School, High School, & Recent High School Grads
Early Bird $5 Regular Submission: $10 Late Submission: $15

College, Grad School, & Recent College Grads
Early Bird $7.50 Regular Submission: $15 Late Submission: $20