RULES AND TERMS
The Ann Arbor Film Festival is open to experimental films as well as films that demonstrate a high regard for the moving image as an experimental art form, no matter the genre. Each year the AAFF selects 100-145 shorts and features for exhibition in the awards competition portion of the festival.
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Films previously submitted may not be re-entered unless there has been a significant change to the edit. Later versions of a film may be reviewed and/or selected at the programmer's discretion.
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Short and feature-length entries are accepted.
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Short films run no longer than 60 minutes. Feature films run 60 minutes or more.
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Entries not in English should have English subtitles.
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Works in progress may be submitted, but are juried in the same pool as all other submissions.
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Work must be contemporary - completed within the last three years.
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Entry fees are per film entered, and must accompany the entry form for confirmation. Entry fees are non-refundable.
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Make checks and money orders payable to the Ann Arbor Film Festival.
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The Ann Arbor Film Festival does not give waivers or discounts.
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Entries are accepted via secure online screening and 16mm only. We do not accept DVD, VHS or video data files for screening purposes.
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16MM
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If you would like the festival to preview a 16mm print of your film, please contact the festival directly at submissions@aafilmfest.org to make arrangements.
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FREE
JUROR SCREENINGS
Wednesday, March 27
Juror Presentation | Bryan Konefsky | 1pm
Happiness Is a Warm Projector: Films by Bryan Konefsky
Michigan Theater Screening Room
For years, Bryan Konefsky’s moving-image work has struggled with the discomfort of being a citizen-consumer within the trajectory of the United States’s bankrupt history of spiritual righteousness, entitlement, and hubris. The structure of these cinematic interventions often takes the form of essay films, or what Mis ALT screening series curator Tessa Siddle characterizes as “conversations with the mirror.” At their worst, these works could be categorized as solipsistic. At their best, these short films consider what filmmaker Trinh Minh-ha describes as the value of storytelling as history.
Thursday, March 28
Juror Presentation | Stacey Steers | 1pm
Stacey Steers: Animation and Surrealism
Michigan Theater Screening Room
Stacey Steers presents four short animated films spanning 20 years of process-focused filmmaking. In her handmade films, Steers experiments with new forms of animation in the surrealist tradition, using found footage in a novel way to create provocative narratives. Her mesmerizing films move with a stream-of-consciousness fluidity and summon disquieting dreamscapes drawn from allegory, myth, and archetype.
Friday, March 29
Juror Presentation | Akosua Adoma Owusu | 1pm
Triple Consciousness: Films by Akosua Adoma Owusu
Michigan Theater Screening Room
The politics of representation depends on dismantling monolithic, reductive, and "Western"-centric renderings of exoticism and otherness in identities. This presentation looks at work by filmmaker Akosua Adoma Owusu, whose films addresses a collision of identities, where the African immigrant located in the United States has a triple consciousness. This third identity—or consciousness—of the African immigrant transitions between avant-garde cinema, fine art, and African tradition to complicate the nature of identity. Owusu's documentary essay and experimental film work ranges with its varied use of archival material, direct animation, and staged scenes to examine the construction of historical memory and cultural identity.
OFF THE SCREEN!
Offering free events, installations, and performances during festival week. Don't miss out! Click here for artists and schedules.
PENNY W. STAMPS DISTINGUISHED SPEAKER SERIES
Thursday, March 28
Meow Wolf | 5:10pm
Michigan Theater Main Auditorium | Free
The speaker series presents the Meow Wolf Collective, represented by two of its members: Chris Cloud and Morgan Capps, who is co-director of the film Meow Wolf: Origin Story (see Midnight Movie, Friday 3/29). Founded in 2008 as an art collective for DIY artists in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Meow Wolf creates immersive, multimedia experiences that transport audiences of all ages into fantastic realms of storytelling. Housed in a converted bowling alley, Meow Wolf welcomes members of the general public into their fantastical world of art installations, video and music production, and extended reality content. Meow Wolf’s House of Eternal Return is a unique art experience featuring an astonishing new form of non-linear storytelling that unfolds through exploration, discovery, and 21st-century interactivity to inspire visitors of all ages. The wildly imaginative art space involves more than 100 collaborating local artists who together create a distinctive combination of children’s museum, art gallery, jungle gym, and fantasy novel. The group’s 2018 independent documentary film, Meow Wolf: Origin Story, takes viewers through the meteoric rise of the penniless, anarchic art collective as it attracted the support of author George R.R. Martin (Game of Thrones), morphing into a multimillion dollar corporation in just a few short years.
Morgan Capps’s documentary storytelling has ranged in subject matter from the lives of coal miners struggling against a shifting economy in Appalachia to Native American food movements taking root across the U.S. After moving to Santa Fe in 2015, Capps quickly fell in love with the motley crew at Meow Wolf and later joined the team as a film director for Meow Wolf’s entertainment projects.
Chris Cloud is the marketing director at Meow Wolf. Cloud is also an artist, curator, cultural developer, and former fixture in Minneapolis’s creative milieu. He was the co-founder of MPLS.TV, an online do-it-together video network; MPLSzine, a submissions-based digital publication; and Pizza Camp, an overnight camp for pizza-loving adults.