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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AAFF PRESENTS
The Ann Arbor Film Festival announces the 5th season of AAFF Presents, our monthly screening series of feature films from the 61st Ann Arbor Film Festival.
Presented in partnership with the Michigan Theater Foundation, AAFF Presents will take place at 7pm on the second Tuesday of the month from May to November 2023 at the State Theatre (except July 11 at Third Mind Books, Ann Arbor). The July 11 screening at Third Mind Books will be free of charge. AAFF Members will receive an email with a film-specific code to receive free admission to State Theatre screenings.
Free for AAFF Members & MTF Members (MTF Premium levels and above).
$10.50 for Adults, $8.50 for Seniors, Students, and the Military.
May 9
Up the River with Acid
Harald Hutter | France | 2022 | 63 minutes
The film presents two days in the life of Horst, an elderly man whose life has been upended by dementia. Hutter’s father, who worked as a philosophy professor for 42 years, has slowly seen his cognitive abilities decrease and his daily life increasingly difficult to negotiate. Through a series of portraits we observe a man’s attempt to hold on to a rapidly shifting and alien world.
June 13
Diòba
Adriana Marcela Rojas Espitia | Colombia | 2022 | 83 minutes
Elba is an indigenous woman who has lost her roots. She is 63 years old and lives alone in a humble peasant house located inside a forest. Elba is a hermit consumed by her own life. She lives obsessed with a picture hanging in her room; a photo of an indigenous girl on the day of her First Communion. The day arrives when Elba must battle her own delusions, revive them and expel them. This may or may not help her rediscover herself, her essence, her roots.
July 11
Field Trip, Short Films by Jack Cronin
Third Mind Books, Ann Arbor | FREE
Join us for a special AAFF Presents “field trip” to Third Mind Books (118 E. Washington Street, Ann Arbor) for this program of eight short films by artist, filmmaker and educator Jack Cronin. Working in both analog and digital formats, his practice often combines documentary and experimental techniques to explore urban and natural landscapes, the cycles of the seasons, along with poetic interpretations of place.
August 8
Huahua’s Dazzling World and its Myriad Temptations
Daphne Xu | China | 2022 | 82
Huahua, an eccentric and exuberant woman from Xiongan New Area, livestreams herself dancing, singing, and chatting with fans for a living. Cellphone screens, beauty filters, and digital soundscapes reveal a world that Huahua creates with her own image.
September 12
Adieu Sauvage
Sergio Guataquira Sarmiento | Colombia | 2022 | 90 minutes
Winner, Best Documentary, 61st Ann Arbor Film Festival
Since the 2000s, several waves of male suicide have followed one another in the Amerindian population of the Colombian Amazon. The filmmaker discovers that lovesickness is often the cause. Wives leave their husbands for “white” men who think that Indians do not feel anything because they do not express their feelings in the Cacua Language. Is it possible that members of the Cacua community have no feelings and no words to talk about love?
October 10
November 14
Kapr Code
Lucie Králová | Czech Republic | 2022 | 91 minutes
A “documentary opera” reconstructing the life of Jan Kapr (1914-1988), a contradictory Czech composer who was at first a prominent communist, a Stalin Award laureate who was later banned in socialist Czechoslovakia and erased from public memory. Director Lucie Králová starts a philharmonic dialogue with Kapr by mixing newly composed opera songs (written by Jirí Adámek) with Kapr’s never-before-shown private archive, revealing his humor, inner struggles, and desire to leave a mark.
Berbu - The Wedding Parade
Sevinaz Evdike | Syrian Arab Republic | 2022 | 70 minutes
In Serekaniye, a city threatened by war, three young Kurdish women, Gule, Barin, and Naze, are planning the weddings of their dreams. When the first bombs hit the city, they flee Serekaniye while their destiny changes and so do their dreams.