Docs on the Spot

The Melbourne Documentary Film Festival (MDFF) team are currently recruiting for the world's best documentaries and video essays to go head-to-head in our film festival competition in Melbourne, Australia in July 2020. We are looking for exclusive World, Australian or Melbourne premieres for feature documentaries to showcase in our competition. Let our 45 media partners, and publicist get behind and help promote YOU and YOUR project Down Under and get just the right momentum and exposure behind your project launch in Australia.

For the 2^nd time we have been ranked #1 Documentary Film Festival in the on Film Daily.  We are unofficially Australia's best indie documentary film festival and proudly independent.

What We Are Looking For:

We want to see your locally and internationally produced Feature, Short, VR documentaries, Video Essays and Documentary Web Series to showcase in our competition in Melbourne, Australia in 2020.

The Hottest Postcode:
Melbourne, Australia has consistently been voted one of the worlds happiest and most liveable cities. Our competition represents a great opportunity and reason to visit Australia. In 2019 we had 41 guests to our festival from overseas and across Australia. This was made possible through a combination of the festival paying for the filmmakers to attend, filmmakers paying for themselves to attend, consulates, embassies and film commissions paying for filmmakers to attend and people crowd funding to attend. The festival is a great networking opportunity.

The Toughest Competition:
Go head-to-head in Melbourne, Australia and test your mettle with the world’s best, and most prestigious documentary film schools and film festivals such as Tribecca, Sundance, Sydney Film Festival, TIFF, Venice Film Festival, American Documentary Film Festival, Raindance, Slamdance, Sheffield Doc Fest, Hot Docs, New Zealand International Film Festival, Traverse City Film Festival Doc NYC, SXSW, CPH:Dox, IDFA, and many more. You're in it to win it.

Make it Australian:                                                                                                                                                                                         The Melbourne Documentary Film Festival is an encouraging and supportive platform for local filmmakers. We commit to playing at least 40% Australian content in our 2020 fest to support the local industry. Screen Australia, Film Victoria, Create NSW, Screen West, Screen QLD, Screen NT, Screen Tasmania, Documentary Australia Foundation, AIDC, and Goodpitch Australia productions are encouraged to apply. MDFF wants to have the very best Australian competition drawing from local industry and indie talent. SBS, NITV and ABC productions are also eligible to apply to compete, provided that the production submitted contains new material and is effectively a director’s cut.

The Best Festival:
MDFF premieres, screens and showcases more quality local Australian and International documentaries each year than any other documentary only film festival in Australia and gives more talented Indie Filmmakers a chance to compete and screen to a big, receptive audience in Melbourne, Australia. The Melbourne Documentary Film Festival is consistently featured on SBS, ABC, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian, Time Out, Concrete Playground, and Weekend Notes and had additional short documentaries featured in Federation Square.

The Melbourne Documentary Film Festival presents a unique opportunity and supportive platform to showcase YOUR documentary Down Under in one of the coolest and most liveable cities in the world - Melbourne, Australia.

In Short:

The Melbourne Documentary Film Festival aims to feature the freshest and most innovative documentaries from around the world, from short docs right through to feature length, award winning films. The Melbourne Documentary Film Festival looks to promote the best quality independent and industry documentaries cinema has to offer.

The Melbourne Documentary Film Festival team looks forward to bringing you a diverse, challenging slate of documentaries that will entertain, educate and inform. So let’s make some Melbourne film history together!