“Film needs children and young people to keep falling in love with it, and the LYFF is the perfect place for them – always smart and adventurous, never less than fun.” (Danny Leigh)

Leeds Young Film Festival features a programme of the best new and unseen international cinema for young people, as well as classic screenings, moving-image related workshops and masterclasses. Now in its 18th year, the festival welcomes young people and their families to the largest film event of its kind in the north of England.

For the festival’s film programme, we are looking for submissions of family-friendly short and feature films. Every film submitted to this festival through FilmFreeway will receive feedback explaining our programming decision. We believe honest feedback is the best way to support emerging filmmakers.

Short films for children and young people must be suitable for all ages. They may be fiction or documentaries and can be submitted to our Animated Short Film or Live Action Short Film category. Animated short films run for our Audience Short Film Award, while live action short films will be judged by our Young Jury. Both of these two short film competitions award a cash prize of £250 to the winning films.

Feature films for children and young people are an important part of the festival’s programme and are eligible for our prestigious Jury Award.

In order to support emerging filmmakers, all films officially submitted to Leeds Young Film Festival will receive feedback from our programmers, regardless of our programming decision. Submissions can be made through FilmFreeway, the Regular Deadline for submissions is now 30 December 2016.

PS: Your film is not suitable for family audiences? 31^st Leeds International Film Festival, Leeds Young Film Festival’s sister festival, is now open for submissions. Films can be sent to this BAFTA and Academy Awards qualifying festival through FilmFreeway and Withoutabox.