The 18th Kerry Film Festival will take place from October 19th to 22nd, 2017, and is now inviting filmmaker entries for short films in categories such as Best Irish Narrative, Best International Narrative, Best Original Score, Best Documentary, Best Student, Best Animated Film and Best Kerry Connection. For the first time, the Kerry Film Festival is accepting submissions for Feature Films to screen at the festival in 2017.

KFF has previously featured successful shorts such as the Oscar® short-listed “Head over Heels” and Oscar® winner “Mr Hublot” and 2016 Oscar® winner “STUTTERER”. Four short films that screened at KFF in 2016 were nominated for the IFTA awards in 2017.

Filmmakers will have the chance for their work to be seen by a prestigious panel of adjudicators which has in recent years included Academy Award winner Benjamin Cleary, Directors Lenny Abrahamson and Paul Greengrass and Producer Finola Dwyer.

KFF 2016 saw the introduction of the Short Film Market in Killarney which brought industry speakers and guests including Sundance Grand Jury prize winner, Jim Cummings to the festival.

Closing date for submissions to the 2017 competition is July 14th 2017.

Artistic Director of the Kerry Film Festival, Maeve McGrath said, “We are now accepting short film submissions under 20 minutes long and for the first time, KFF are accepting feature film submissions. The festival has recognized the increased production of feature films by national and international independent filmmakers and we are keen to provide a platform for screening these films”