Deadline: 08-Sep-2025
Want to join the largest student-led film festival in the world? Here’s your chance! Apply to become a judge for Watersprite 2026 and watch and rate a number of entries from around the world.
The festival accepts films across four genre categories: Fiction, Documentary, Animation & Experimental. Fiction films often use a narrative to convey a story and involve real people and animals. Documentaries are non-fiction films which concern real-life events, experiences and issues, often told in a journalistic style. Animated films involve a narrative in which more than 75% of the running time involves character and/or abstract animation, which may include cel animation, stop motion, puppetry, CGI, or photorealistic animation. Experimental films are films that break away from traditional cinematic boundaries and conventions. They employ unusual or groundbreaking aesthetic and technical elements, do not follow predictable narrative form, and allow for ambiguity and complexity of thought.
Films can be submitted into one of four genres. Once submitted, the student status of every student on the crew will need to be verified. At least two out of the following three must have been students during film production: Director, Producer & Writer. Films will only be considered for technical awards if the student responsible for that category was a student at the time of production. Filmmakers will need to submit proof of student status shortly after submitting their films on FilmFreeway.
All films must be under 23 minutes in length. Films should be in English or have English subtitles. Watersprite will select up to four nominees for each award. Films are automatically considered for all awards they are eligible for. To qualify for a technical award, a student must have been responsible for that technical category. The winner of the performance award does not need to be a student, but does need to be an amateur.
The genre awards include: Fiction, for the best film submitted to the Fiction genre category; Animation, for the best film submitted to the Animation genre category; Documentary, for the best film submitted to the Documentary genre category; and Experimental, for the best film submitted to the Experimental genre category. Special awards include Film of the Year, which is a head-to-head competition between the winners of the genre awards, Social Impact, for a film with a clear humanitarian subject matter, and the Audience Award, which is voted for by audiences who attend the screenings at the festival.
The technical awards are: Directing (Director must be a student); Screenplay (Writer must be a student); Cinematography (Cinematographer must be a student); Editing (Editor must be a student); Performance (Performer must be an amateur); Production Design (Production Designer must be a student); Sound Design (Sound Designer must be a student); Costume Design (Costume Designer must be a student); and Original Film Music (Composer must be a student). The deadline for submissions is 8 September 2025.
For more information, visit Watersprite Film Festival.
