Festival Internacional de Cine de Ponferrada (23)

Festival start: 02 October 2025      Festival end: 10 October 2025

The Ponferrada International Film Festival is an event specialized in the dissemination and promotion of short films from all over the world, regardless of their production format, distribution, exhibition, category, genre, or theme.

Short films, in addition to being a learning resource for new professionals in the film industry and a promotional tool for making the leap to feature films, can also be a highly creative and free form of expression, storytelling, and experimentation, independent of the market.

We are also committed to highlighting films that, regardless of their length, reflect the cultural, social, and linguistic diversity of any region of the world as part of the memory of peoples and the most unknown universal audiovisual heritag

Cash Prizes: 3,100€

- Retina National Short Looks + € 1,000 and trophy for the best national short film.

- Retina International Short Looks + € 1,000 and trophy for the best international short film.

- Film Schools Award + € 500 for the best short film conducted by students from any school in the world that teaches cinematographic or audiovisual studies, organized in collaboration with the Local Youth Council of Ponferrada.

- Accesits See To Educate 2025 and € 200 to each of the short films of the “See to educate 2025” program that stand out for their values education in values.

- Special Mentions to the best director, actress, actor, etc. of the finalist short films in the official sections to competition.

- Tribute and Special Retina to the person or entity that has stood out for its contribution to cinematographic and audiovisual diffusion.

TERMS OF PARTICIPATION
23nd INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL PONFERRADA

1) FESTIVAL DESCRIPTION

The Ponferrada Film Festival is an event specialized in the dissemination and promotion of short films from all over the world, regardless of their production, distribution, exhibition format, category, genre, or theme.

Short films, in addition to being a learning resource for new professionals in the film industry and a promotional vehicle for making the leap to feature films, can also be a highly creative and free form of expression, storytelling, and experimentation, independent of the market.

We are also committed to highlighting films that, regardless of their length, reflect the cultural, social, and linguistic diversity of any region of the world as part of the memory of peoples and the most unknown universal audiovisual heritage.

The 23rd edition of the Ponferrada International Film Festival will be held from October 2 to 10, 2025, with complementary activities during the last quarter of 2025.

The "My Retina Deceives Me" Association is the organizing entity of this event, with the Ponferrada City Council as its main collaborator.

2) SECTIONS

OFFICIAL SECTIONS TO CONTEST

Fiction, documentary, animation or experimental short film from every country or nationality that comply with any of the thematic contents of each section and the corresponding participation requirements.

OS1) Short Looks. National Short Film Contest. Production short films and/or Spanish direction may participate. Free theme.

OS2) Short Looks. International Short Film Contest. Foreign production short films made anywhere in the world may participate. Free theme.

OS3) Film Schools. International School Short Film Contest. Short films carried out by students from any school in the world that teach cinematographic or audiovisual studies of any kind may participate. Free theme

PARALLEL SECTIONS

They can participate or be invited by the organization short films, feature films or audiovisual fiction, documentary, animation or experimental films from any country or nationality that reflect the cultural, social and linguistic diversity of any region of the world, can participate or be invited by the organization, especially those audiovisual projects shot in the Bierzo or by Bercian authors. Free theme

COMPLEMENTARY ACTIVITIES

They can participate or be invited by the organization short films of fiction, documentary or animation of any country or nationality that comply with any of the thematic contents requested by each programmed complementary activity.

CA1) “SEE TO EDUCATE 2025” PROGRAM Values for children and adolescents can participate or be invited by the organization: Family, housing, education, health, food, play, equality, friendship, solidarity, protection against child labor, respect for the environment, etc.

Online cultural activity organized in collaboration with the Culture Area of Ayto. De Ponferrada and the Interested Ponferrada educational centers. It will be held during the last quarter of the year 2025

The films selected to participate in the "See to Educate 2025" program can only be viewed online in preschool, primary, and secondary schools in Ponferrada. The educational centers will have to register through our email to register them on the Festhometv platform, and to be able to access the contents housed in the Festival's private video library. After viewing in the classrooms, students will participate in the proposed educational activities (School Drawing Contest) and will be public in www.verparaeducar.miretina.org

3) PARTICIPATION REQUIREMENTS

- Films shot in any format and produced after January 1st 2024.

- The maximum duration of the short films or audiovisuals participating in the official sections may not exceed 30 minutes.

- The films shot in the Bierzo or by Bercian authors can only register in the parallel sections of the festival, because all the prizes of the official sections are voted by the public.

- Films shot in a language different from Spanish must show Spanish subtitles, preferably with a file in SubRip (SRT) format.

- Films can only participate in one section.

- Participating works cannot have been entered or screened in previous editions of the Festival or premiered in movie theaters or venues in Ponferrada.

- The organization reserves the option of declaring any of the different sections of the competition void, if the films received do not meet the minimum technical quality required by our festival.

- The contestants will be solely responsible for ensuring that their video does not violate the rights of third parties in terms of image, graphic material, music and authorship of a work. The organization will be exempt from any responsibility.

- Under no circumstances will those short films or audiovisual works that threaten the honor of a group, include discriminatory material and/or violate the rights or dignity of individuals be accepted.

4) REGISTRATION

The submission of the works that participate in the official sections and complementary activities must be carried out exclusively online through the Festhome platform (www.festhome.com) It will be mandatory to upload as attachments: technical/ artistic sheet, the poster, 2 frames of the film and a photograph of the director. It is recommended to send a promotional trailer.

Those films that want to participate in the parallel sections, in addition to being able to do it through Festhome, can also register and send the works through any online platform (WeTransfer, Dropbox, Google Drive, Vimeo, etc.) to our e-mail (info@ponferradafilmfestival.com).
Registration in these sections does not mean the screening of these films in the schedule of the Festival, but they will be checked by a Committee which will decide the selected works.

The deadline for submissions will end on May 31, 2025.

5) SELECTION PROCCESS

Every section will have a selection committee that will decide the finalists from among all the works and the respective categories. The decision of the selection committees will not be open to appeal.

From August 15 the organizers will inform the selected participants about the decision through the e-mail address they have supplied in the application form in the corresponding section containing personal information or datasheet of each film.

The organizers can change the section of the selected film when it deems convenient.

The selected films will appear in the magazine or the official program and on the Festival website (www.ponferradafilmfestival.com).

All the selected films will have to upload before September 15 a trailer and a screening copy in HD file with the codec H264 and minimum resolution of 1920x1080 -1080p- in .mov or .mp4 format to Festhome (www.festhome.com)

The screening copies, screeners, and trailers submitted by the selected participants will remain the property of the organization and will be incorporated into the Festival's audiovisual archive. They may be used for non-profit cultural screenings in collaboration with other organizations.

The producers of all selected works authorize the use of the requested trailer or a fragment thereof (maximum 3 minutes) for dissemination as informational and promotional material on all media used by the Festival (cinemas, public screenings, television, internet, etc.).

In case of any queries or doubts, please e-mail us at: info@ponferradafilmfestival.com

6) AWARDS

- Retina National Short Looks + € 1,000 and trophy for the best national short film.

- Retina International Short Looks + € 1,000 and trophy for the best international short film.

- Film Schools Award + € 500 for the best short film conducted by students from any school in the world that teaches cinematographic or audiovisual studies, organized in collaboration with the Local Youth Council of Ponferrada.

- Accesits See To Educate 2025 and € 200 to each of the short films of the “See to educate 2025” program that stand out for their values education in values.

- Special Mentions to the best director, actress, actor, etc. of the finalist short films in the official sections to competition.

- Tribute and Special Retina to the person or entity that has stood out for its contribution to cinematographic and audiovisual diffusion.

All awards will be voted by the public attending the projections, except the mentions, accesits and the tribute that will be granted for the organization of the Festival, the corresponding selection committees or jurors.

The Retina awards will receive a representative trophy of the Festival (a ceramic piece simulating a Retina) that will be sent by post to their corresponding addresses.

All the award-winning works in the official sections will receive a diploma and a laurel of recognition that proves their status as winners of the Festival.

All the finalist works of the official, parallel and complementary sections will receive a laurel of recognition that proves their status as selected in the Festival.

The organization reserves the right to award other awards in consideration of the artistic and technical quality of the works presented.

On Friday, October 10, 2025, the closing gala of the festival will be held where all awards and mentions will be communicated, in addition to paying tribute to the person or entity chosen with the projection of any of their most emblematic works.

The prize money will be paid by bank transfer to the individual or legal entity that owns the film, and is subject to the withholdings established by current law. Furthermore, the prize money may be modified or cancelled depending on the agreements reached with the main collaborating entity (Ponferrada City Council) and other sponsors before the Festival (October 2, 2025).

The Festival will not pay any financial amount to the authors or those responsible for the works selected in the parallel sections for their exhibition on the festival dates.

7) ACCEPTANCE OF RULES AND REGULATIONS

The participation in this Festival implies the acceptance of the rules and regulations explained above. If any relevant piece of information is missing from the application form or the material attached to it or if deadlines are not met, the piece of work will not participate in the Festival. Any kind of incident that arises before or during the festival will be taken care of in the way the organization finds most appropriate.