San Sebastian International Film Festival

The San Sebastian International Film Festival was founded in 1952. The festival is considered amongst the most prestigious competitive festivals by the FIAPF together with other festivals like Cannes, Venice and Berlin.

Zabaltegi-Tabakalera is San Sebastian Festival’s all-encompassing competitive section, where there are neither rules nor limits as to style or runtime: short, medium-length, feature, fiction, non-fiction or animated films, series, audiovisual installations, future discoveries, and contemporary classics as yet unseen in Spain. This is a section for films daring to try new angles and formats, a truly open and high-risk zone.

All of the films in the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera Section compete for the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera Award coming with 20,000 euros shared between the director (6,000 euros) and distributor of the film in Spain (14,000 euros).

In recent years the Festival has strengthened its commitment to industry activities, particularly focussed on Latin American productions and films in non-hegemonic European languages, and to new talents.

The festival dates: September 19-27, 2025.

The submission deadline:

Submission page.

FIAPF, Academy Qualified Film Festivals upcoming deadlines with short film competitions that are not on the Filmfreeway:

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