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Cleveland International Film Festival
Thursday, 27 March 2025 until Saturday, 05 April 2025
Oscar-Qualifier:
Best Short Narrative
Best Animated Short Film
The 49th Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF) will take place March 27 - April 5, 2025 in person at Playhouse Square in downtown Cleveland, OH, and online April 6-13, 2025 as part of CIFF49 Streams.
CIFF49 will consist of hundreds of films, post-film conversations and Q&As with filmmakers, balloting, and over $130,000 in cash awards. CIFF Speaks (the organization’s podcast series) will be returning with episodes surrounding and during the Festival.
CIFF is committed to offering screening fees or travel assistance for all feature and short films accepted into the Festival. In a time of many changes, we are happy to report that CIFF continues to be one of the few Academy Award®-qualifying festivals in the world for all three categories of shorts films—live action, animated, and documentary. CIFF accepts films of any runtime, any genre, and from every country.
As always, CIFF will provide written feedback from our Screening Team—a diverse volunteer committee comprised of 175 film enthusiasts assembled from our audience base, ranging from industry professionals to local film students. CIFF is also happy to once again offer submission waivers to any CIFF alum whose current film meets the CIFF49 requirements.
No matter what the future holds, the Cleveland International Film Festival remains dedicated to supporting the work of filmmakers everywhere and uniting our community through the power of film.
For all questions related to submissions, please see our Terms and Conditions or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
We thank you for sharing your films with us!
2025 LGBT films...
Jamaica-born beat poet and LGBTQ+ activist Staceyann Chin was only nine when her mother moved to Montréal. Now raising her own child, Chin attempts to reconcile her...
Voice-of-a-generation comedian Margaret Cho astonishes in this dramedy about Emma, who’s at a crossroads in her life after the recent loss of her dog Tanner, the reemergence...
Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story
For one glorious moment, there was Jackie Shane, a Black, trans soul singer who rose through the 1960s Toronto music scene before seemingly disappearing into thin air....
18-year-old Wellington (aka Baby) is fresh out of juvenile detention and ready to start his life anew, only to find his parents have abandoned him. Now back...
Eden is still picking up the pieces from her brother’s sudden and untimely death when she spots an unknown woman at his funeral—his secret girlfriend. As Eden...
Spoken word performer/Colorado poet laureate Andrea Gibson and their dedicated partner Megan Falley aren’t going to let something like ovarian cancer keep them from living life to...
One of Colorado’s best theater companies is actually tucked away in the tiny mining town of Creede. Initially founded in 1966 to boost a sagging economy, the...
Sam's search for identity gets interrupted by a mysterious neighbourhood fox. Together they embark on a magical journey to the attic to discover the surprising things they...
Griffin is 14, but instead of sneaking sips of hard seltzer with his friends, all he wants to do is stage far-too-mature original plays in his family’s...
Director Sam Feder returns to the transgender focus of his ubiquitous 2020 Netflix hit documentary “Disclosure,” following ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio all the way to the United...
As her storied and rebellious Congressman husband enters his final years, civil rights activist Helen H. McCloskey reflects on their unusual decades-long relationship, the pressure of living...
I’m Not Everything I Want to Be
Libuše Jarcovjáková made a name for herself capturing Prague’s underground LGBTQ+ and nightclub scene that flourished under the noses of Communist Czechoslovakia…and that was just one phase...
Kimberly Reed, CIFF alum and producer of “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson,” returns to the drag scene in this investigative piece on Venus Xtravaganza,...
With the rapid expansion of legal cannabis in the United States, it’s easy to forget that its medicinal purpose was always apparent. Meet Dennis Peron, the queer...
A wounded romantic hunts for the author of a mysterious, “perfect” playlist he believes was made by his soulmate. But only because a medically licensed witch told...
If you’ve listened to the radio anytime over the past 30 years, you’ve heard Linda Perry’s work. Now get an all-access backstage pass to the life of...
Life doesn’t always go as planned. After the death of the family patriarch, mother and child go separate ways to find themselves—she crosses the ocean to pursue...
For the last quarter century, retired schoolteacher Arden Eversmeyer journeyed from Houston across the country to record hundreds of oral "herstories" with a mostly invisible population that...
Lola Arias expands her brand of innovative nonfiction filmmaking (such as her award-winning “Theatre of War”) as female and transgender ex-convicts recreate their time spent behind bars...
The Pacific Ocean is as vast as it is unforgiving, but that wasn’t going to scare away Paralympian and world record-holder Angela Madsen from her dream of...
Sometimes you can have it all. But it takes a world of faith. Documentarian Sandi DuBowski (2001’s “Trembling Before G-d”) follows Amichai Lau-Lavie for over 20 years...
CIFF alum and award-winning documentarian Cristina Costantini (“Science Fair”—CIFF42) returns to Cleveland with another grand nonfiction winner, this time about none other than Sally Ride, the first...
Bailey and Amanda want to have a baby. They’ve got the perfect list of sperm donors lined up and force ranked. There’s just one problem… Their...
In this pulsating and endearing romantic dramedy, screenwriter Michael Doshier stars as a gay singer-songwriter who longs for intimacy. When he meets cute with a married couple...
A revered small-town imam faces a crisis of faith when he must choose between upholding the values of his mosque or protecting the safety and spiritual belonging...
American teen Neelu feels like a fish out of water amidst preparations for her sister’s wedding in Delhi until she forges a brief and unexpected connection with...