A List Of The Best Music Video Festivals Worldwide

Music video festivals can be a great place to find new promotional avenues for your music, alongside inspiration for your next video. Content commissioning platform Radar Creatives share top festivals to enter globally.

___________________________________

Guest post by Caroline Bottomley

We just updated Radar’s popular guide to the best music video festivals and events worldwide.

Since we first created this essential list 5 years ago, about a quarter of the festivals have dropped off the list – but slightly more have sprung up to take their place (including our own fantastic Radar Awards!), giving you a list of over 50 fantastic events that bring you the best in contemporary music video creation.

Awards and nominations are fantastic for picking out and promoting hot directors. Awards and nominations are one of the best door-openers in any creative industry. They’re also great for generating an inner swell of pleasure and a party opportunity. Use this list to find out where your music videos could be nominated and hopefully awarded, to find events near you – and to check out what kind of videos are winning the best awards.

The festivals & events on this list are either purely devoted to music video, or have a track-record of generating diverse entries from up & coming filmmakers. There’s well over a thousand mainstream film festivals which also accept music video and we’ve made an effort to identify which are most interesting to music video filmmakers – if we’ve missed out good ones (as we surely have), please drop us a line and we’ll update.

To check out the wider world of film festivals and to find those other mainstream festivals with a music video element, we recommend https://filmfreeway.com and https://www.withoutabox.com/

Very best, Radar Creatives

_______________________

JANUARY

1. New Jersey Film Festival / USA (New Jersey) / http://njfilmfest.com/

2. Sundance Film Festival / USA (Utah) / http://www.sundance.org/festival/

3. London Short Film Festival / UK (London) / http://shortfilms.org.uk/

4. Apex Short Film & Music Video Fest / USA (Tucson) http://apexfest.org/

5. Rock n Roll Film Festival / Kenya (Nairobi) http://kenyarockfilmfestivaljournal.blogspot.co.uk/

6. Silver Sound Showdown Music + Video Festival / USA (Brooklyn) http://silversoundshowdown.com/

_______________________

FEBRUARY

7. NoisePop / USA (San Francisco) http://www.noisepop.com/2018/

_______________________

MARCH

8. SXSW Film / USA (TEXAS) / http://sxsw.com/film

9. Portland Music Video Festival / USA (Portand) http://www.portlandmusicvideofestival.com/

_______________________

APRIL

10. Bellingham Music Film Festival / USA (nr Seattle) http://bellinghammusicfilmfestival.com/

11. Radar Awards / UK (London) / http://www.radarmusicvideos.com/radar-awardsObviously we're biased, but these are GREAT awards for up & coming directors worldwide, you should enter!

_______________________

MAY

12. LA Music Video Festival / USA (LA) / http://lamvf.com/

13. Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen / Germany (Oberhausen) / http://www.kurzfilmtage.de/

14. ECU Film Festival / France (Paris) / http://www.ecufilmfestival.com/

15. Prism Prize / Canada / http://www.prismprize.com/ * Canadian filmmakers or acts only

16. Music Video Underground / USA (Los Angeles) https://musicvideounderground.wordpress.com/

17. iPhone Film Festival / Worldwide / http://www.iphoneff.com/

18. Berlin Music Video Awards / Berlin / http://www.berlinmva.com/

_______________________

JUNE

19. YDA (Young Director Award) / Cannes (France) / http://youngdirectoraward.com/

20. The Lower East Side Film Festival / USA (NYC) / http://www.lesfilmfestival.com/

21. Clipped Music Video Festival / Australia (Sydney) https://www.clippedfestival.com/

22. Music Shorts / USA (Denver) https://theaudienceawards.com/the-audience-awards/2017-music-shorts-film-festival-46194

23. Las Vegas Film Festival / USA (Las Vegas) / http://lvff.com/

_______________________

JULY

24. Sprockets Music Video Festival / USA (Athens,Georgia) http://filmathens.net/index.php/sprockets_music_videos/

_______________________

AUGUST

25. Oulu Music Festival / Finland / http://www.omvf.net/fi/info/historia/

26. MySoundOfMusic Music Video Festival / Austria – open to german speaking nations only / http://www.mysoundofmusic.at/myward/

_______________________

SEPTEMBER

27. Great Lakes Film Festival / USA (Erie, Pennsylvania) / http://greatlakesfilmfest.com/

28. Sacramento Film & Music Festival / USA (Sacramento, California) / http://www.sacfilm.com/

29. Guam International Film Festival / USA (Guam) / http://www.guamfilmfestival.org/

30. Moondance Film Festival / USA (Boulder, Colorado) / http://moondancefilmfestival.com/

31. Encounters Festival / UK (Bristol) / http://www.encounters-festival.org.uk/

32. Austin Music Video Festival / US (Austin) / http://www.austinmusicvideofestival.com/

33. Kinsale Sharks / Ireland (Kinsale) https://www.kinsalesharks.com/

34. LA Indie Music Festival / USA (LA) / http://laindiefilmfest.com/

_______________________

OCTOBER

35. UK Music Video Awards / UK (London) / http://www.ukmva.com/

36. Woodstock Film Festival / USA (UK) / http://www.woodstockfilmfestival.com/

37. Tucson Film and Music Festival / USA (Arizona, Tucson) / http://tucsonfilmandmusicfestival.com/

38. Other Venice Festival / USA (Venice, California) / http://othervenicefilmfestival.com/index.php

39. Ibiza Music Video Festival / Ibiza / http://ibizamusicvideofestival.com/

40. Nuwave: Music Film Festival / USA (Miami) / http://www.nuwavefilmfest.com/

41. Dublin Short Film & Music Video Festival / Ireland (Dublin) http://www.disfmf.ie/

42. Los Angeles Music Video Festival / USA (Los Angeles) https://www.lamvf.com/

43. A3C Festival / USA (Atlanta) http://www.a3cfestival.com/ hip hop specialist

_______________________

NOVEMBER

44. Soundie / Spain (Barcelona) /http://soundie.es/en/about-soundie/

45. Plural + Youth Video Festival / Worldwide / http://pluralplus.unaoc.org/

46. Aesthetica Short Film Festival / UK (York) / http://www.asff.co.uk/

47. Cork Film Festival / Ireland (Cork) / http://www.corkfilmfest.org/ * Irish filmmakers or acts

48. UK Film Festival / UK (London) / http://ukfilmfestival.com/

49. Render: Vancouver International Music Video Festival / Canada (Vancouver) http://www.renderfestival.com/

50. Bogota Music Video Festival / Columbia (Bogota) http://bogotamvf.com/

_______________________

DECEMBER

_______________________

VARIOUS DATES/ONGOING

51. Zero Film Festival / USA & UK (NYC,LA,London) / https://www.zerofilmfestival.com/

52. Experimental Film & Music Video Festival / Canada (Toronto) https://experimentalfilmfestival.com/ *runs 4 times a year

53. Lift-off Film Festivals / 10 locations worldwide / www.lift-off-festivals.com

54. Bug / UK (London) / http://www.bugvideos.co.uk/ Occasional showcase of the best new music videos worldwide.

This post is brought to you by Radar Creatives. Radar is the biggest & best creative directory of filmmakers, designers & photographers for music marketers worldwide.

Want to post a brief for your next video (or to find a designer or a photographer?) We’d love to hear from you – our service is free, no fee, no %! Post your brief here http://www.radarmusicvideos.com/post-a-brief or contact Heather@radarmusicvideos.com