Submissions for 2027 Open December 1
4 Days / Over 160 World Class Short Films
Submit Your FilmPlay VideoWatch the festival trailer
The San Jose International Short Film Festival is a four-day celebration of world-class short films, held every October at Cinemark’s CineArts Theatre at Santana Row in San Jose, California. MovieMaker Magazine named it one of its “50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee” in 2014, and in 2026 it brought more than 160 shorts from 28 countries to Silicon Valley and Bay Area audiences.
The 18th Annual SJSFF / October 2026!
The 18th Annual San Jose International Short Film Festival brought more than 160 imagination-stretching short films from 28 countries to San Jose over four days, October 22–25, 2026. The films were programmed into nearly 30 screening blocks plus special events, a testament to the creative range of the featured films. They exemplify excellence in every genre from thought-provoking documentaries and dramatic shorts, to world cinema, comedy shorts, entertaining science fiction/horror selections, beautifully-crafted animation, to family-friendly shorts and more.
Silicon Valley’s Oscar-Qualifying Short Film Festival
Every October, the San Jose International Short Film Festival fills CineArts at Santana Row with four days of short films from around the world. The 2026 festival screened more than 160 shorts from 28 countries, from drama, comedy and documentary to animation, sci-fi, horror and family films, with filmmakers on hand for Q&As.
The jury’s Best of the Fest award is Oscar-qualifying, and our winners have gone all the way. Skin (Best of the Fest 2018) and I’m Not a Robot (Best of the Fest 2024) both won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film, and The Queen of Basketball, our 2021 Best Documentary, won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short. The most recent Best of the Fest winners are Ado (2025) and Getar Hero (2026).
Can’t wait for October? More than 270 festival shorts are free to watch in full in our Screening Room, and more than 1,100 films from past festivals have their own pages. Browse past award winners, or submit your short film for 2027 starting December 1.
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