Submit Your Film

Have you studied or interned abroad with us yet? If not, you’ll need to first apply to one of our 140+ study and intern abroad programs and complete your semester abroad. After you finish your study abroad adventure you’ll be able to participate in our Study Abroad Film Festival!

• Film-Class Produced (No time limit): Submit your film to this category if your film was created in an IES Abroad Film studies or Film Production course.
• Independently Produced (8-minute maximum): Independently produced films are those NOT created in a formal IES Abroad Film course. These films can be stories of personal development and reflection, music videos, explorations of social issues and events in your host country, reenactments, creative shorts, animations, horror films, and more.

We invite IES Abroad alumni since January 2024 to submit up to three short films to our 2026 Study Abroad Film Festival by July 15, 2025.

Think of your unique study abroad story and then get to work on telling it through film! The deadline to submit to the 2026 Study Abroad Film Festival is July 15, 2026, 11:59pm CDT. All films in a foreign language require English subtitles to participate in the Festival, and each participant can submit up to three films. Films are submitted through FilmFreeway, the world's #1 way to enter film festivals and creative contests.

Submit Your Film

Out of a pool of Semi-Finalists, our jury will select the top three student films for public voting on the basis of capturing the spirit of study abroad, production quality, entertainment, and originality.

These three Finalists will each be awarded $500 for their films, and the Grand Prize Winner, decided by a public vote, will receive an additional $1,000.

Meet the Jury