ONLINE - LIVE VIRTUAL EVENT | OCTOBER 24, 2026 | REGISTER
The Firebreak Fear Festival is a live virtual short-film festival celebrating Fear, Fantasy, Future & Folklore.
Created by Mystic Scribe Studios, Firebreak brings together independent filmmakers, storytellers, and audiences for a day of short films, filmmaker conversations, panels, and awards. Our goal is to create a welcoming space for imaginative independent storytelling and the creators behind it.
The Firebreak Fear Festival exists to create a stage for emerging, independent, and student filmmakers to share their work, build meaningful connections, learn from fellow creators and industry professionals, and continue growing in their craft. We believe a film festival should be more than a place to screen films. It should be a place where filmmakers find community, exchange ideas, develop their voices, and discover opportunities for what comes next.
How the Festival Works
Firebreak Fear Festival is a live virtual film festival celebrating independent storytelling across Fear • Fantasy • Future • Folklore.
Filmmakers submit their short film in the category that best represents their work. Each eligible submission will be reviewed by members of the Firebreak festival team, with selected films becoming part of our Official Selection and programmed for screening during the festival.
Submission Basics
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Films must be 30 minutes or less, including credits.
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Each film should be submitted in one category: Fear, Fantasy, Future, or Folklore.
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Films should be appropriate for a general teen-and-adult audience, roughly consistent with PG-13 content.
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Films containing explicit sexual content, graphic nudity, or excessive strong language may not be accepted.
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Films not in English must include English subtitles.
If Your Film Is Selected
Official Selections will be featured as part of the live virtual Firebreak Fear Festival. In addition to film screenings, the festival will include filmmaker conversations, interviews, panels, and opportunities to connect with other creators.
Selected films will be eligible for festival awards chosen by our judging team, as well as the Audience Choice Award.
Firebreak is about more than showing great films. We want to create a space where emerging, independent, and student filmmakers can showcase their work, make connections, exchange ideas, and continue growing in their craft.
Choose Your Firebreak
Every story has a place at Firebreak. Choose the one category that best represents the heart of your film.
FEAR
The things that haunt us, hunt us, or make us afraid to turn off the lights. Horror, suspense, psychological terror, dark thrillers, monsters, ghosts, slashers, and stories that simply leave us wonderfully unsettled.
FANTASY
Magic lives here. Mythical worlds, supernatural adventures, strange creatures, impossible places, enchanted objects, and stories that ask us to believe in something beyond the ordinary.
FUTURE
What happens next? Science fiction, space, artificial intelligence, technology, dystopian and utopian worlds, alternate realities, speculative stories, and visions of futures we might want to visit—or desperately hope never arrive.
FOLKLORE
The stories we carry with us. Legends, cultural tales, folk horror, cryptids, mythology, oral traditions, regional mysteries, and the old stories that somehow keep finding their way into the present.
One film. One category. Choose the Firebreak that feels most like home.
Awards & Recognition
Every film selected for Firebreak becomes part of our Official Festival Selection and will receive an official Firebreak Fear Festival selection laurel.
From the Official Selection, films will also be considered for our festival awards.
Festival Awards
Best of Festival - Our top overall recognition, selected from the films presented at Firebreak.
Best Fear - Outstanding film in the Fear category.
Best Fantasy - Outstanding film in the Fantasy category.
Best Future - Outstanding film in the Future category.
Best Folklore - Outstanding film in the Folklore category.
Craft & Performance Awards
The Firebreak judging team may also recognize outstanding work in areas such as:
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Directing
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Writing
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Acting
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Cinematography
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Editing
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Sound & Music
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Other achievements deserving special recognition
These awards may be presented across the festival rather than within each individual category.
Audience Choice
The filmmakers aren't the only people who get a say.
During the festival, our audience will have the opportunity to vote for the film that connected with them most. The film receiving the highest audience vote will receive the Firebreak Audience Choice Award.
A Note About Awards
Awards are based on the strength and number of eligible films submitted and selected in each category. Firebreak Fear Festival reserves the right not to present an award in a category when there are not enough qualifying selections to support a meaningful competition.
Additional awards or special recognitions may also be presented at the discretion of the festival judging and programming teams.
Submission Guidelines
Before you send your film into the Firebreak, here's what you need to know.
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Films must have been completed in 2025 or 2026.
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Films must be 30 minutes or less, including credits.
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Each film must be submitted in one category: Fear, Fantasy, Future, or Folklore.
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Films should be appropriate for a general teen-and-adult audience, roughly consistent with PG-13 content.
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Films containing explicit sexual content, graphic nudity, or excessive strong language may not be accepted.
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Films may be submitted from any country.
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Films not in English must include English subtitles.
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Previously screened or released films are welcome. Firebreak does not require premiere status.
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Submitters must own the film or have authorization from the rights holder to submit it for consideration and festival exhibition.
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Filmmakers will be asked to identify any potentially sensitive or intense content that may be helpful for our review and programming teams to know.
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Initial submissions must include a working private screening link and password, if required. Screening links must remain accessible throughout the review period.
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Selected filmmakers will be asked to provide a festival-ready MP4 screening file and requested promotional materials.
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Submission does not guarantee selection into the Firebreak Fear Festival.
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Submission fees are non-refundable.
Submission Fee: $20
Submission Deadline: October 16, 2026
Festival Date: October 24, 2026 - TIME TBD
Submission Fee — $20
Firebreak Fear Festival was created to give emerging, independent, and student filmmakers an accessible place to share their work, connect with other creators, and continue growing their craft. We want our submission fee to reflect that commitment.
The $20 submission fee helps support the costs of producing and promoting the festival, including marketing, festival technology and operations, filmmaker programming, awards, and the overall event experience. Keeping the fee affordable is important to us, particularly for the community of filmmakers Firebreak was created to serve. Every submission helps us build a festival designed not only to showcase independent films, but to support and celebrate the people making them.
(All submission fees are non-refundable)
Rules & Terms
By submitting a film to the Firebreak Fear Festival, the submitter acknowledges and agrees to the following:
1. Submission Authority
The person submitting the film must own the film or have permission and authority from the appropriate rights holder(s) to submit the film to the Firebreak Fear Festival.
The submitter is responsible for ensuring that all necessary rights, licenses, releases, and permissions have been obtained for material contained in the film, including music, performances, images, footage, and other copyrighted or protected material.
2. Eligibility
Films must meet the eligibility requirements published by the Firebreak Fear Festival, including requirements related to completion date, runtime, content, language/subtitles, and submission category.
Films must have been completed during 2025 or 2026 and must be 30 minutes or less, including credits.
Each film should be submitted in one category: Fear, Fantasy, Future, or Folklore.
Firebreak does not require premiere status. Films that have previously screened at other festivals, events, or online may be submitted unless otherwise restricted by another agreement held by the filmmaker.
3. Content Guidelines
Films should be appropriate for a general teen-and-adult audience and roughly consistent with PG-13 content.
Films containing explicit sexual content, graphic nudity, excessive strong language, or other material determined to fall outside the festival's content guidelines may not be accepted.
Submitters are asked to identify potentially sensitive or intense material through the Content Advisory portion of the submission form.
The Firebreak Fear Festival reserves the right to determine whether a submission is appropriate for the festival and its audience.
4. Review & Selection
Submission does not guarantee acceptance or screening at the Firebreak Fear Festival.
Eligible films will be reviewed through the festival's established review and programming process. Selection decisions are made by the Firebreak Fear Festival programming team.
Films selected for screening will become part of the festival's Official Selection.
The festival is not obligated to provide individual feedback, scores, judging notes, or explanations regarding selection decisions.
5. Submission Fees
All submission fees are non-refundable, including for films that are not selected for the festival.
A submission fee does not guarantee selection, screening, nomination, or an award.
6. Screening Permission
By submitting a film, the submitter grants the Firebreak Fear Festival permission to privately access and screen the film for eligibility review, programming, and judging purposes.
If the film is selected as part of the Official Selection, the submitter grants the Firebreak Fear Festival permission to exhibit the film as part of the scheduled live virtual festival event.
Selected filmmakers will be asked to provide an appropriate festival-ready screening file and any additional technical materials required for presentation.
The filmmaker retains ownership and copyright of the film.
7. Promotional Permission
By submitting a film, the submitter authorizes the Firebreak Fear Festival and Mystic Scribe Studios to use submitted promotional materials—including the film title, poster, still images, filmmaker names, synopsis, trailer or teaser, and other approved promotional materials—for purposes related to promoting the film and the festival.
Promotional use may include the Firebreak Fear Festival and Mystic Scribe Studios websites, social media, festival programs, press materials, trailers, announcements, and other festival-related promotion.
This permission does not transfer ownership of the filmmaker's materials to Firebreak Fear Festival or Mystic Scribe Studios.
8. Awards & Recognition
Official Selection does not guarantee an award.
Festival awards will be determined through the Firebreak Fear Festival judging process. Audience Choice recognition will be determined through audience voting.
Awards may not be presented in every category if the number or quality of eligible selections does not support a meaningful competition.
The festival may also present additional craft awards or special recognition at the discretion of the judging and programming teams.
9. Filmmaker Participation
Selected filmmakers may be invited to participate in interviews, Q&As, panels, filmmaker conversations, promotional features, or other festival activities.
Participation in these activities is encouraged but is not required unless otherwise communicated as a condition of a particular program or event.
10. Communication & Privacy
Contact information collected through the submission process will be used to administer submissions and communicate important festival information, including submission status, selection notifications, screening requirements, schedules, and festival participation opportunities.
Firebreak Fear Festival and Mystic Scribe Studios may also contact submitters regarding relevant festival news, future events, or opportunities. Recipients may opt out of promotional communications while continuing to receive communications necessary to administer an active festival submission.
Personal contact information will not be sold to third parties.
11. Festival Changes
The Firebreak Fear Festival reserves the right to make reasonable changes to festival scheduling, programming, screening order, awards, event format, or other festival operations when circumstances require.
Any significant change affecting an Official Selection will be communicated to the appropriate filmmaker or submitter.
12. Acceptance of Rules
By submitting a film to the Firebreak Fear Festival, the submitter confirms that the information provided is accurate, that they have the authority necessary to submit the film, and that they have read and agree to the festival's published Rules & Terms.
READY TO ENTER THE FIREBREAK?
Bring us your Fear. Your Fantasy. Your Future. Your Folklore.
SUBMIT YOUR FILM
$20 Submission Fee • Up to 30 Minutes • 2025–2026 Films
