The Slamdance Film Festival will present its 28th edition in a virtual format running from 27 January to 6 February 2022. Click the “Buy Passes” tab to get your festival passes to this year’s festival!

Dedicated to fostering a community for independent emerging artists, the feature competition lineup boasts 23 premieres, including 13 World, 6 North American, and 4 U.S. debuts. Chosen from over 1,124 submissions, this year’s competition lineup hails from all corners of the globe, including Germany, Australia, Iran, Canada, China, Italy, Poland, and the UK among others. All competition films are feature-length, directorial debuts without U.S. distribution, with budgets of less than $1 million USD – a feature that has been unique to Slamdance since its founding in 1995.

As always, all films in the lineup were selected by a team of Slamdance alumni via a blind submission process and are programmed democratically. This year it received 8,168 total submissions, of which 1,579 were features. Narrative Features, Documentary Features and Episodes sections are eligible for the Audience Award while all films and projects are eligible for the George Sparks Spirit of Slamdance Award and the AGBO Fellowship, the former of which is voted upon by filmmakers at the festival.

Due to concerns around the Omicron variant, and for the safety of its staff, filmmakers, and audience, the Slamdance Film Festival will forgo the in-person portion of its hybrid event in Park City, which was scheduled to run January 20-23. Slamdance will continue its virtual festival program with an accessible and robust lineup of virtual screenings, events, and live Q&A’s running January 27-February 6, 2022.

The January 27 start date is a week later than originally planned, which allows the festival team to transition many of the events that were planned for the physical edition to the online format.

“Although we are disappointed that we won’t be able to participate in the communal, in-person experience, we know we can create a unique festival experience for all of our filmmakers through Slamdance’s online platform. We are looking forward to utilizing the expertise we’ve already gained in attracting a global audience, building upon our accessibility goals and pushing the boundaries of what a decentralized festival can be.”

Peter Baxter, Slamdance President and Co-Founder