Film at your smart fingertips

Nowadays all you need is your smart phone and a vision and you too could see your film featuring in the annual Dublin Smartphone Film Festival.

Now entering its fourth year running, the unique festival showcases the works of filmmakers from all over the world who used only their smartphone or tablet to capture their footage.

This year’s festival will take place online and will feature more than 200 entries from 25 different countries.

Awards categories include Best Fiction, Music video, Documentary, Animation, and Best Irish. All entries are restricted to no longer than 15 minutes in length.

The festival was founded by Robert Fitzhugh, a filmmaker who has previously worked for the Reel World Film Festival in Canada and more recently as part of the PR and marketing team for the Fingal Film Festival.

“We just could not believe the success of the festival in the past three years,” says Robert. “We sell out each year before the doors even open. It really demonstrated to us just how popular the notion of smartphone filmmaking has become.”

According to Robert the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns have brought about a period of incredible creativity with people forced to use the tools they have at their disposal to tell stories.

“As a result we have seen an increase in submissions and the quality has moved forward at a phenomenal rate. Despite the situation we all find ourselves in, there has never been a more interesting time to explore Smartphone filmmaking.”

The Dublin Smartphone Film Festival 2021 will take place from 30 January to 6 February and can be viewed on xerb.tv.

Tickets are €5 per screening or €15 for access to all short films.