Winter Film Festival

New York City's Winter Film Festival (WFF) is a volunteer-run and operated celebration of the diversity of local and international film-making. We showcase creative fresh voices from emerging filmmakers worldwide in all genres and lengths – feature length and shorts, narrative fiction, documentary, animation, horror, web series and music videos.

Our mission is to promote diversity, bridge the opportunity divide and provide a platform for under-represented artists and a variety of genres, viewpoints and approaches. We believe that only by seeing others’ stories can we understand each other and only via an open door can the underrepresented artist enter the room.

We pride ourselves on our diverse collection of Festival selections, allowing our audience to enjoy films they normally wouldn’t think to seek out. For the 2026 Festival, 103 films from 27 countries were selected including 20 student films and 34 first-time filmmakers. Filmmakers come from 27 countries; half of the films were created by women, half created by people of color and 25% created by New Yorkers.

Works of all genres, forms, and lengths are considered. All selected films are screened at REGAL Union Square Cinemas in New York City on Screen 1 (70 seats) or Screen 2 (130 seats). For additional information about Winter Film Festival, our selection process and what we look for, visit https://winterfilmfest.org/about-us/faq/

The Festival includes film screenings with director Q&A, educational panels, professional development workshops and industry networking after-parties, and concludes with a glittering awards ceremony .

Outstanding work will be awarded for each category, along with Best Director, Best Student Film and Best NYC Film.

Winter Film Festival is thrilled to be included in Film Festival Alliance’s Film Festival Directory, a comprehensive list of more than one hundred reputable film festivals committed to upholding the newly established best practices for professional film festivals. Explore the directory to read through our profile and learn more about our fellow member festivals, their programming philosophies, and more here: https://bit.ly/FFADirectory

WFF is a minority- and women-owned registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization. We work with all local NYC film schools, colleges, arts high schools and many cultural societies.