The Future Gate Festival is the largest sci-fi film festival in the Czech Republic, the twelfth year of which will take place from September 23 to 29, 2025 in the Lucerna cinema in Prague and subsequently in other cities in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The competition of short student films will be held for the fifth time. An international jury will award the three best films, which will receive prizes from the competition partners Biofilms and Canon.

  • – The competition is intended for young filmmakers under 30 years of age or students who can submit both their school work and side projects.
  • – Both feature and animated films with a length of up to 30 minutes will be accepted.
  • – Students can submit their works themselves, but films nominated by the school or selected and approached by us will also be accepted.
  • – The theme is generally sci-fi.
  • – The festival jury selects films in both the main Best Film category and the Best Student Film.
  • – The authors of the best films (the three best will be awarded) will receive services and other material rewards from the competition partners, which can help the students in the realization of their next films. The best of them will also receive our unique festival prize.
  • – The films will be screened in a special section within the main part of the festival in Prague and Brno.
  • – The winners will be announced at a gala evening in Prague, when the jury will determine the best film of the festival.
  • – Films produced after January 1, 2024 can be entered into the competition.
  • – Films can be submitted until June 30, 2025. It is possible to send a preview of the selected film by this date. The Future Gate team will select the competitive films from all submitted films and inform their creators as well as the authors of unsuccessful films.


    Technical specifications for submitting a preview of films:
    – Image: 1920×1080 resolution
    – Sound: Stereo or 5.1
    – Format: MOV or MPEG, e.g. with H264 codec

  • Technical specifications for submitting a film for screening in the competition:
    – DCP, 2K MOV or MP4 with H264 codec – min. bitrate 20Mb/s, stereo or 5.1 sound
    – The film should be English friendly (i.e. in English or with English subtitles in the image).
    – and also contain Czech subtitles in SRT format, if the film is not in Czech.
  • Options for submitting a film to the competition:
    – Register, fill out the form and upload a preview video at www.filmfreeway.com/FutureGate
    – In case of questions or problems, please contact anna@futuregate.cz