Submission & Content Guidelines

The basics

• Submissions stay open until one hour before showtime. The earlier you submit, the better your odds - a night fills through the week, and once a Friday is full new entries join its waitlist. Future Fridays are always open via the calendar.
• One premiere slot per artist per week, subject to the exceptions below.
• Pick the Friday that suits you - if a slot frees up on a full night, the waitlist is the first place we look.

What happens after you submit

You can follow every step live under My submissions - there is no need to wait on an email to know where you stand. Each submission moves through five stages:

• Submitted - received. An editor reviews it and places it into a Friday lineup. Scheduling runs through the festival week, so a few quiet days is normal and does not mean your video was overlooked.
• Scheduled - your video has a place in a specific Friday's running order. At this point we ask you to confirm you can premiere on that date, from My submissions. Please confirm promptly - an unconfirmed slot may be released to the waitlist.
• Confirmed - you are locked in. Nothing further is needed from you.
• Verified - we have checked your link and details. Your slot is set for premiere night.
• Premiered - your video has aired. It lives on in the Showcase and the night's playlist, and the whole night can be replayed any time.

If a small change is needed before we can place a video, we return it with a note - edit it from My submissions and it resubmits automatically. We also email you at the key steps; please check your spam folder, and contact hello@freshfridayfestival.com for anything else rather than DMing staff about status. If you already have premieres in the FFF archive under your artist name, you can link them from your Profile - claim your artist, and once approved your back-catalogue appears under My submissions too.

Secondary slots

Each artist may apply for one premiere slot per week. The following exceptions apply:

• Short films over 9 minutes may request two consecutive 10-minute premiere slots in the same week.
• Collaborations - you may hold one solo premiere and one collaboration premiere in the same week, provided they are different videos. Your collaborator may do the same.
• Personas - you may premiere one video under your main identity and one under a clearly distinct persona in the same week, provided the persona differs meaningfully in style, sound, and appearance.
• The same video may not be premiered twice. An artist may not take two solo slots in the same week.

The Fresh Friday Festival is an open platform. We are not here to police art, and we do not impose a conservative standard on what belongs in creative work. Sex, romance, sensuality, horror, gore, and violence can all serve a purpose - and we programme them when they do.

What we are curating is a space with integrity. That means content is assessed not just on what it contains but on how it is framed. The same subject matter can be meaningful in one context and gratuitous in another. We make that distinction, and we reserve the right to decline work that does not meet this standard.

Framing is everything

We assess intent through framing. A violent scene that builds tension or serves a narrative reads differently from one that exists for spectacle. A sexual scene that develops character reads differently from one designed purely to titillate. If a piece reads as endorsement of harm, exploitation, or hatred - regardless of intent - it will be declined.

If your work includes difficult themes for artistic reasons - satire, critique, historical portrayal, documentary context - make that framing clear in your submission. The context field exists for this purpose. If we cannot tell, we may ask, or we may decline.