DepicT! is Encounters Film Festival’s super-short filmmaking competition. Can you do it in 90 seconds?

Submissions are now open for 2026! Visit the main Encounters Film Festival submissions page on FilmFreeway for more info and to submit now.

Depict has been part of the Encounters Film Festival since 1999, when it launched as a challenge to filmmakers to tell a complete story in 90 seconds or less. That constraint, absurdly tight and endlessly inventive, has proved consistently revealing, attracting entries from emerging and established filmmakers alike and turning the competition into one of the longest-running micro-short showcases in the world. Past entrants include writer Tony Roche, who went on to create Succession, and director Ninian Doff, whose Cool Unicorn Bruv appeared in the 2013 shortlist.

Over more than two decades, the competition has grown from a few hundred entries to well over a thousand submissions a year from more than 80 countries. The 90-second limit has never changed. Past partners have included Aardman, the Royal Photographic Society, Channel 4, BAFTA, BFI Network and the National Film and Television School, whose involvement has helped shape a prize package that goes beyond cash to offer genuine career development for emerging talent.