Call For Entries 2026
Official Submission Rules, Timelines, & Recognition Matrix
Mission & Pipeline
Presented by 2100films, Night Frights LA is a Los Angeles-based horror film festival and monthly screening series built around one goal: getting horror films seen by real audiences.
Unlike traditional festivals, Night Frights LA operates year-round. Selected films are featured across our consistent monthly screening ecosystem, granting independent projects repeat exposure, sustained engagement with the LA film scene, and critical word-of-mouth momentum.
Dates & Deadlines
Rules & Classifications
- Films must have been completed on or after January 1, 2025.
- Short films must be no older than one year from the live festival calendar window.
- Premiere status is heavily weighted, specifically across the Feature selection paths.
- We aggressively seek out World, North American, U.S., West Coast, or Los Angeles premiere status lines for Features, and Los Angeles County premieres for short content rows.
- Horror Feature Film: Open to both narrative and documentary projects running 50 minutes and longer.
- Horror Short Film: Short format architectural projects running bounded between 5 to 25 minutes.
- Horror Television Pilot: Dedicated episodic selections built specifically for horror anthology layout spaces.
- Monthly Horror Events: Year-round live tracking shorts selected for monthly theatrical engagement runs.
The accepted format for in-person exhibition runs at Night Frights LA is **DCP only**. No technical exceptions will be granted. If you do not have an active theatrical DCP created, selected filmmakers must coordinate directly with our partner ecosystem providers at DCP Works to compile a compliant server file.
Non-English language film entries must include cleanly hardcoded English subtitle files inside the container package.
Awards & Recognition
We are incredibly proud to honor independent excellence in horror storytelling. Every official project selected for our screening channels receives an official Night Frights LA Certificate of Achievement.
- Best Horror Feature Selection
- Best Horror Short Selection
- Best Horror Television Pilot
Following live audience voting tokens, digital high-resolution certificates will be dispatched for system download within 48 hours of the closing track panel. Winning projects are permanently highlighted across our media channels and archived inside the studio hub's digital "Winners" database master.
Submit to Night Frights LA
Applications must be processed cleanly through our portal link engine on FilmFreeway.
Open FilmFreeway Application Hub