Flex Obscura is the umbrella to a yearlong series of Film Festival Experiences and Industry Nights held at Elastic Arts in Chicago. Each Film Festival and Industry Night is uniquely focused and in-person with live audiences!
Flex Obscura houses 3 Film Festival Experiences ====>
~~~ Films @ AfroFuturist Weekend Festival // October 2-6, 2024
~~~ For The Love of Film Futures Festival // February 15 & 16, 2025
~~~ The Flex Obscura Film Festival // May 23 & 24, 2025
We are currently accepting submissions for (a) Films @ AfroFuturist Weekend Festival & (b) For The Love of Film Futures. Please read the descriptions for each carefully to best choose which festival experience your film is best suited for. We reserve the right to place submissions, at no additional charge to the submitter, in the best category and if we do adjust your submission to a more aligned category/festival, we will notify you.
_________AfroFuturist Weekend Festival // October 2-6, 2024_________
This event is a 5-day celebration of Black artists making forward-looking work that envisions radically positive futures for Black people. There will be performances, visual art installations, video presentations, panel discussions, and immersive experiences meant to generate a call to action to realize these visions. This will be the first year Flex Obscura will add a meaningful micro film festival into the fold of AfroFuturist Weekend Festival! Attending Filmmakers and Official Selections are sure to have a unique Chicago experience!
We seek films that offer a unique perspective on the Black, African and/or African Diasporic experience. We seek films offering forward-looking work that envisions radically positive futures for Black, African and African Diasporic people. Deploying new technologies, drawing upon history, and subverting/inverting exploitative hierarchies, Afrofuturism puts Black people at the center of narratives about the future and we seek films that bring these visions and stories to life through cinema.
_________For The Love of Film Futures // February 15 & 16, 2025_________
This 2-day micro film festival enlists highly curated workshops, demonstrations, immersive experiences and play in bringing together filmmakers, audiences, industry experts and film enthusiasts with an express interest in pushing boundaries in storytelling and techniques.
We seek profoundly experimental and out-of-the-box storytelling. We program films that challenge conventions through their use of storytelling, narrative and design as well as films that play with new technologies, explore new uses for old technologies and that push the boundaries of what is possible with film, art film and digital storytelling. We also encourage films that play with immersive, multichannel audio formats to apply, as our presenting venue has a 16 omni-directional Hemisphere speaker system available known as CLEAT (Chicago Laboratory for Electro-Acoustic Theatre) conceived and built by Isobel Audio.
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Our Mission ====> Flex Obscura celebrates the breadth of creative modes of visual expression and film. We love weird and things that live in the in-between spaces. Flex Obscura Series and Festival is structured to allow for expansive play across a season of visual, sonic and film exploration and community learning. Our passion is to celebrate new voices and new vocabulary in visual and sonic forms that are expansive and experimental with a focus on fostering inclusivity and promoting emerging talent. Flex Obscura Series and Festival embraces a wide range of genres, styles, and perspectives. It acts as a catalyst for change, inspiring a new generation of filmmakers to challenge conventional norms and push the boundaries of storytelling.
Particular consideration is given to projects directed, co-directed, produced and/or written by B&IPOC and/or women identified filmmakers and visual storytellers with a focus on Black, African Diasporic, Indigenous and/or LGBTQAI2S+ identifying voices and storytelling as well as projects that push the boundaries of experimentation in storytelling and technology. We also highly encourage participation from the Chicagoland area.
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At each film festival we screen Official Selections and honor filmmakers with both juried awards and the coveted Audience Choice Award. Winners from AfroFuturist Weekend Festival (October) & For The Love of Film Futures (February) are invited back to screen at Flex Obscura Film Festival in May to compete for the Best of the Fests awards. Additional films will also be invited to screen as part of the Official Selection. Beyond the Best of the Fests awards, additional awards for all films in competition will be announced.
At all festival experiences, Official Selection filmmakers are encouraged to attend the festival experience and to participate in Q&A sessions following their screenings. Possible virtual Q&A opportunities may be provided with our live audiences to filmmakers who cannot attend in-person.
We seek to uplift and honor filmmakers who become part of the Flex Obscura Family.
Each of our (3) In-Person Festivals award the following categories with a Flex Obscura Trophy and Winner Laurels:
- Best Film
- Best Director
- Best Cinematography
- Best Actor/Actress/Actrexx
- Audience Choice Award
Additionally, all of our Official Selections receive official Flex Obscura Official Selection Laurels.