Women X is an exciting, fresh short film festival based in the North of England, celebrating the achievements of emerging and established talent from women and gender nonconforming directors, writers, and producers. Our programme strives to include stories that open our eyes, break our hearts, make us laugh, and question our perceptions with a variety of genres and filmmaking styles to provide every film lover with someone to watch and enjoy!
Back for our fifth year, we are now BIFA accredited! Alongside our film programme you can expect an exciting variety of workshops, filmmaker roundtables, keynote speakers, networking events, wellbeing sessions and crafts, evening entertainment and of course our awards show. Attracting a wide audience from across the UK, film lovers and filmmakers unite in a fun and inspiring weekend in the North East at our beautiful venue, Darlington Hippodrome and The Hullaballoo Theatre.
With our core team having years of experience at established festivals throughout the UK, we used that knowledge to create Women X back in 2019, with the X standing for ‘miscellaneous’ as we wanted our event to be one of kind with room for experimentation.
It's time for your film (and you) to be spotlighted at a festival that gives an inclusive and enjoyable all-around experience, one to not forget.
Please note we do not grant free submissions to the festival, all submissions are treated equal as part of our programming process and therefore pay a fee, please do not email asking for a waiver code.
We celebrate the amazing achievements of the filmmakers we feature at our festival through multiple awards, reviewing each year how we can further acknowledge and support growth in independent short film.
Best British Film, Best International Film, Best Student Film, Best Animatinated Film*, Best Documentary Film*, Best Northern Film, Best Director, Best Writer, Best Producer, Best Lead Performance, Best Ensemble Performance, Best Cinematography, Best Sound, Best Editing, Best Production Design*, Best Costume Design*, Youth Jury Award, and the Rianne Pictures Rising Star Award for those emerging in their early career.
*These particular awards are dependent on the number of relevant films within our final programme.
We also host our Women X Script Competition, celebrating writers who have completed scripts that are not yet in production, we award 1st, 2nd and 3rd place prizes as well as inviting along 10+ finalists to our festival, more information on this is available on our website.