CINECITY (The Brighton Film Festival)

Overview

CINECITY is the Brighton Film Festival, an 18-day event held annually from late October through mid-November across independent cinemas and arts venues in Brighton and Lewes. The 23rd edition (2025) ran 30 October to 16 November and screened 32 previews, 4 UK premieres, and 1 world premiere across venues including Duke of York's Picturehouse, Dukes at Komedia, Fabrica, Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (ACCA), and Depot Lewes.

The 2025 festival opened at Duke of York's with a sold-out preview of Chloé Zhao's Hamnet and closed with another Duke of York's sell-out, Hikari's Rental Family. The programme included previews of The Secret Agent, Pillion, It Was Just an Accident, and Sentimental Value, alongside Ben Wheatley's Bulk, an ultra-low-budget feature shot in Brighton. International features came from Brazil, Iran, Nigeria, Japan, Morocco, Tunisia, Australia, France, Norway, Iceland, and Spain.

CINECITY is a BIDA-qualifying festival, meaning short films selected for its programme become eligible for British Independent Film Awards consideration. The festival is funded by Arts Council England and run by a small team based at Duke of York's Picturehouse, the UK's oldest purpose-built cinema.

Submission Details

CINECITY accepts submissions through FilmFreeway. Submissions for the 2026 edition opened on 16 March 2026.

Submission Categories:

Key Dates for CINECITY 2026:

Films of all types are welcome: drama, documentary, animation, and experimental. Films must not already be available online for public viewing. Full rules and terms are listed on the FilmFreeway page. Submissions not meeting the criteria will not have their fees refunded. CINECITY charges a submission fee to cover the viewing team's time and administration.

The New Voices category is specifically for emerging filmmakers aged 25 and under from the Sussex region. The 2025 New Voices prize was awarded to Max Mistry for Anguilla, described as a cosmic meditation on obsession and discovery.

Key Sections and Programme Strands

• Previews - Drama - advance screenings of upcoming theatrical releases
• Previews - Docs - documentary previews ahead of UK release
• Best of British - new British features, including debut films
• Days of Wonder - family and younger-audience programming
• Classics and Restorations - archive screenings and restored prints
• F-Rated - films directed by women or featuring significant women in production
• Cine Fiction - screenings and events exploring cinema-going in literary fiction, including author talks and live cinema
• Shorts Showcases - six shorts programmes including Long Story Short (a BBC Writers initiative) and the University of Sussex 36 Hour Film Challenge
• Live Cinema - live score performances and experimental cinema events, including improvisation to avant-garde films

What Filmmakers Should Know

CINECITY's submission structure is unusual: short film categories are restricted to local filmmakers from Brighton, Hove, East Sussex, and West Sussex. Only the Features category is open to UK and international filmmakers. If you are a short film filmmaker based outside Sussex, CINECITY is not a viable submission target.

For feature filmmakers, CINECITY offers a strong regional platform with access to Brighton's culturally engaged audience. The festival's 18-day duration in 2025 was an extension from previous editions, giving selected films extended screening windows. The festival's venue network includes art galleries (Fabrica) and performance spaces (ACCA) alongside traditional cinemas, which creates screening contexts that differ from a standard multiplex festival.

The festival's proximity to London (under an hour by train) means it attracts London-based press and industry attendees, but its programming identity is deliberately distinct from London festivals. Brighton's reputation as a bohemian, liberal coastal city - sometimes called "London-by-the-Sea" - shapes an audience that is receptive to formally adventurous and thematically challenging work.

The 2025 programme included Pillion (the directorial debut of Harry Lighton), My Father's Shadow (British-Nigerian filmmaker Akinola Davies Jr.), and Lesbian Space Princess (winner of the TEDDY Award for best queer feature at Berlin). First features received particular attention in 2025.

CINECITY does not provide individual feedback on submissions. The festival states that submissions not meeting criteria will not have fees refunded.

Major Awards

• New Voices Prize - awarded to a local filmmaker aged 25 and under (2025 winner: Max Mistry for Anguilla)
• Audience Award - voted by festival attendees

The festival's competitive structure is limited compared to larger UK festivals. The New Voices prize is the main juried award, supported by Creative Futures at MetFilm School. The festival does not currently operate a feature film jury competition.

Festival History

CINECITY was founded in 2003 and has operated annually for 23 editions. The festival is based at Duke of York's Picturehouse, which opened in 1910 and is the oldest purpose-built cinema in the UK. The festival has expanded over the years to include venues across Brighton and Lewes, growing from a shorter initial run to 18 days in 2025.

The festival has developed a reputation for programming festival-circuit hits and advance previews alongside local filmmaking talent. Its Cine Fiction strand, which explores the intersection of cinema and literary fiction, is a distinctive programming element. In 2025, this strand included an in-conversation event with Icelandic author Sjón at Depot Lewes, complemented by screenings of episodes from Louis Feuillade's Les Vampires (1915).

Live cinema has been a recurring feature, with events including improvisation to the avant-garde films of Jeff Keen by Adrian Utley (Portishead), Larry Stabbins (Working Week), and Mark Sanders at ACCA. The festival also collaborates with Fabrica's Young Programmers programme (Fresh Perspectives) and the University of Sussex's 36 Hour Film Challenge.

The festival is funded by Arts Council England and operates as part of the broader cultural ecosystem of Brighton and Hove, which includes one of the UK's largest creative communities outside London.

See Also

For festival submission strategy and budgeting, use the Festival Entry Fee ROI Calculator. For UK independent cinema, see Independent Filmmaking Strategies. For festival strategy, see Film Festival Strategy.