The festival welcomes impactful films from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, offering a $120,000 prize fund and new opportunities for international exposure
Alternativa Film Festival (AFF), a nomadic film festival celebrating impact-driven cinema from the Global South, has announced the opening of submissions for its fourth edition, set to take place in Africa in late 2027. With a prize fund of $120,000, the festival welcomes feature-length films from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, while short film submissions are open exclusively to African filmmakers. The Open Call runs from October 29, 2026, to March 1, 2027, and submission is free. The host country, city, and exact dates of the 4th Alternativa Film Festival will be announced at a later date.
Alternativa Film Festival is part of Alternativa, a non-profit film initiative founded by Arsen Tomsky and supported by inDrive, a global mobility company challenging injustice through fair choices. The festival champions impact-driven cinema from the Global South, recognizing films that combine artistic excellence with the potential to drive meaningful social change. Alternativa offers filmmakers the chance to compete for substantial cash prizes, reach diverse audiences, gain cross-regional and international exposure, build valuable industry connections, and become part of a vibrant filmmaking community.
As a nomadic festival, Alternativa moves to a new region with each edition. Its journey began in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in 2023, followed by Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in 2024, and Medellín, Colombia, in 2026. The fourth edition marks the festival’s first visit to Africa, expanding its geographical reach while continuing to build bridges between filmmaking communities across the Global South.
Commenting on the opening of submissions for the 2027 edition, Liza Surganova, Head of Alternativa, said: ‘With each edition, Alternativa Film Festival grows — not only in reach and scale, but also in the connections it creates and the opportunities it opens up for filmmakers. As we prepare to bring the festival to Africa for the first time, we want to build on everything we’ve achieved so far, making this edition our biggest and boldest yet while introducing new initiatives for our community. Africa is home to an extraordinary diversity of cultures, perspectives, and cinematic voices, and we believe this new chapter will deepen our understanding of what transformative cinema can be and help us forge valuable new connections. We invite filmmakers from across Africa, Asia, and Latin America to join us on this journey and share their visions with us.’
AFF 2027 Open Call
The Alternativa Film Festival 2027 welcomes fiction, documentary, animation, and hybrid films of all genres completed after January 1, 2026. Feature-length films (40 minutes or longer) are eligible from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, while short films (up to 40 minutes) are accepted exclusively from Africa, the project’s current focus region.
The festival’s $120,000 prize fund will be distributed across seven awards. Three of these — the Focus Award for a feature film and two Shorts Awards — are reserved exclusively for African filmmakers. The full list of eligible countries, submission requirements, and award categories is available in the Rules & Regulations on the official Alternativa website.
Beyond celebrating outstanding cinema, Alternativa Film Festival fosters a strong sense of community, bringing filmmakers together and creating opportunities for future projects. For many participants, the festival is more than a place to showcase their work — it is a space to build lasting connections and find inspiration to move forward.
“Alternativa Film Festival is incredibly generous — not only in its hospitality, but also in turning words into action. This kind of support and recognition for Latin American filmmakers means a lot. It gives me hope — hope in community, when companies like inDrive choose to invest in culture, cinema, and building bridges in the South. To me, that is something truly unheard of,” said Augusto Zegarra, Peruvian filmmaker and winner of the Focus Award at Alternativa Film Festival 2026.
“Thank you, Alternativa — we’ve built a family here at the festival, and we will continue keeping cinema alive. Here, we have formed a co-production project involving nine countries. I want to make this film happen, and I’m already working on it. We hope to screen it as the opening film of the next Alternativa Film Festival in Africa,” said Elise Shick, Malaysian producer who represented Lost Land, winner of the Nativa Award at Alternativa Film Festival 2026.
For its previous edition, the festival welcomed submissions from Asia and Latin America, receiving 1,831 entries from 55 countries, including 22 in Latin America and 33 in Asia. Latin America accounted for the vast majority, with 1,499 submissions, led by Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina. In Asia, India, Iran, and China submitted the most films, while Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines led in Southeast Asia, and Kazakhstan topped the list in Central Asia.
“It feels like we’ve only just returned from the unforgettable third edition of Alternativa Film Festival in Medellín, Colombia. Leaving its packed, buzzing screening rooms behind is bittersweet, but our festival’s nomadic nature also brings excitement for what lies ahead. Now we’re opening a new chapter in Africa, while continuing to welcome films from our previous focus regions, Asia and Latin America. We couldn’t be more excited to discover new voices from the continent and bring impactful stories from across the Global South to wider audiences,” said Natalia Pylaeva, Program Director at Alternativa.
New Opportunities Beyond the Festival
This edition also opens up new opportunities for filmmakers through Alternativa Distribution, a non-profit distribution label launched in summer 2026 to bring impactful cinema from the Global South to audiences worldwide.
The label’s growing catalogue already includes six films from previous editions of Alternativa Film Festival. Films selected for the 2027 edition may also have the opportunity to join the catalogue, potentially extending their reach and impact long after the festival ends.
“Exceptional filmmaking can come from anywhere, but access to international audiences remains a process hindered by a deeply unequal system. Alternativa Distribution was created to challenge that imbalance. This slate has been carefully curated and showcases the high quality and transformative power of filmmaking from the Global South, and the positive impact these films can have when they reach wider audiences”, said Arsen Tomsky, Founder and CEO of inDrive.
AFF 2027 program
The Alternativa Film Festival 2027 will showcase transformative cinema through accessible public screenings, discussions, and other events designed to spark dialogue around the social issues explored in the films. The previous edition in Medellín, Colombia, was the festival’s largest to date, attracting 11,000 attendees, welcoming 107 international guests, and bringing together more than 60 partners. The fourth edition aims to build on this success and reach an even wider audience.
The festival will also host Industry Days, its free professional program connecting filmmakers, producers, industry experts, and social impact leaders. Through knowledge exchange and networking opportunities, the program aims to foster new collaborations and strengthen connections between film communities across regions.
The festival will culminate in an awards ceremony celebrating outstanding impact-driven cinema. Directors of films selected for the Competition will be invited to attend the festival and ceremony, with travel and accommodation covered by the organizers.
The Open Call runs from October 29, 2026, to March 1, 2027, and submission is free. Full details are available on the official Alternativa website.
About Alternativa
Alternativa is a global non-profit film initiative, founded by Arsen Tomsky and supported by inDrive, dedicated to amplifying impact-driven stories from the Global South. Originating as an international film festival and industry labs network, Alternativa builds structural solutions that enable diverse cinematic voices to challenge systemic injustices, shift perspective, and reach audiences worldwide.
For more information visit http://www.alternativa.film
