Festival Listings
Back to Documentary ResourcesFID Marseille
8 - 13 July 2025
Marseilles, France
An international film festival that retains a local and national identity. The FIDMarseille is known as a source of new cinema, both documentary productions as well as fiction films.
SiciliAmbiente Documentary Film Festival
14 - 19 July 2025
Sicily, Italy
SiciliAmbiente is an international festival of documentaries, shorts, animations, and fiction films related to environmental, sustainability, and human rights issues.
Melbourne Documentary Film Festival
15 - 31 July 2025
Melbourne, Australia
With an affinity for independent, creative thinkers and mavericks, Melbourne Documentary Film Festival is dedicated to pushing the genre to its limits whilst remaining accessible, aiming to spark critical conversation and debate rather than to lecture.
Dokufest
1 - 9 Aug 2025
Prizren, Kosovo
DokuFest, International Documentary and Short Film Festival, is the largest film festival in Kosovo. Recognized as one of the top film and music event in SouthEast Europe, DokuFest is an EFA nominating festival for short films, as well as a BAFTA qualifying festival for shorts.
Edinburgh International Film Festival
14 - 20 Aug 2025
Edinburgh, Scotland
Edinburgh International Film Festival is the world's longest continually-running film festival. They hold a strong belief in transforming lives through the watching, making and understanding of film.
Camden International Film Festival
11 - 14 Sept 2025
Camden, Maine, USA
Recognized as one of the top documentary film festivals in the world, the Camden International Film Festival (CIFF) brings the finest non-fiction cinema to the rugged coast of Maine, showcasing documentary features and short films from around the globe.
Chagrin Documentary Film Festival
7 - 12 October 2025
Chagrin Falls, Ohio, USA
Nestled in the village of Chagrin Falls, Northeast Ohio, CDFF is a five day celebration of documentary art, dedicated to educating audiences and empowering talented filmmakers to tell their stories.
BFI London Film Festival
8 - 19 Oct 2024
London, UK
The 'Festival of Festivals'. Experience the world's best new films before they hit the cinema.
Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival
10 - 18 October 2025
Hot Springs, Arkansas, USA
Amidst turn-of-the-century bathhouses and on the doorstep of a national park lies the unforgettable spa city of Hot Springs, Arkansas, host to North America’s oldest all-documentary film festival.
Doclisboa
16 - 26 October 2025
Lisbon, Portugal
Doclisboa seeks to imagine reality through new cinematic forms of perception, reflection and action, placing filmmaking into dialogue with its history to question the present of cinema.
AFI Fest
22 - 26 October 2025
Los Angeles, California, USA
AFI Docs Festival, now part of AFI Fest, showcases the best in documentary programming from the US and around the globe. AFI Docs is the nation’s premier documentary film festival.
Jihlava IDFF
24 Oct - 2 Nov 2025
Jihlava, Czech Republic
The Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival is a significant European festival of artistic and critically reflective documentary work.
DOK Leipzig
27 Oct - 5 Nov 2025
Leipzig, Germany
DOK Leipzig is an annual festival for documentaries and animations that celebrates film and promotes debate. The festival focuses on the values of peace, tolerance, human dignity and freedom of expression.
Thessaloniki Documentary Festival
30 Oct - 9 Nov 2025
Thessaloniki, Greece
The most dynamic documentary industry event in Southeast Europe Thessaloniki Documentary Festival promotes and supports the documentary medium from the stage of development.
IDFA
12 - 23 Nov 2025
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
IDFA believes in the power of documentaries. In creative documentaries that deepen, reveal and inspire. In documentaries that bring people closer together. And in documentaries that stand for change by inspiring people to act.
DOC NYC
12 - 30 Nov 2025
New York, USA
Documentary storytelling is flourishing like never before. DOC NYC is at the centre of celebrating and supporting this cultural movement.
Kasseler Dok Fest
18 - 23 Nov 2025
Kassel, Germany
The Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival is a yearly six-day event and includes short and feature documentary films and artistic-experimental productions.
Montreal International Documentary Festival
20- 30 Nov 2025
Montreal, Quebec
The Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) is one of North America’s leading documentary film festivals. Each year, the RIDM presents Canadian and international documentaries. Its industry event, Forum RIDM, is Quebec’s only documentary forum.
Sundance Film Festival
22 Jan - 2 Feb 2026
Park City, Utah, USA
Indie film lovers everywhere will come together to be the first to discover and celebrate the bold, creative visions and exciting new talent.
International Film Festival Rotterdam
29 Jan - 8 Feb 2026
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
IFFR offers a high quality line-up of carefully selected fiction and documentary feature films, short films and media art. The festival's focus is on recent work by talented new filmmakers.
Big Sky Documentary Festival
13 - 22 Feb 2026
Missoula, Montana, USA
Rooted in the heart of the mountain west, The Big Sky Film Institute nurtures and elevates non- fiction films that have the power to transform our world, our culture, our youth, and ourselves.
Tempo Documentary Festival
2 - 8 March 2026
Stockholm, Sweden
Tempo Documentary Festival is the largest festival of its kind in Sweden. Tempo has since the start presented creative documentaries from all over the world, which would otherwise not reach the Swedish audience.
True/False
5 Mar - 8 Mar 2026
Columbia, Missouri, USA
True/False is a film festival focuses on cinema constructed from reality. Our goal is to forge a supportive, celebratory refuge for filmmakers and amplify the possibilities of creative nonfiction.
CPH:DOX
11 - 22 Mar 2026
Copenhagen, Denmark
CPH:DOX, Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, is one of the biggest documentary film festivals in the world.
SXSW Film Festival
12 - 18 Mar 2026
Austin, Texas, USA
Featuring provocative dramas, documentaries, comedies, genre standouts and more, the SXSW Film Festival has become known for the high caliber and diversity of films presented, and for its smart, enthusiastic audiences.
DOCVILLE
18 March - 26 March 2026
Leuven, Belgium
DOCVILLE, the largest documentary film festival in Belgium, has a strong focus on author driven documentary with special emphasis on the cinematic experience in general and cinematography in particular.
Atlanta Docufest
20 - 22 March 2026
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Docufest brings you the best independent documentary films from across the globe. The festival spotlights powerful and meaningful life stories which educate and entertain audiences of every demographic.
Movies That Matter
20 - 28 March 2026
The Hague, The Netherlands
Movies that Matter wants to open eyes for human rights. Our core tasks are the screening of human rights related films and the stimulation of screenings of human-rights films.
Cinéma du Réel
21 - 28 March 2026
Paris, France
Cinéma du réel is now mobilising to support the diversity of writing, forms and ideas and give them resonance.
American Documentary Film Festival (AmDocs)
25 - 29 Mar 2025
Palm Springs, California, USA
The American Documentary and Animation Film Festival (AmDocs) is a non-profit entity, creating a forum to celebrate and promote documentary film - and the independent filmmakers around the world who bring knowledge and awareness through their stories about real people and issues.
Full Frame Documentary Festival
16 - 19 April 2026
Durham, North Carolina
The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is an annual international event dedicated to the theatrical exhibition of nonfiction cinema.
Visions du Réel
17 - 26 April 2026
Nyon, Switzerland
Visions du Réel is one of the only Swiss film festivals to present a majority of its films as world or international premieres.
ZagrebDox Festival
19 April - 26 April 2026
Zagreb, Croatia
ZagrebDox is an international documentary film festival taking place in Zagreb every year. The festival is intended to provide audiences and experts insight into recent documentary films, stimulate national documentary production and boost international and regional cooperation.
Academia Film Olomouc
28 April - 3 May 2026
Olomouc, Czech Republic
An international science documentary film festival. Running since 1966, Academia Film Olomouc frequently hosts world leading scientific researchers.
Docs Barcelona Festival
8 May - 18 May 2026
Barcelona, Spain
DocsBarcelona is a global project based on the documentary. It includes a festival, professional market, distribution brand, exhibition network and courses for documentary filmmakers.
SF DocFest
29 May – 8 Jun 2026
San Francisco, USA
An offshoot of SF IndieFest, SF DocFest takes over the Roxie Cinema, supposedly the oldest art house theater west of the Mississippi
Open City Documentary Festival
2026 Dates TBC
London, UK
Open City Documentary Festival creates an open space in London to nurture and champion the art of non-fiction cinema. They deliver training programmes, an annual film festival, the bi-annual publication Non-Fiction and screening projects throughout the year that aim to challenge and expand the idea of documentary in all its forms.
DOK.fest München
2026 dates TBC
Munich, Germany
We see documentary film as an art form that uses the means of cinematic aesthetics to negotiate relevant values and invites dialogue on a social, personal and artistic level. Documentary film is the art of the hour.
Sheffield Doc/Fest
2026 dates TBC
Sheffield, UK
Sheffield Doc/Fest is an international film and arts festival and marketplace, with a mission to spark imaginations and empower our capacity for change by celebrating, championing and debating documentary film and art as a collective form of engagement.
Sunny Side of the Doc
2026 dates TBC
La Rochelle, France
Each year, the 4-day event brings together broadcasters, decision makers, financing bodies, distributors, content creators and producers from around the world to sell or buy projects and programmes, and to find coproduction partners.
Documenta Madrid
2026 dates TBC
Madrid, Spain
Documenta Madrid is an international film festival organised by the Madrid City Council. Documenta is a continuously evolving festival and aspires to improve year after year as a showcase for the best in international documentary film, one which brings us closer to both the classics as well as the latest offerings in the genre.
RAI Film Festival
2026 dates TBC
Bristol, England
The RAI Film Festival celebrates the best in ethnographic, anthropological and archaeological filmmaking from around the globe.
Encounters - South Africa Documentary Film Festival
2026 dates TBC
Johannesburg, South Africa
The Encounters Festival promises some of the globe’s most talked-about and award-winning documentaries, a diverse and riveting line-up.
Millennium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival
2026 dates TBC
Warsaw, Gdynia, Wrocław, Bydgoszcz, Lublin, Katowice, Poznan, Poland
Millennium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival is the largest film festival in Poland. It is the only film festival in Europe which takes place in seven different cities at the same time.
Hot Docs Film Festival
2026 dates TBC
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is North America’s largest documentary festival, conference and market.
DOXA Documentary Film Festival
2026 dates TBC
Vancouver, British Coloumbia, Canada
DOXA is an international documentary festival featuring new work selected by a jury, as well as thematic programming presented by independent curators.