The vast proliferation of film festivals and the differentiation of film markets contribute to the development of specialized film festivals. There are a number of categories according to which these festivals can be grouped. The choice of our categories here is founded on basic elements which differentiate films and thus their showcase festivals as such. There are, for instance, festivals for long or short films, for features or documentaries, for animation or experimental films. Yet there are also other qualities that cluster films by way of a special programming profile of a festival: there are festivals that choose films not only according to their length, format or style, but rather according to a theme or context. Furthermore, not all specialized festivals have been studied yet, thus, our categorization is influenced by the texts available.
9.1 Identity-Based Festivals
9.1.1 LGBT / Queer Film Festivals
9.1.2 Women’s Film Festivals
9.1.3 Jewish Film Festivals
9.1.4 Children’s Film Festivals
9.2.1 Film Genre
Fantasy Film Festivals
Horror Film Festivals
9.2.2 Type
9.2.2.1 Animation Film Festivals
9.2.2.2 Archival Film Festivals
9.2.2.3 Documentary Film Festivals
9.2.2.4 Ethnographic and Anthropological Film Festivals
9.2.2.5 Experimental Film Festivals
9.2.2.6 Silent Film Festivals
9.2.2.7 Amateur Film Festival
9.2.2.8 Science Film Festival
9.2.3 Length
Short Film Festivals
9.2.4 Social Concern Festivals
9.2.4.1 Disability Film Festivals
9.2.4.2 Environmental Film Festivals
9.2.4.3 Human Rights Film Festivals
9.2.4.4 Indigenous Film Festivals
9.2.4.5 Mental Health Film Festivals
9.2.4.5 Migration Film Festival
9.3 National and Regional Showcases
9.4 Film Festivals and New Media Platforms
9.4.1 Film Festivals online
9.4.2 Hybrid Film Festivals
9.4.3 VR (Film) Festivals
Gorfinkel, Elena. 2006. “Wet Dreams: Erotic Film Festivals of the Early 1970s and the Utopian Sexual Public Sphere.” Framework 47 (2): 59–86.
Hunter, Russ. 2020. “Cult Cinema and Film Festivals.” In The Routledge Companion to Cult Cinema, edited by Ernest Mathijs and Jamie Sexton, 244–51. London, New York: Routledge.
Sandoval, Liz da Costa, and Tania Siqueira Montoro. 2024. “Architecture Film Festivals: Audiovisual Narratives, Protagonism and Activism in Contemporary Urban Space.” In Comunicar La Arquitectura: Del Origen De La Modernidad a La Era Digital, edited by Juan Calatrava Escobar, David Arredondo Garrido, and Marta Rodríguez Iturriaga, 645–56. Granada: Universidad de Granada.
Ulfsdotter, Boel, and Mats Björkin. 2019. “The Gothenburg International Exile Film Fetival in Context.” In Nordic Film Cultures and Cinemas of Elsewhere, edited by Anna W. Stenport and Arne Lunde, 94–102. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
(Last updated: 30. March 2025)