ITFS 2027 Opens for Entries

For those who don’t know the event: ITFS, the Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film, sits at the pleasant end of the animation pipeline: after production, post and mastering come festival delivery, cinema screening, juries and industry exposure. Finished shorts and features move from production masters into viewing files and, if selected, DCPs, putting the work in front of audiences, producers, distributors and fellow animation professionals.

The Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film has opened submissions for its 34th edition, running from 27 April to 2 May 2027. Five film competitions are accepting entries, with €60,000 in total prize money. Short films have until 15 November 2026. AniMovie, the feature competition, closes on 15 January 2027.

And yes, we are already looking forward to Stuttgart again. ITFS supplies the films, FMX supplies several days of pipeline, VFX and technology conversations, and our timetable will presumably insist that two interesting things happen simultaneously.

Five doors into Stuttgart

The International Competition covers animated shorts up to 30 minutes. The Student Competition handles work from students and graduates, while Tricks for Kids targets films and series for children up to twelve. The Trickstar Nature Award focuses on climate protection, biodiversity, environmental and sustainability themes.

AniMovie takes animated features of at least 60 minutes. Eligible features must not have been commercially released in Germany before ITFS ends on 2 May 2027, including cinema and video-on-demand release. Films completed after 1 October 2025 are eligible, and the festival requires completed works for preselection. Computer animation and combinations of animation and live action are explicitly covered. The €10,000 Grand Prix in the International Competition also places the winning film on the Academy Awards longlist.

AI gets a production credit of sorts

The 2027 rules require entrants to disclose generative AI used to generate or significantly alter images, animation, text, speech or music. Generative AI does not automatically disqualify a film. ITFS may, however, label or categorise works whose essential creative visual design was primarily generated with such systems. False or misleading information can result in exclusion.

For studios, this turns AI provenance into delivery metadata. Keeping track of which systems generated or altered which assets is much easier during production than reconstructing the answer while someone is filling out the festival form.

H.264 first, DCP later

Submissions normally go through Shortfilmdepot. Films with dialogue in languages other than English need English subtitles. For preselection, the current regulations specify MOV, MP4 or M4V at 1920 x 1080, H.264 at 5,000 kbps and 24, 25 or 30 fps, with a maximum file size of 8 GB. Audio is specified as AAC at 320 kbps.

The PDF lists the audio sample rate as 48.1 kHz. That is unusual enough that we would verify it directly with ITFS rather than treating it as an exciting new mastering standard. Selected films move to proper cinema delivery. ITFS requests DCP using SMPTE/DCI, with MOV or MP4 accepted only in exceptional cases by prior arrangement. Screening copies are due by 5 March 2027.

Entry fees, without interpretive dance

ITFS charges €15 for the International Competition and AniMovie. The Student Competition, Tricks for Kids and Trickstar Nature Award cost €10 each. Shortfilmdepot also charges a technical fee, but the ITFS regulations do not specify its amount.

The submission package extends beyond the movie file. Entrants need production information including credits, synopsis material, a director filmography, dialogue and subtitle information, stills, press material and rights declarations.

Read the dates twice

The current regulations PDF contains several apparent carry-overs from earlier editions. Its cover gives the same 15 November 2026 and 15 January 2027 deadlines as the live ITFS submission pages, but some internal passages still contain 2025, 2026 or ITFS 2026 references.

For deadline planning, the live 2027 call and the front page of the regulations agree. Contractual wording affected by an older year reference is worth confirming with the festival directly.

That is the boring part. The more attractive part arrives in spring: selected films in Stuttgart cinemas, filmmakers and producers in town, and an animation crowd that overlaps nicely with the technical community descending on the city for FMX. We are looking forward to both.

Studios and filmmakers should test submission encodes, subtitles and eventual DCPs on representative playback systems before delivery, and recheck the live ITFS requirements before locking the package.