Alternativa Film Festival Opens 2027 Entries, Expands to Africa

Vanessa Obioha

Alternativa Film Festival has opened submissions for its 2027 edition, marking its first expansion to Africa, with $120,000 in prize money across seven award categories.

The announcement was made on Thursday at MIP Africa, as the festival, founded and supported by global mobility company inDrive, invited filmmakers from Africa, Asia and Latin America to submit feature films for the competition.

Short film submissions, however, are restricted to African filmmakers, reflecting the continent’s status as the festival’s focus region for 2027. All entries must have been completed after January 1, 2026.

Three of the seven awards are reserved for African filmmakers: the $20,000 Focus Award and two Short Film Awards worth $10,000 each. African filmmakers are also eligible for the remaining categories.

Directors whose films are selected for the competition will be invited to attend the festival and awards ceremony, with travel and accommodation covered by the organisers.

Scheduled for late 2027, the festival’s host country, city and exact dates are yet to be announced. Submissions are free and close on March 1, 2027.

Alternativa champions impact-driven cinema from the Global South, a region home to roughly five-sixths of the world’s population but which remains underrepresented on screen.

Its expansion into Africa comes as the initiative broadens its efforts to improve the reach of films from the region. Earlier this year, it launched Alternativa Distribution, a non-profit model designed to reinvest in filmmakers and local film industries.

The distribution arm offers upfront minimum guarantees for non-theatrical rights, funds subtitling and dubbing, and shares revenue after recovering direct distribution costs.

“Exceptional filmmaking can come from anywhere, but access to international audiences is still hindered by a deeply unequal system,” said Arsen Tomsky, founder and chief executive officer of inDrive. “Alternativa Distribution was created to challenge that imbalance.”

Its catalogue includes Nepal’s ‘Elephants in the Fog,’ the country’s 2027 Oscar submission and winner of the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at Cannes in 2026; ‘No Good Men,’ Afghanistan’s co-production and the opening film of the 2026 Berlin International Film Festival; Malaysia’s ‘Lost Land,’ which won the Orizzonti Special Jury Prize at the 2025 Venice Film Festival; and Tunisia’s ‘Four Daughters,’ a 2024 Oscar nominee.

Films selected for the 2027 festival may also be considered for inclusion in the distribution catalogue.

Alternativa began its festival journey in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in 2023, before moving to Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in 2024, and Medellín, Colombia, in 2026. The itinerant festival moves to a new region with each edition.

The Medellín edition received 1,831 submissions from 55 countries, attracting 11,000 attendees, 107 international guests and more than 60 partners, making it the festival’s largest edition to date.

“With each edition, Alternativa Film Festival grows,” said Liza Surganova, head of Alternativa. “Not only in reach and scale, but also in the connections it creates and the opportunities it opens up for filmmakers.”

She said the African edition would build on the festival’s previous achievements while introducing new initiatives for its 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,” she added.

The 2027 programme will feature public screenings, discussions and other events exploring the social issues addressed in selected films. An awards ceremony will recognise films that combine artistic excellence with the potential to drive social change.

The festival will also hold Industry Days, a professional programme that connects filmmakers, producers, industry experts and social impact leaders from across the Global South.

Elise Shick, a Malaysian producer of ‘Lost Land,’ which won the Nativa Award at the 2026 edition, said the festival had helped foster international collaboration.

“Here, we have already formed a co-production project involving nine countries. We hope to screen it as the opening film of the next Alternativa Film Festival in Africa,” she said.

The festival is open to fiction, documentary, animation and hybrid films across all genres. Eligibility requirements, the list of qualifying countries and details of the award categories are available on the festival’s official website.